2017 2nd International Conference on Advances in Management Engineering and Information Technology (AMEIT 2017) ISBN:

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1 2017 2nd International Conference on Advances in Management Engineering and Information Technology (AMEIT 2017) ISBN: Analysis on the Factors Impacting Tourists Satisfaction in Sports Tourism from the Perspective of Experience Marketing-Based on the Case of Xiamen International Marathon Hang LIN and Ying-xing LIN * School of Economics and management, Fuzhou University, Fuzhou , China * Corresponding author Keywords: Sports tourism, Experience marketing, Tourists satisfaction. Abstract: At present, sports tourism is attracting more and more tourists with its unique characteristic of encouraging people s participation. However, there is much to be improved in terms of product design, market promotion and consumer recognition, etc, which could impede its development. This paper combines the study of sports tourism with experience marketing theory in order to build a theory model of the relationship between experience marketing mix in sports tourism and tourists satisfaction on the basis of literature review. Also, this paper makes an empirical analysis on Xiamen International Marathon, finding that factors of content design, safety, ads and promotion materials, etc, are exerting much influence on tourists satisfaction. Introduction With the rapid development of economy and increase of citizens spare time, people are increasingly prone to doing distinctive activities for leisure and entertainment. In response, a fresh recreational mode sports tourism has appeared and become a new trend for consumers, which is featured by watching sports event, participating in sports activities and outdoor recreation, etc. It is estimated that sports tourism s growing rate is about 10 percent faster than that of the overall tourist industry, accounting for a larger proportion in the whole industry. But behind the boom, it still has some problems: the product structure is single; the service quality remains low; tourists show less satisfaction and loyalty; the products connotation and denotation have yet to be deeply developed (Bi, 2009) and it simply meets consumers need of watching sports event and participating in sports activities. (Xing, 2010), causing that current sports tourism products cannot adapt to consumers calling for diversity and personalization. The core of experience market is to focus on tourists in-depth needs and make a shift in marketing strategy from providing service to building a platform for consumers to enjoy themselves in the wonderful experience and leave good memories. This brings tourist enterprises trapped in cutthroat competition a way out that turns old-fashioned superficial tourism to experiential in-depth travel. Due to sports tourism s unique characteristics of encouraging people s participation, experience marketing theory offers a feasible solution for its problems. If addressing tourists new needs, integrating tourist resources, developing tourist products and innovating tourism marketing, sports tourism will add new growth point to tourism industry. Literature Review The Concept of Sports Tourism Since scholars at home and abroad study from different perspectives, there is no universal definition about sports tourism. For instance, Gibson (1998) said, sports tourism refers to a kind of recreational travelling activity in which individuals travel to other places for participating in and watching sports event in a short time or visit tourist attraction in sports event(such as famous stadium, sports star and so on); but Standeven (1999) pointed out that sports tourism is a kind of sports activity which individuals take part in actively or passively out of their living or working 49

2 places. Overall, Hinch (2001) held a more typical opinion that sports tourism is a travelling activities performed in limited time on the basis of sports. The Characteristics of Sports Tourism Sports tourism is a creative content industry where sport is combined with tourism. Peric (2010) said the sports activities serving for sports tourism must possess rules, competitiveness and fun. In sports tourism, tourists can obtain unique experiential value and share the feeling with family members and friends when going back home. Lu (2015) put forward that sports tourism belongs to experiential economy which consists of experiencing both tangible infrastructures, institutions as well as various organizations and immaterial space. The author thinks that sports tourism is a kind of activity for meeting psychological needs which aims at building a platform for consumers rather than simply providing products. It is usually combined with creating an atmosphere, designing a scene and completing a process. Therefore, it needs to attract tourists active participation. Experience Marketing Experience marketing was first put forward by Payne and Gilmour, two funders of American Strategic Horizon Company in They said, experience marketing should redefine the concept of design marketing in light of consumers senses, emotions, thought, action and association. American scholar Schmitt pointed out in Experiential Marketing: under the background of information, brand and communication reform, traditional marketing pattern has lagged behind the time while a new marketing concept devoted to offering consumers all-around experience- experience marketing has appeared. Based on the five experiential types (senses, emotions, thought, action and association), he also proposed its implementation tool-experience providers, including transmission, visual and verbal signs, product display, brand connection, space environment, electronic media and staff. Tourists Satisfaction Pizam (1978) said tourists satisfaction refers to tourists expectation to destination and the feeling after on-trip experience. If the on-trip experience is better than expectation, tourists will be satisfied; otherwise, they will be not. Chen & TShi (2007) thought satisfaction is the happiness tourists feel from the whole environment and it arises from travelling experience meeting tourists desire, expectation and other needs related to tourism. In conclusion, the author believes tourists satisfaction is the outcome after comparing on-trip experience with tourists expectation, which emphasizes the process and result of tourists mental comparison. The Factors Impacting Tourists Satisfaction As to factors, Pizam (1978) put forward that cost, dining facilities, hospitality, lodging facilities, the level of commercialization and environment were impacting tourists satisfaction; Bowen (2001) concluded that expectation, performance, inconformity, uniqueness, emotion and fairness were impact factors; and Chen and Gursoy (2001) pointed out the factors included perception of security, cultural difference and transportation convenience. But Luo Yanju (2006) thought environment and facilities play a role. Research Design Theory Structure Compared with traditional marketing which is characterized by strong analysis and quantitative method, experience marketing adopts various methods and tools that are changing with time. This paper focuses on the degree of mixed factors of experience marketing in sports tourism to tourists satisfaction. The mix is mainly based on Schmitt s experience providers, including transmission, visual and verbal signs, product display, brand connection, space environment, electronic media and staff. Meanwhile, other scholars opinions, such as Booms & Bitner s mix of service marketing: cost, product, promotion, channel, staff, physical evidence and process; Liu Deguang s opinion that 50

