Exploring the Potential of Charity Event Tourism

Sport event tourism research has grown in popularity in recent years, however few studies have addressed the potential of charity sport events as tourism destinations. In order to determine how these types of events could be leveraged for tourism, a first step is to determine what motivations drive participants to partake in these unique events. In this study, the authors use a survey design to explore the 'push' and 'pull' motivations of participants from two different Multiple Sclerosis cycling tour charity events held Ontario, Canada. Their results suggest that first time event participants appear to be motivated by the 'sporting' aspects of the event and have a limited interest in destination tourism. These motivations appear to diminish over time as repeat participants appear to be motivated primarily by connection to the cause. Some event goers who participated to support others, and also had an interest in learning about a destination chose the more tourist oriented location of the two events suggesting that future research is needed to examine more in depth the tourism potential of charity events. This study is one of the first to draw upon event participants' motivation in order to focus on leveraging tourism opportunities of charity sport events, and thus provides a solid foundation for future research in this area.