Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 2 (2014) 241252

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Journal of Destination Marketing & Management

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jdmm

Research Paper

An extended study on destination image decay of sport

tourists over time
Nan Chen a,n, Shaojun Ji b, Daniel C. Funk c
a
Tourism Management Faculty, Surrey International Institute, Dongbei University of Finance & Economics, 217 Jianshan Street, Shahekou District,
Dalian 116025, China
b
Tourism Institute, Beijing Union University, 99 Beisihuan East Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing 100101, China
c
School of Tourism and Hospitality Management, Temple University, 361 Speakman Hall, 1810 N. 13th St., Philadelphia, PA 19122, USA

art ic l e i nf o

a b s t r a c t

Article history:
Received 2 June 2013
Accepted 12 November 2013
Available online 15 December 2013

The dynamic nature of destination image (DI) has been widely recognized. However, studies using
longitudinal repeated measures to trace image change over time are limited. The rst author and her
colleagues have examined the structural stability of the DI held by a group of sport tourists over a 10month interval after attending a marathon event, by adopting a tripartite attitudinal perspective. Their
study revealed a signicant decay in the affective DI and conative DI, but not in the cognitive DI. The
current paper serves as an extended study to nd out: rst, will the decay of affective DI and conative DI
held by sport tourists persist over time? Second, what factors will inuence sport tourists DI decay over
time? Three online surveys were conducted to monitor the post-event DI change of 50 non-local
marathon participants over 20 months after returning from the host destination. GLM Repeated
Measures Analyses revealed that the post-event affective DI signicantly declined in the rst 10 months,
but then rebounded in the following 10 months, while the conative DI showed a continuous decline over
the 20 months. Furthermore, the change pattern of conative DI was moderated by the psychological
connection level that a sport tourist has with the host destination. Relevant theoretical and managerial
implications are addressed to provide insights for both researchers and practitioners.
& 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

Keywords:
Destination image decay
Tripartite structure
Sport tourist
Psychological connection with destination
Longitudinal panel study

1. Introduction
Increasingly more tourist destinations are bidding for sport
events and utilizing these events to improve awareness and image,
and compete for a share of the protable tourism market (Grix,
2012). Moreover, both academia and practitioners have recognized
that sport event tourists have great potential to become sightseers
(Nogawa, Yamaguchi, & Hagi, 1996). However, limited research has
utilized the tourism perspective to understand how sport event
tourists, as individual travelers consuming event destinations,
perceive a destination (Davies & Williment, 2008). In addition,
whether the image that sport event tourists form toward a host
destination persists over time, and what factors inuence their
destination image change remain under researched.
Academics have recognized that destination image (DI) is not
static but changes (e.g., Echtner & Ritchie, 1991; Gallarza, Saura, &
Garca, 2002; Gartner, 1986; Kim & Morrsion, 2005), and this
dynamic nature is extremely important for marketing destinations
given that each image form is a manageable instrument (Gallarza

Corresponding author. Tel.: 86 411 84710020 8803; fax: 86 411 84710336.

E-mail addresses: nanchen@dufe.edu.cn, nanchen80@yahoo.com.au (N. Chen),
lytshaojun@buu.edu.cn (S. Ji), dfunk@temple.edu (D.C. Funk).
2212-571X/$ - see front matter & 2013 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jdmm.2013.11.001

et al., 2002). Although limited, there are still several studies that
have been conducted on tracing destination image changes. Some
examine the role of an event or accident in modifying a destination's existing image (e.g., Gartner & Shen, 1992; Kim & Morrsion,
2005; Richards & Wilson, 2004); some focus on the function of
actual travel experiences in changing tourists initial image, by
comparing their post-trip and pre-trip images (e.g., Yilmaz,
Yilmaz, igen, Ekin, & Utku, 2009), or by comparing the image
held by visitors and non-visitors towards the same destination
(e.g., Andreu, Bign, & Cooper, 2001; Baloglu & McCleary, 1999a).
Other studies have been concerned about changing a negative/
biased DI through advertising or other promotional activities (e.g.,
Perry, Izraeli, & Perry, 1976; Tasci & Holecek, 2007).
However, there are very few studies which trace actual changes
to individuals DI over time. As Gallarza et al. (2002, p.61) argue,
the correct way of assessing the inuence of time on DI change
should not be the comparisons of different samples, but longitudinal sampling studies. Although this kind of research is
difcult in tourism, King, Chen, and Funk (2012) conducted
a two-wave longitudinal panel study to track the changes of sport
tourists post-event DI over time, by using a tripartite attitudinal
approach (i.e., cognitive, affective, and conative). Their study
revealed a signicant decay of DI over a 10-month period, and
found that the three components of DI underwent different types

