Motivation of active sport tourists in a German highland destination – a cross-seasonal comparison

ABSTRACT

Sport tourism plays an important role as part of the economy in German highland destinations. Effects of seasonality have been creating challenges for these destinations for a long time. Climatic and demographic changes force destination management organisations to develop new all-season marketing strategies. At the same time, there is a lack of knowledge regarding sport tourism in highland destinations. Although a large number of existing studies elaborate on the motivation of active sport tourists, the results of these studies are not applicable to highland destinations. This study compares active sport tourists of one highland destination during two seasons by segmenting them according to their initial motivation. Results reveal that there is almost no significant difference between summer and winter sport tourists regarding the importance of motivational factors. Twenty-two motives were reduced to six factors by using a factor analysis (principal component analysis). A cluster analysis was then used to segment active sport tourists based on different motivational factors. Considerable seasonable differences between three generated segments of active sport tourists in terms of touristic behaviour (e.g. length of stay) were found. The findings of this study contribute to developing future marketing strategies for highland sport destinations and to reducing effects of seasonality.

KEYWORDS:

• Active sport tourism
• segmentation
• seasonality
• motivation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.