The impact of sport turism in destination loyalty: the Estoril Coast (Portugal) promotion of recurrent major sporting events

• Autor(a) principal: Travassos, Diogo da Silva Branco Fernandes
• Data de Publicação: 2008
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10071/687
• topic: Loyalty; Sports events and Tourism Marketing; Sports Tourism; Fidelidade; Turismo desportivo; Marketing turístico; Eventos desportivos

Tourism destination marketing is today of highly importance in the tourism industry as there is an increasing competition between destinations. The main objective is to develop the best strategies that explore the tourism potential of each destination. This dissertation explores the impact of sport tourism in destination loyalty, through the Estoril Coast (Portugal) promotion of recurrent major sporting events. The first objective is to measure if sport tourists are more loyal than non-sport tourists and if the promotion of recurrent major sporting events does influence positively the overall evaluation of a tourism destination and as a consequence increases overall tourists’ loyalty (for both sport and non-sport tourism). The second objective is to identify the critical variables and the correspondent pathway that if targeted effectively, will enhance positively tourists’ loyalty towards the destination (two research pathway models were proposed). In order to address both objectives a questionnaire was produced and two distinctive samples were targeted (sport and non-sport tourists). An analysis of descriptive data was made as well as an evaluation and interpretation of both proposed models. The conclusions are, in the case of the Estoril Coast, that sport tourists are more loyal, that the promotion of recurrent major sporting events did enhance the destination overall image and the critical marketing variables are: Safety, Sporting event image (product image) and Transportation. The final purpose of this dissertation is to clarify the true potential of exploring sports tourism and its impact on tourism loyalty.