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of changes. Affective and conative components of DI were more

susceptible to change while cognitive DI was stable over time due
to its factual base. Seeing that the relatively short monitoring
interval (10 months) used by King et al. (2012) may have limited
the research ndings, the current paper extends their study to
further examine their results, and to explore the inuential factors
of DI stability more deeply.
Accordingly, this study tracks the decay of sport tourists DI
over a longer time period, and investigates the factors which may
inuence this DI decay over time. A longitudinal panel study
approach is adopted because of its special advantages in revealing
attitude changes in the same group of individuals over time, to
address the following two research questions:
RQ1. Will the decay of post-event DI held by sport tourists persist
over time?
RQ2. What factors will inuence sport tourists DI decay over time?
The paper is divided into four sections. First, a detailed review
of the literature on DI components and DI change is conducted
to highlight the research gaps. Further, the review of attitude
change studies provides support for examining DI change within
a theoretical framework of attitude formation and change. From
this review ve hypotheses are derived. Second, the research
methods employed are detailed. Third, the results are presented
and discussed. Finally, conclusions about theoretical and managerial implications are presented, as well as limitations of the
research and directions for future research.

imaginations and emotional thoughts toward a destination, held by

individuals, which will inuence their behavioral intentions. This
denition integrates the attitude theory with image conceptualization, dividing DI into three structural componentscognition, affect,
and conation.
The tripartite structure of DI (cognitive, affective, and conative
DI) is considered a comprehensive and reliable model to evaluate
tourist destination image, due to its attitudinal perspective (King
et al., 2012; Li & Kaplanidou, 2011; Tapachai & Waryszak, 2000,
Tasci, Gartner, & Cavusgil, 2007; White, 2004). In tourism studies,
the term of destination attitude is habitually used interchangeably with destination image (White, 2004, 2005), and the
tripartite attitude structure is believed to provide a distinct
perspective for examining tourists behavioral intentions (Bassili,
1996). According to Bagozzi, Tybout, Craig, and Sternthal (1979),
these three attitudinal components are obtained through separate
learning processes that always involve the effect of persuasive
communication. These components could be differentially sensitive to the persuasive communications, and in turn may generate
different behavioral outcomes, leading to three different explanations of attitude formation and change (King et al., 2012).
Despite the importance of the tripartite structural perspective,
empirical studies adopting this approach to assess DI are limited,
let alone research examining the stability of DI's tripartite structure over time (King et al., 2012). Following King et al.'s research,
the current extended study examines this gap by using the
tripartite structural approach to examine the change of sport
tourists post-event DI over an extended period after their event
participation.

2. Literature review

2.2. DI change over time and its structural stability

2.1. Destination image and its tripartite structure

DI change can scarcely be separated from DI formation as the

two processes are intertwined and evolve constantly (Fakeye &
Crompton, 1991; Gartner, 1994). According to Gartner (1994),
image formation and change involve a continuous process that is
based on a selection of a few impressions from among a number of
impressions. Through this process, an image is induced and then
experiences a continuous change due to the availability of new
information, such as through the experience of visiting the
destination. Gunn (1972), in his imagery modication framework,
also states that travelers images of a destination continue to form,
change, and re-form throughout all seven stages of the travel
decision-making cycle. At the beginning, travelers accumulate
initial mental images about a potential destination from various
information sources and their previous vacation experiences.
When more information is accessed, the initial DI is modied
and this modied DI leads to a decision to take a vacation trip.
After a personal visit to the chosen destination, the images held by
travelers are modied again and a new round of image accumulation starts. It is worth noting that this newly formed DI based on
actual visit experiences is not the end of the process of DI
formation and change. Because with the passage of time, or due
to changing circumstances, the newly formed DI can become
a new input factor entering the next re-formation and change
cycle. Thus, the DI formation and change process should be viewed
as a constant cyclic progression. As a result of this cyclic process,
three types of DI can emerge: initial DI (an awareness present
before visiting the destination); modied-induced DI (a result of
personal experience with the destination); and re-formed DI (a
view formed over time after visitation and evaluation against the
modied-induced image). The current study focuses on the
structural stability of the re-formed DI over time.
Existing research on DI formation and change mostly adopts
a cross-sectional approach, focusing on how one static form of DI
forms and changes. For example, research interest in pre-visit DI

