A Study On The Mechanism Of The Influence Of Sporting Event Involvement On Tourists’ Willingness To Revisit

With the implementation of the Health China Strategy,China’s health development and people’s health level continue to improve,active fitness and scientific fitness are becoming more and more people’s conscious choice.As one of the many fitness events,marathons are popular because of their wide participation and competitive nature.As the level of marathon events and their international influence continue to rise,destinations are developing marathon tourism resources and actively creating related tourism products,hoping to take advantage of the scarcity of event resources to showcase the cultural heritage of the city,its spiritual outlook and the organisational effectiveness of the government,highlighting the uniqueness of the tourism resources of the destination and attracting tourists or participants to stay and revisit in the short or long term.The intention to revisit in the short or long term.In recent years,some scholars have confirmed that the level of willingness to revisit is closely related to the degree of involvement,destination image,satisfaction and the propensity to seek novelty,while there is a relative lack of research on the representation,connotation and measurement of participants’ involvement in sporting events,especially the mechanism of the relationship between the degree of involvement in sporting events and the willingness to revisit has not been more empirically proven.In addition,while scholars recognize that novelty seeking is an inherent human trait,relatively few studies have included novelty seeking as a moderating variable in their models of the effects of sporting event involvement and revisit intentions.Therefore,it is necessary to explore the relationship between sporting event involvement and the propensity to revisit.To this end,this study takes the 2022 Shanghai International Marathon as a case study and uses a face-to-face questionnaire to conduct a survey from the finishers to analyze the relationship between participants’ sporting event involvement,sport tourism destination image,satisfaction,the propensity to revisit and the propensity to seek new ideas,to validate the theoretical model constructed and to investigate.The results show that:(1)Sports event involvement has a positive impact on the image of sports tourism destinations;among them,sports event participation has a positive impact on the cognitive image,emotional image and overall image.(2)Sports event involvement has a positive impact on satisfaction.(3)Sports event involvement has a positive impact on the intention to revisit.(4)The image of the sports tourism destination has a positive influence on the willingness to revisit,among which the cognitive image has a positive influence on the willingness to revisit,while the emotional image and overall image do not have a significant influence on the willingness to revisit.(5)The image of sports tourism destination has a positive influence on satisfaction,among which cognitive image has a positive influence on satisfaction,while emotional image and overall image do not have a significant influence on satisfaction.(6)Satisfaction has a positive effect on the willingness to revisit.(7)The image of sports tourism destination and satisfaction play a mediating role in the involvement in sports events and the willingness to revisit.(8)The moderating role of novelty seeking tendency,novelty seeking tendency plays a negative moderating role in the relationship between sport destination image and satisfaction;novelty seeking tendency plays a negative moderating role in the relationship between satisfaction and willingness to revisit;novelty seeking tendency plays a negative moderating role in the relationship between sport tourism destination image and willingness to revisit.(9)There are significant differences between participants with different characteristics in the perceptions and influencing paths of some sports events,sports tourism destination image,satisfaction,willingness to revisit,and newness.In response to the above findings,this study proposes the following recommendations:(1)Enhancing the involvement of events to increase the satisfaction of participants.(2)Innovative development of tourism resources for sporting events to create a good image of the destination.(3)Providing a personalized marketing plan and tourism programs to enhance the willingness to revisit.