Proceedings of the 2006 Northeastern Recreation Research Symposium

Download or read book Proceedings of the 2006 Northeastern Recreation Research Symposium written by United States Department of Agriculture and published by CreateSpace. This book was released on 2015-06-26 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sport tourism events are used by destinations to enhance their image. The components of an event's brand image, however, have not been well studied. Keller (1993) suggested that brand image consists of brand associations featuring attributes, benefi ts, and attitudes toward the "product." Understanding these brand associations will help determine those elements that constitute a sport tourism event's image. This study aimed to measure a sport tourism event's brand image associations from the participants' perspective. The sport tourism event utilized in this research was an annual bicycling event in the state of Michigan. To explore the brand image associations bicyclists have about sport tourism events, two focus groups were used. The results revealed the image of a sport tourism event consists of mental imageries related to organization, environment, physical activity, socialization, fulfi llment and emotions. Implications for both event and destination marketers are discussed.