The conceptualization of the image construct, as the basis for

destination image research, has received extensive academic attention since the 1970s. Researchers have proposed a number of
denitions, comprising various components and dimensions, which
aim to capture the dynamic and complex nature of DI (Gallarza et al.,
2002). Although there is a lack of consensus as to the components of
DI among its various denitions, two components, the cognitive
and affective images, have been widely accepted by researchers
from various disciplines (e.g., Baloglu & McCleary, 1999a; Chon, 1991;
Hosany, Ekinci, & Uysal, 2006; Lin, Morais, Kerstetter, & Hou, 2007;
Martin & Rodriguez del Bosque, 2008; Millar & Tesser, 1989; Stern &
Krakover, 1993; Walmsley & Young, 1998; Yilmaz et al., 2009). The
cognitive image, as dened by Baloglu and McCleary (1999a),
represents individuals beliefs and knowledge about a destination
or its attributes, while the affective image refers to individuals
emotional feeling and evaluations about a destination in terms of
its strengths and weaknesses. The cognitive and affective images,
although distinct, are interrelated: the cognitive image is the basis of
and constitutes the resource for the formation of the affective image
(Anand, Holbrook & Stephens, 1988; Baloglu & McCleary, 1999a;
Gartner, 1994; Stern & Krakover, 1993).
Adopting these cognitive and affective dimensions, Gartner
(1994) further explored the relationship between image and behavior, and subsequently developed the image concept by adding
a third component, the conative image. The conative image is a
behavioral component that is formed based on the cognitive and
affective evaluation of a destination; it is also a transition from the
image stage to a decision-making stage that involves the possibility
that tourists will visit or revisit the destination (Gartner, 1994).
Following the same line of thought, this paper adopts the denition
developed by King et al. (2012, p.4), considering DI as an interactive
construct of objective knowledge, subjective impressions, prejudice,

N. Chen et al. / Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 2 (2014) 241252

formation/development mainly revolves around the inuence of

various marketing strategies, or information search behaviors (e.g.,
Li, Pan, Zhang, & Smith, 2009; McCartney, Butler, & Bennett, 2008).
In contrast, modied-induced DI formation and change is normally
associated with travel experience evaluation and/or expectationdisconrmation (Florek, Breitbarth, & Conejo, 2008; Phelps, 1986).
Although a broad consensus has been achieved that time is an
essential inuential factor of DI change (Gallarza et al., 2002), few
studies have examined the stability of a re-formed DI over time
after personal visits.
In the literature, there are three types of studies which focus on
the inuence of time on image change: those studying the
inuence of length of stay on DI (e.g., Fakeye & Crompton, 1991);
works that repeat previous studies after a period of time, on the
same destination but with different samples (e.g., Gartner & Hunt,
1987; Tasci & Holecek, 2007); and those investigating the effect of
previous visitation on image formation/change (e.g., Baloglu,
2001a). All these studies fail to assess the inuence of time on
DI changes of the same respondents through the optimal method
of conducting a longitudinal panel study (Gallarza et al., 2002). In
particular, there is a paucity of research examining the change of
tourist post-visit DI over time. As Mazursky and Geva (1989)
suggest, measuring customers behavior intention in a controlled
delay after product trial or consumption is extremely important
given that in many contexts, the purchase/repurchase decision is
only formed some time after trial/consumption. In the current
context, sport tourists typically do not revisit an event destination
immediately following their trip to attend the event. Instead, there
is usually some interval before they revisit as leisure travelers.
During this interval, sport tourists images of the destination may
decline (King et al., 2012), and thus the association between DI and
revisit intention may also become weaker. This is why investigating the stability of post-event DI over time becomes benecial.
Furthermore, given that DI is closely related to tourists
behavior and practical strategic implications are to be drawn from
the dynamic images held by tourists, the importance of the
structural stability of DI cannot be underestimated. However,
few studies have investigated the stability of the DI structure
when the overall DI undergoes changes. To ll the gap in available
literature addressing post-visit DI structure change over time, King
et al. (2012) conducted a two-wave longitudinal panel study to
examine the structural stability of sport tourists DI over a 10month interval after attending the event. A signicant decay was
found in the post-visit DI of sport tourists over the 10 months, but
this decay was dimensionally specic. Sport tourists affective DI
and conative DI underwent a signicant decay while the cognitive
DI remained stable due to its factual basis.
The ndings can be indirectly supported by relevant DI studies,
as well as attitude change studies. For example, Ritchie and Smith
(1991) report that the inuence of the 1988 Calgary Olympic
Winter Games on non-residents images of the host city decreased
over time. Phelps (1986) and Narayana (1976) discovered that
tourists images of a destination could fade or revert over time,
especially due to the memory confusion caused by visiting other
similar destinations. In addition, the attitude formation and
change literature suggests that attitudes generally evolve through
the process of uctuating, changing, and decaying (Petty, Wegener,
& Fabrigar, 1997; Schwarz, 2007). For instance, Holmes (1970)
identies an intensity decline in the affective component of
attitude, which is caused by the natural fading of human memory
as time passes. Time-dependent memory decay, which has been
well recognized in research elds such as industrial medicine
(Jenkins, Earle-Richardson, Slingerland, & May, 2002) and brand
association (Quester & Farrelly, 1998), is believed to weaken
tourists information recall and subsequent evaluation of a destination over time (Berman, 2009; King et al., 2012).