3 the pattern of tourism experience marketing should possess definite theme, build connection with consumers, use souvenirs, combine sensory stimuli, enhance test on experience effect and improve inside marketing, etc, are also taken into consideration. Moreover, addressing the real situation of sports tourism, this paper revises the content of each experience provider and puts forward 19 factors impacting tourists satisfaction that covers 6 aspects. They are shown as Table1. Table1. Experience Providers impacting Tourists Satisfaction in Sports Tourism. Experience Provider Communication Verbal and visual recognition Activity Display Staff Space Environment Combination Factor Questionnaire Design and Survey ads, promotional items, event marketing and websites logo and slogan content design, forms of manifestation, safety and price staff serving for sports, dinning, transportation and lodging tourism infrastructures, supporting facilities and scenery cooperation among travel agencies, association among the industry and government support On the basis of literature review and real observation and design of experience marketing mix in sports tourism, this research makes the survey on experience marketing mix in sports tourism. The enclosed structural questionnaire is made up by 3 parts (experience marketing mix in sports tourism, satisfaction of sports tourism, personal information), 25 questions in total. Likert Scaling is adopted to assess the result of each question in which 1 point stands for totally disagreement and 5 points totally agreement. Xiamen International Marathon was established in After years development, it has been one of the most influential and well-known marathon in China with high competitiveness, wide participation and rich supporting activities. During 2016 Xiamen International Marathon, the author selects participants and tourists to make assessment about experience marketing mix and its satisfaction at random. This survey gave out 400 questionnaires and collected 395 questionnaires, among which effective questionnaires were 349. Data Analysis This paper analyzes the data with software SPSS19.0. The result is as follows. Descriptive Statistical Analysis on Samples Characteristic Demographic characteristic of samples: in terms of gender, males account for 65.9% of the whole samples; in terms of age, samples at the age of play a dominant role, among which those from 20 to 29 occupy 43.8% and those from %; in terms of educational background, people graduating from junior college and over take up 80.2%; in terms of profession, the proportion of enterprise staff, students and workers in government agency and public institution are 33.5%, 35.1%, 19.9% respectively; in of salary, 52.2% of the samples earn less than 4000 monthly and 38.7% earn Therefore, the majority of the samples are enterprise staff and young students who are also the target consumers of experience marketing in sports tourism. Analysis on Questionnaires Reliability The overall reliability shown by the survey is 0.916, indicating that there is a high conformity among the 19 variants measuring experience marketing mix. The reliability coefficient of each dimension is over 0.7, a relatively high reliability as shown in Table2. Furthermore, the reliability of sports tourism satisfaction is 0.807, meeting the requirement. 51

4 Table 2. Factor analysis of experience marketing in sports tourism. Dimension Varient Factor Loading Cronbach s α communication ads and promotion materials event marketing websites verbal and visual recognition logo slogan activity display content design form of manifestation safety price staff staff serving for sports staff serving for dinnng staff serving for transportation staff serving for lodging space environment tourism infrastructures tourism supporting facilities scenery combination cooperation among travel agencies Analysis on Questionnaires Validity association among the industry governmental support Analysis on Content Validity. The questionnaire follows theory structure and learns from the previous findings by a lot of scholars at home and abroad to select questions fully covering the research scope. Therefore, it possesses high content reliability. Analysis on Structure Validity. This paper uses factor analysis to test structure validity. The KMO of the scale is 0.917>0.5; Barletts sphericity test shows the conspicuousness of 0.000<0.05 and the spherical hypothesis is rejected, all of which indicates that factor analysis is suitable. Factor analysis adopts PCA (Principal Component Analysis) in which the characteristic value of 4 factors is calculated. They explain % of the population variance, achieving the lowest standard that accumulated variance contribution rate should exceed 50%. Table 2 shows, component matrix after orthogonal rotation divides the 19 variants of 6 dimensions into 4 factors. Apart from staff serving for transportation and lodging, other variants factor loadings are all more than0.5. Particularly, the variant factor of the same dimension has higher factor loading, showing the questionnaire possesses better validity. Regression Analysis on the Impact of Experience Marketing Mix Factors in Sports Tourism on Tourists Recognition This paper makes a multiple linear regression analysis on how the 19 variants of 6 dimensions impact tourists recognition (see Table 3 below). The correlation index R=0.665; determination coefficient R2=0.442, showing that 44.2% the variation of tourists recognition is caused by the 19 variants. Durbin-Watson=1.895; the value is very close to 2, indicating that the autocorrelation problems of the residual sequence can be omitted. F=6.453, Sig=0.000<0.05, representing that all explaining variable have notable influence on all explained variable and the relationship between 52

