Building Loyalty of Tourists to Tourist Destination through Sporting Event – the Case Study of Poznań Half Marathon

Abstract

The article presents the research problem of building loyalty of tourists towards sporting events and tourist destinations, whose roots are in behavioral marketing. The work presents a review of the foreign language literature of the study concerning the loyalty of tourists to events and destinations, because in Polish studies this research problem has not been raised so far. There are presented models and theoretical concepts concerning building loyalty among tourists and the results of empirical research carried out during 6th Poznan Half Marathon. Their purpose was to see if a running event could be an event that builds loyalty to the event and to the place where it takes place. The article also identifies the factors that influence the loyalty of runners-tourists in relation to the analyzed sporting event and tourist destination. The results of the research confirmed the assumptions accepted on the basis of the literature – proved that the loyalty of tourists to the running events influenced among others – push and pull motivation, socio-demoraphic factors and a sense of satisfaction from the run (which may also lead to a sense of greater satisfaction from life).