243

However, psychological studies further indicate this memory

decay only occurs in the short term; the long-term memory tends
to be stable. This is because the storage of long-term memory
relies on meaning and association, while short-term memory
depends on an acoustic and visual code for information storage
(Oberauer & Lewandowsky, 2008). This poses the question: at
what time point will the memory decay stop and what factors
cause the termination of memory decay? Accordingly, based on
King et al.'s (2012) study results, the current paper extends the
examination period to continually monitor the affective DI and
conative DI decay of sport tourists after the event participation.
Given the stability of cognitive DI over time reported in King et
al.'s paper, this research focuses only on the affective and conative
DI of sport tourists, to investigate their continuing changes over an
extended period of time (20 months after the sport tourists
returning from the event-host destination). Two hypotheses are
proposed as follows:
Hypothesis 1a. The decay of affective DI held by sport tourists will
not persist over time.
Hypothesis 1b. The decay of conative DI held by sport tourists will
not persist over time.
2.3. Theoretical framework for DI change
The Psychological Continuum Model (PCM) (Funk & James,
2001; 2006) is adopted by this study as the theoretical framework
to investigate potential factors that inuence the change of DI over
time. The PCM proposes a four-stage developmental framework to
organize various literature streams from social psychology to
explain how a psychological connection between an individual
and an object (e.g., a sport event) develops and changes from
personal, psychological, and environmental determinants (Funk,
Toohey, & Bruun, 2007). The PCM has served as a sound operational framework in different elds of study to explore how and
why an attitude forms and changes. These attitudes can be
towards a sport event (Filo, Funk, & Hornby, 2009), a physically
active leisure activity (Beaton & Funk, 2008), a sport team (Doyle,
Kunkel, & Funk, 2013), or an event destination (Chen & Funk,
2010). Fig. 1 illustrates an adaptation of the PCM framework which
was established by Filo, Chen, King, and Funk (2013) in order to
examine the attitude formation and change of individuals towards
a travel destination.
As shown in Fig. 1, the adapted PCM conceptualizes the variety
of ways sport tourists relate to the event destination in terms of
four hierarchical stages along a vertical continuum: awareness,
attraction, attachment and allegiance. Each of the four stages
represents an upgraded level of psychological connection that
a sport tourist may have towards the host destination. According
to Filo et al. (2013), the lowest stage of destination awareness
describes when a sport tourist knows about a sport event
destination but has no special interest in or preference for visiting
it. The second stage, destination attraction, indicates that
a distinct interest in the event destination has formed. The third
stage, destination attachment, indicates the sport tourist has
formed a meaningful psychological connection with the destination. The top stage of destination allegiance represents the
strength and continuance of a sport tourist's psychological commitment to the destination. Each stage has distinctive attitudinal
and behavioral representations.
To better understand how individuals progressively develop
their specic psychological connection with objects, Funk and
James (2006) propose a deconstructed chain of inputs internal
processing outputs which operates within and among the four
hierarchical stages. The progression occurs as a result of the

