A study of event quality, destination image, perceived value, tourist satisfaction, and destination loyalty among sport tourists

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore structural relationships between quality, destination image, perceived value, tourist satisfaction and destination loyalty with emphasis on the mediating effect of tourist satisfaction on relations between destination image and destination loyalty, and between perceived value and destination loyalty in the context of small-scale sporting events. Design/methodology/approach Construct validity of the measurement scale was verified by confirmatory factor analysis, factor loadings, average variance extracted, construct reliability and correlation analysis. Reliability of the measurement scale was verified by Cronbach’s α analysis. A structural equation modeling test with maximum likelihood estimation was used to test structural relationships between variables in the proposed model using the responses of 311 participants. Findings Results showed significant and powerful impacts of: event quality, destination image and perceived value on tourist satisfaction; destination image, perceived value, and tourist satisfaction on destination loyalty and demonstrated; and tourist satisfaction fully mediates relationships between destination image and destination loyalty, and between perceived value and destination loyalty. Originality/value The study shows: it is meaningful to include quality and value in tourism destination image-satisfaction-loyalty models; provides empirical evidence that tourist satisfaction fully mediates the relation between perceived value and destination loyalty; and confirms small-scale as well as large-scale sporting events should be viewed as important aspects of marketing strategies aimed at improving quality, image, value, satisfaction and loyalty.