The Second Journal

Generating Revisits: A Case Of Sports Tourism, Sri Lanka

Generating Revisits: A Case Of Sports Tourism, Sri Lanka

Tourism can be classified into four categories according to their needs and reasons for traveling. Business and professional tourists, leisure and holiday tourists, tourists traveling to visit friends and relatives (VFR), youth tourists, including the backpackers and gap year travelers. Leisure and holiday tourists can be divided into sub-segments: sport, recreation and adventure tourists, and leisure tourists (Grzywacz & Żegleń, 2014). Today sport and active recreation have become very large and successful industries worldwide. Sports tourism has become one of the fastest-growing tourism niches.

ABSTRACT

Revisit intention is a significant area of concern among practitioners, academics, and scholars. While sports tourism is becoming increasingly popular and promotes repeat visitations to a destination, this study identified how intrinsic and extrinsic motivation factors of inbound sports tourists in Sri Lanka influence their revisit intention. It further examined the active and passive engagement in sports tourism activities and how it affects sports tourists revisit intention. Adopting a quantitative approach, data collection of this study was conducted through a questionnaire distributed among 110 inbound foreign travelers in four sports tourism destinations: Kalpitiya, Arugambay, Bentota, and R.Premadasa stadium. Data analysis was conducted through SPSS 20 statistical computer package. Hypotheses testing indicated that the revisit intentions are mainly affected by the intrinsic rather than extrinsic motivation factors.

Moreover, the active sporting participants indicated a high revisit intention due to their passion for the sports activities they participate in. In contrast, the passive participants in sports activities indicated a low revisit intention. The findings of this research will help the tourist board of Sri Lanka, sport tourism agencies, and travel companies to reevaluate the prominence given to sports tourism in Sri Lanka and realise the importance of improving infrastructure facilities to enhance tourist satisfaction and revisiting tourist intention…

Brian Wimalasinghe & Maduka Udunuwara

Assistant Manager, Inbound and outbound marketing, NKAR Travels and Tours (Pvt) Ltd., Colombo, Sri Lanka; [email protected]
Senior Lecturer, Department of Marketing, Faculty of Management and Finance, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka; [email protected]

About Author
Assistant Manager, Inbound and outbound marketing, NKAR Travels and Tours (Pvt) Ltd., Colombo, Sri Lanka; [email protected]
Senior Lecturer, Department of Marketing, Faculty of Management and Finance, University of Colombo, Sri Lanka; [email protected]
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