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N. Chen et al. / Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 2 (2014) 241252

Fig. 1. Psychological Continuum Model for Destination Attitude Formation & Change. Note: Adapted from Filo et al. (2013).

interaction of sociological and psychological processing and leads

to unique stage-based hierarchical outcomes. As a result, the
attitudes of sport tourists towards a destination (i.e., DI) can be
regarded as the function of processing external and internal
factors. In other words, the internal processing represents the
manner in which an individual evaluates external inputs and
utilizes internal inputs to conduct the evaluation (Funk, 2008,
p.34). The PCM categorizes the various factors interacting in the
attitude development process into three types of determinants:
psychological, personal and environmental. They serve separately
and interactively as inputs to affect sport tourists attitude formation and change (Funk, 2008).
As for the current study, the inputs contributing to post-event
DI change include a major external (environmental) factor
time; and a series of internal factors, such as an existing
distinctive psychological connection with the destination, as well
as person-specic characteristics/dispositions (e.g., previous
experience with the destination, actual revisitation and new
information acquisition during the 20-month monitoring period).
The interaction of these inputs inuences the re-evaluation of
sport tourists towards an event-host destination they have visited.
Moreover, the progressive development along the four PCM stages
shows that the psychological connections become more contingent upon the individual (both personal and psychological) rather
than the situational determinants as the individual moves to the
latter two stages of attachment and allegiance (Funk & James,
2006). Therefore, further investigations into potential psychological and personal factors that inuence the DI change over time, are
necessary.

2.3.1. Psychological connection level with destination

The PCM model suggests the rst two levels (awareness and
attraction) are relatively unstable in terms of attitude and behavior
(Beaton, Funk, & Alexandris, 2009) while the nal two levels (attachment and allegiance) reect a stronger individual-destination
relationship as personalized meaning increases (Funk & James,
2006). The increasingly stronger attitudinal and behavioral outcomes

along the four progressive psychological connection levels of sport

tourists with their host destinations have been veried by several
studies (e.g., Filo et al., 2013; King et al., 2012). Furthermore, the role of
psychological connection in changing attitudes has been recognized in
attitude strength research (Krosnick, Boninger, Chuang, Berent, &
Carnot, 1993). It is logical to infer that the stronger an individual's
psychological connection to a destination, the less likely are changes to
his/her DI. Thus, the second hypothesis is stated as:
Hypothesis 2. Sport tourists with a stronger psychological connection with the event destination will incur less DI decay over time.
Support for this hypothesis would provide evidence for the
capacity of psychological connection with a destination to reduce
DI decay over time and to sustain the structural stability of DI.
2.3.2. Personal inuential factors of DI change
As the adapted PCM model suggests, personal factors also
contribute to the DI formation and change process because
individuals vary in their abilities and resources for forming and
changing their DIs (Aho, 2001). These resources may include time
(e.g., length of stay), knowledge (e.g., familiarity with the destination) and skills for acquiring new information. This paper focuses
on examining the inuence of sport tourists personal familiarity
with the destination, and the new information they acquired
during the examination period, on their DI decay.

Familiarity with travel destination

Familiarity with a travel destination is a signicant predictor of
tourist image and behavior (Baloglu, 2001a; Hu & Ritchie, 1993;
Kim & Richardson, 2003; Lee, Scott, & Kim, 2008; MacKay &
Fesenmaier, 1997; Prentice & Andersen, 2000). Researchers advocate that the level of knowledge that tourists hold of a destination
could be a cause of their DI modication (e.g., Gartner, 1994; Um &
Crompton, 1990; Woodside & Lysonski, 1989). Therefore, this study
examines the inuence of personal destination familiarity on DI
change over time. Although the concept of familiarity has received

