The Role of Experiential Values in Sports Tourism Destination Branding

The purpose of this study was to investigate the role of experiential values in sports tourism destination branding.

The research method was descriptive-correlational. To this end, 245 sports tourists who had chosen Iran as a sports tourism destination, completed questionnaires of Ahn et al. (2019) about experimental value, Andersen et al. (2018) about destination brand image, and Sharma and Nayak (2019) about behavioral intentions. The data analysis method was the modeling of structural equations using Smart PLS software version 3.

The findings indicated that experiential values, including consumer return on investment, service excellence, aesthetic and entertainment, can significantly affect the destination image and that the image of the sports tourism destination can subsequently affect the behavioral intentions of sports tourists about Iran as a sports tourism destination.

Based on the findings, it can be concluded that if Iran, as a sports tourism destination, seeks to increase its share of the global sports tourism market, four dimensions of experimental values should be considered as one of the important factors in sports tourism destination branding.