5 them can be described with linear model. However, each explaining variable also has to be conducted significance test. Table 3. Regression analysis on tourists recognition in sports tourism. Non-standard Coefficient Standard β Standard Error Coefficient β t Sig constant ads and promotion materials event marketing websites logo slogan Content design Form of manifestation safety price staff serving for sports staff serving for dinning staff serving for transportation staff serving for lodging tourism infrastructures tourism supporting facilities scenery cooperation among travel agencies association among the industry governmental support R=0.665R²=0.442 D-W=1.895 F=6.452 Sig=0.000 The result shows, t test of 4 variants (content design, safety, ads and promotion materials, event marketing) has a significance value Sig<0.05, which illustrates that these variants have significant influence on tourists satisfaction. In addition, government support also has larger influence (Sig<0.1) on tourists recognition. Therefore, the sequence is: content design> safety> ads and promotion materials> event marketing> government support. Suggestions Based on the above result, this paper offers the following suggestions on experience marketing strategies in sports tourism project. Working Hard to Innovate Content to Improve Products Core Value As a content industry, the content design innovation of sports tourism should start from sports experience. According to Jiang (2004), sports tourism can be divided into 4 types: entertainment, education, aesthetic and stimulation in terms of the way of experience. Products for education should respond to the need of actively participating in sports culture by enriching cultural sightseeing and sports connotation as well as offering more experience, increasing participation. For example, teaching tourists some basic martial movements while they are appreciating Shaolin 53

6 culture to leave them deeper and better impression. Products for entertainment should design and provide customized items based on consumers favor and personality, encouraging them to enjoy the best action experience within their own ability. For instance, adventurous and capable tourists can be encouraged to experience specialized off road racing, while tourists who enjoy natural scenery might as well be organized to go hiking, etc. Products for sports event should verify the connotation and watching focus apart from constantly improving events splendor, such as allowing consumers to experience the sport in person or organizing small free games among them after the event in order to create action experience. Safety Being the Priority Undoubtedly, product system in sports tourism is largely made up by high-risk or prospective high-risk items, which needs putting consumers safety in the first place and safeguarding their security to the maximum extent in four aspects-safety in site selection: no secondary disaster, pollution and destruction; safety in project construction: architectures, footpath, athletic field, equipment purchasing and installment meeting the technology and safety standards; safety in projects operation: providing safe operation regulations, high-level operation teams and medical aid system; safety in insurance system: establishing and perfecting the double insurance system for scenery and consumers. Extending Promotion to Win Recognition Addressing main market, sports tourism should grasp project characteristics and design products image to encourage participation. Promotion can be carried out via mainstream media, such as: television, newspaper, outdoor advertisement and web. Specialized Internet companies can be invited to conduct online marketing, develop specialized website, web page and public platform so that activities information, schedule, supporting service and route arrangement can be issued in time. Therefore, extending promotion and fostering public awareness can attract tourists interest and participation in sports tourism. Carrying out Event Marketing to Improve the Image Event Marketing aims at elevating enterprises or products recognition, establishing brand image and finally achieving the goal of selling products and services by planning, organizing and taking advantage of figures or events that have celebrity charm, news value and social influence to provoke attention among media, social organization and consumers. Sports tourism projects should analyze the needs of target market and set up suitable marketing strategies according to consumers different needs. Also, it is suggested to make full use of important festivals, big sports events and sports stars attendance to provoke tourists enthusiasm. Enhancing Government Support to Cultivate Market Subject Government should encourage and guide relative department to take advantage of fields, facilities, professionals in building up sports tourism enterprises and running sports tourism business; In addition, government should support merger and acquisition, joint venture and cooperation as well as strategic restructure among tourism enterprises to guide tourism resources flow into advantage enterprises which should be encouraged to adopt capital expansion, brand output and franchise for pushing forward chain, unit and collectivization management, helping them enlarge scale, manage by grouping and online promotion. At last, government should attract more investment on sports tourism by encouraging large-scale enterprises to infuse money and integrating other capital into various steps of sports tourism for the development of small-and-medium enterprises with the characteristics of specialization, elaboration, uniqueness and innovation. References [1] Bi. Experience design of sports tourism products under the background of experience economy[j].journal of Physical Education, 2009, 16(7):

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