N. Chen et al. / Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 2 (2014) 241252

increasing attention in recent years, divergent denitions exist

(Lee et al., 2008). Milman and Pizam (1995) dene familiarity as
previous visitation to a destination; while Prentice and Andersen
(2000) believe that non-visitors could be at different levels of
familiarity with the destination based on information obtained
from school education, mass media, and word of mouth. These
denitions have been criticized for their simplicity and failure to
consider multiple facets of human experience (Kim & Richardson,
2003).
Therefore, some researchers have proposed denitions that
perceive familiarity as a multidimensional construct (Baloglu,
2001a; Kim & Richardson, 2003; Prentice, 2004). Baloglu
(2001a), for example, denes destination familiarity as a combination of previous destination experience and amount of information known about a destination, namely, experiential and
informational familiarity. This research adopts this denition to
capture the complicated nature of tourists experiences with
destinations, and examines the inuence of these experiences on
DI change over time.
First, previous visitation is recognized as an important factor in
the process of a tourist's evaluation of a destination (Fuchs &
Reichel, 2011). A positive relationship between the frequency
of past visits to the destination and the destination image has
been identied, but few studies have included this variable as
a predicator of DI stability (King et al., 2012). If a sport tourist has
visited the host destination before, whether once or frequently, he/
she might have formed a relatively stable DI and may be more
reluctant to change their image than rst-time visitors who are
less familiar with the destination. Hypothesis 3 is thus proposed:
Hypothesis 3. Sport tourists who have visited the event destination
prior to their attending the event will incur less DI decay over time.
Second, the actual revisit(s) to the destination after the event
for different purposes (rather than sports participation) provide
sport tourists with the most direct means of receiving new
information and renewed experience. New personal experiences
have been regarded as the strongest stimuli or inducements for
strengthening or modifying the post-event DI (e.g., Andreu et al.,
2001; Tasci & Holecek, 2007). Therefore, as a result of revisitation
and acquiring further experience of the destination, returning
visitors are considered less likely to decrease their existing DI
than tourists who do not revisit the destination. As such, it is
hypothesized that:
Hypothesis 4. Sport tourists who have revisited the event destination after attending the event will incur less DI decay over time.
Finally, searching for new information about the destination
after attending the event provides a sport tourist with opportunities to acquire information that is more novel, or is different to
what exists in his/her memory. This new information will strongly
inuence the individual's memory of the destination. This can
cause the post-event DI of sport tourists to be refreshed and
reactivated (Oberauer & Lewandowsky, 2008), and thus resist
decline over time. A hypothesis is accordingly proposed:
Hypothesis 5. Sport tourists who have sought new information
about the event destination after attending the event will incur less
DI decay over time.
In summary, the current paper extends King et al.'s (2012)
study by tracking sport tourists post-event DI decay over an
extended period of time. Specically, DI decay is examined over
a 20-month period. Five hypotheses are proposed to investigate at
what time point the DI decay may stop, and what factors will
contribute to the termination of DI decay.

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3. Research methods
This study adopted a longitudinal approach to examining how
sport tourists affective DI and conative DI change over time, after
they participated in a large annual marathon event in the southeast United States in 2009. Three online self-administered questionnaires were distributed to the same panel of respondents at
three different time points over a 20-month period. This approach
is particularly advantageous for uncovering the progressive nature
of DI change over time.
3.1. Measurement
The three online questionnaires employed identical questions
to measure image changes of the same group of sport tourists over
time towards an event destination they had visited. As explained
in Section 2.2, the affective DI and conative DI were the main
image components in this longitudinal investigation. In addition,
some personal travel-related questions were included in the latter
two surveys. Sport tourists familiarity with the host destination
was measured by three questions. Respondents were asked to
indicate how many times they had visited Destination X prior to
attending the 2009 event (i.e., previous experience with the
destination). Respondents were also asked whether they had
revisited Destination X after returning from the event (i.e., actual
revisitation during the examination period), as well as whether
they had sought new information about the destination after
attending the event (i.e., new information acquisition). The last
questionnaire contained an additional construct of psychological
connection with the destination, which can be used to explain the
changed pattern of DI over a long period.
3.1.1. Affective DI
Since a specic attitudinal perspective was adopted in this
study, measurements of the affective component of DI were
sought from the attitude literature, rather than fully employing
the most popular four bipolar affective items used by previous
affective DI studies (i.e., pleasantunpleasant; relaxingdistressing; arousingsleepy; excitinggloomy) (e.g., Li et al., 2009;
Walmsley & Young, 1998). Only the pleasantunpleasant dimension was kept in this study, because a considerable number of
affective environmental studies have provided stable and consistent results over different samples, languages, and cultures on the
adequacy and validity of this dimension (Baloglu & Brinberg, 1997;
Walmsley & Young, 1998).
According to the validation work of Batra and Ahtola (1991) on
the semantic differential measurement scale for the bi-dimensional
attitude, it is not necessary to utilize strong emotional descriptors to
measure the affective component of attitude (e.g., relaxingdistressing, arousingsleepy). The more general descriptors, such as
positivenegative and likedislike, were found to not only clearly
measure an overall attitude but also to capture the hedonic nature of
affective attitudes. The respondents in this study were thus asked to
evaluate their feelings/impressions towards Destination X on a 7point bipolar scale, with three pairs of semantic items: Unpleasant
Pleasant, DislikeLike, and NegativePositive. The positions of
the positive and negative pole descriptors were randomly mixed to
avoid creating a halo effect bias (Babbie, 2010).
3.1.2. Conative DI
Revisit intention was used to operationalize the conative DI, as
indicated in the aforementioned denition of this construct. This
attitudinal measurement has been recognized as the pertinent measure for behavioral intentions (Jones & Sasser, 1995). Methodology
experts suggest that a specic time frame should be included in the

