Spectators’ contribution to the environmental dimension of sustainable event sports tourism

Abstract

The need to take responsibility for protection of the natural environment is a contemporary issue of growing importance and urgency across industries worldwide. Sports tourism, as the subject area where the sports and tourism industries meet, has seen an increase in both practitioner and academic initiatives to measure and manage impacts on the environment. This is especially relevant, given the fact that event sports tourism has become the highest profile product within sports tourism. Within the sport, tourism and sports tourism literature, there are several studies that discuss the role of the industry (mainly from a supply-side perspective) to manage environmental consequences. It is, however, argued that industry initiatives alone will not suffice to bring about long term change in the relationship between event sports tourism and the environment. There needs to be an understanding of the consumers of event sports tourism products and their attitudes and behaviour regarding environmentally responsible practices. This study combines knowledge from other subject areas, namely Environmental Psychology, Environmental Education and Consumer Behaviour to explore environmentally responsible consumption within the event sports tourism context. The aim of this research study is to identify the factors that could have the greatest possibility to influence sport event spectators’ propensity to display environmentally responsible behavoiur. To this purpose, a proposed theoretical model was developed, depicting the most relevant and significant factors driving such behaviour among sport event spectators. The model was based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour, a well-known and tested model in behavioural studies. Mixed method research methodology was applied, combining qualitative and quantitative techniques. Firstly, a two-round Delphi survey was conducted to collect the opinions of experts on the most relevant factors that could possibly influence the environmental behaviour of spectators. These opinions were used to verify the proposed theoretical model. Secondly, structural equation modelling was used to simultaneously test the effect of the various factors on the behavioural intentions of spectators. A spectator survey was conducted across a series of 10 different cycling events across South Africa. The final sample included a total of 1034 spectators. Upon completion of the data analysis at measurement model level, a refined structural model was presented. The research revealed that the refined structural model displayed adequate, but not good fit with the empirical data. Three of the relationships proved to be significant, namely the relationship between Situational Intention and Future Intention; between Sport Motivation and Situational Intention; and between Situational Intention and Place Attachment. The findings have a number of managerial implications. Firstly, spectators with a positive Situational Intention are more likely to display the desired behaviour in future; making it imperative for event managers to focus on identifying such individuals, as they will be the ones supporting future initiatives toward greening the event. The findings suggest that these individuals will most likely be those individuals attending because of their affiliation with, or love for the sport. Secondly, event owners have to realise the importance of implementing an environmental management system in a visible manner, as the results suggest that, within the sport spectating context, these facilities will act as the ‘norm’ and be the main indication to spectators of what the desired behaviour is. Thirdly, environmental communication should be placed within the right message frame. Encouraging people through rewards alone may not necessarily prove to be effective, as findings suggest that such gains may not motivate a sport spectator. Furthermore, event owners could also communicate in such a way as to establish an association between the spectator’s participation in responsible activities, with greater pride in the event or setting. The study findings are restricted by a number of limitations. Firstly, two of the main predictors of the Theory of Planned Behaviour had to be removed from the model due to measurement concerns and the model as such could therefore not be validated. At the same time, the chosen model and statistical analysis technique presented a theoretical limitation as only a small number of variables could be included in the model. As indicated in the literature, a vast range of factors have been linked to environmentally responsible behaviour, and many other variables could have been included to improve the predictive power of the main predictor variables in the model. Secondly, despite efforts to empirically refine the measurement models, problems were noted with the properties of some of the scales. Thirdly, the data collection setting proved problematic, given the fact that participants in some instances hurried through the questions or returned incomplete questionnaires, leading to missing data in the data set. Overall, the study contributes to the growing number of tourism studies focusing on environmentally responsible behaviour of tourists by providing insights into a growing niche segment, namely event sports tourism. It also makes a contribution to sport-focused environmental sustainability literature, as only one study could be found that tested aspects of one of the models of environmental behaviour in a sport spectating context.