The relationship between visitor satisfaction, expectation and spending in a sport event

Abstract

There are many studies on the determinants of visitor spending at sport events. However, few studies investigate the effect of satisfaction on spending and even fewer relate this to visitor expectations. The present study examines the case of the World Ski Championships 2015 which were held in Falun, Sweden. A particular focus of the study is if and how visitor satisfaction influences visitors’ expenditures. It is hypothesized and argued that spending depends on satisfaction relative to prior expectations. It is empirically found that those visitors with satisfaction greater than their expectations prior to the visit spend significantly more. A limitation of this study, however, is that the satisfaction is not measured systematically taking into consideration several dimensions of satisfaction which should be addressed in the future research.