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set-up portion of the behavioral intention scale, as an expressed time

frame can decrease the possibility that the respondents will bias their
response towards the denitely/probably would categories (Hair,
Lukas, Miller, Bush, & Ortinau, 2008). Likewise, tourism scholars have
suggested that the revisit intention of tourists towards a visited
destination might vary depending on time (Jang & Feng, 2007).
Considering the inuence of time frames on tourists conation
in relation to a destination, the sport tourists revisit intention to
Destination X was dened in three time frames, as suggested by
Jang and Feng (2007): short-term (within the next 12 months),
mid-term (within the next 3 years), and long-term (within the
next 5 years). Accordingly, in the current study, the conative DI of
sport tourists was operationalized by the likelihood of revisiting
Destination X for leisure vacations, not for sports, within three
different time frames. A 7-point Likert scale, in which
1 Extremely Unlikely to 7 Extremely Likely, was used
to gauge the intention of sport tourists with regard to revisiting
Destination X for leisure vacations in the future.
3.1.3. Psychological connection with destination
The three-dimensional involvement measurement (i.e., pleasure, centrality, and sign) has been empirically tested and
validated as an effective staging tool to allocate sport tourists into
respective psychological connection levels with the host destination
(Filo et al., 2013). A nine-item scale with three items for each
involvement dimension was used to examine the psychological
connections of sport tourists with Destination X. Seven-point Likert
scales, anchored with 1Strongly Disagree to 7 Strongly
Agree, were used to assess all items. Based on each respondent's
mean scores on each involvement facet, a pre-set tripartite split was
used to classify individuals into high, medium and low for each facet
(Beaton et al., 2009). Thus, a specic prole was generated for every
respondent. These proles were then used in the staging algorithm
tool to allocate sampled respondents into specic stages within the
four-level PCM.
3.2. Procedures
The present study employed three online self-administered
questionnaires to collect longitudinal data on how sport tourists
post-event DI changed over time. Three time points were selected:
(1) Time 1, two weeks after the event; (2) Time 2, 10 months after the
rst survey; (3) Time 3, another 10 months after the second survey,
which was 20 months after the event participation. It is worth
explaining that the selection of 10-month interval between each
survey was based on the following consideration. Previous researchers have adopted three months (Gartner, 1986) or one year (Gartner
& Shen, 1992; Tasci & Holecek, 2007) as study intervals. Gartner
(1986) suggested that a longer time frame should be given to allow
for enough image shifts to affect research results and consequently
promotion and marketing efforts. Given the chosen event is held
annually, 12 months is the maximum time frame to observe the
respondents post-visit DI change if the effect of re-participation
needs to be controlled. The rst time span of 10 months was chosen
to track the same group of 2009 event participants DI change so as to
eliminate the possible inuence caused by their revisitation to the
destination when they took part in this annual event again in 2010.
The succeeding 10-month period was chosen as the observation
interval for consistency in monitoring the DI change pattern.
The rst post-event survey (Time 1) was open online from
February 18 to March 8, 2009. Around two weeks after the 2009
marathon event, an email invitation containing the online survey
link was disseminated by the event organizing committee to
13,925 registered runners. Sport tourists had just completed their
trip and returned home, so their perceptions/evaluations of the

destinations were believed to be still fresh in their minds.

A reminder email was sent out two weeks after the initial email
to encourage more responses. Ultimately, 3,008 usable questionnaires were obtained, giving a response rate of 21.6%. However,
33.9% of the sample were local participants and were thus
excluded from this study; 1,989 non-local respondents were
retained for the subsequent studies.
The follow-up questionnaire survey (Time 2) was distributed ten
months later to the 956 non-local respondents of the previous survey
who indicated their willingness to participate in the follow-up study.
The survey was opened online in December, 2009 and kept available
for four weeks, yielding 234 usable questionnaires with a response
rate of 24.5%. The second follow-up survey (Time 3) was distributed
another 10 months later, to the 234 non-local respondents of the
Time 2 survey. The online questionnaire was opened on Oct 15, 2010
and kept available for three weeks. In order to increase the response
rate, a lottery draw was used, yielding 50 completed responses with
a response rate of 21.4%. The responses to this survey were
transferred into an SPSS data le and the variables of the previous
two surveys were imported by the merge les function of SPSS. The
responses at the three timings were matched up through the unique
authentic key assigned by the event organization to every participant. Finally, a combined SPSS data le containing 50 subjects
responses to all three surveys was prepared for further analyses.
This paper considers the representativeness of the nal panel
obtained from the three-wave longitudinal study. Due to the
relatively low response rates for all three waves, the drop-out
rates for all three surveys were similar. This indicates a random
attrition without any selective non-response, in which respondents dropped out from the survey autonomously over the long
examination period. Moreover, according to Deeg (2002, p.213),
the generalizability of a longitudinal study will not suffer from bias
due to selective non-response since the main objective is
intragroup comparison rather than intergroup comparison. Therefore, an unselective attrition in the current longitudinal panel
study did not reduce the internal and external validity of the
ndings which derive from an intragroup comparison over time
(Young, Powers, & Bell, 2006).
3.3. Participants
The proles of all three panels in the three survey waves are
presented in Table 1. The respondents who completed all three
surveys comprised an ultimate panel, consisting of 50 non-local
participants in the 2009 marathon event. Although this sample is
very small when compared to the initial sample, the representativeness of this panel is appropriate. As shown in Table 1, the
percentages under each distinctive demographic characteristic for
all the three panels are quite similar, which shows that the
compositions of the three panels are almost the same.
The demographic breakdown of the nal panel was 52% female
with 64% married or living with a partner, and 82% were aged
between 25 and 54. The ethnic background of participants varied,
with 76% of the sample being Caucasian, 18% Hispanic or Latino,
and 4% AfricanAmerican. Among them, 78% were United States
citizens, and 55% had visited Destination X more than ve times.
Only 12% of the panel had visited the destination for the rst time
when they participated in the 2009 event. The majority of the
sample (92%) had completed higher education and 65% possessed
a graduate degree or above. Seventy percent reported an annual
household income of US$60,000 and above. In addition, half of the
panel reported their revisitation to Destination X in 2009 after
returning from the event and 68% reported revisitation to the
destination in the rst 10 months in 2010. Moreover, 40% searched
for new information about the destination after returning from
the event.

N. Chen et al. / Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 2 (2014) 241252

Table 1
Prole of the three waves survey respondents.
Respondents of
survey 1
N 1989 (%)

Respondents of
survey 2
N 234 (%)

Respondents of
survey 3
N 50 (%)

47
53

57
43

48
52

36
62

33
64

34
64

Age
2554

85

70

86

Ethnic background
Caucasian
Hispanic/Latino
African American

71
20
4

64
25
3

72
20
4

Citizenship
American

80

72

78

Previous visits
45 times
First-timers

54
19

71
8

55
12

Education background
High education
90
Postgraduate
54

90
60

92
62

Gender
Male
Female
Marital status
Single
Married/living
with a partner

Household income
4$60,000

72

72

70

weeks after the event (Time 1, M 6.44) was signicantly higher

than the mean score assessed 10 months later (Time 2, M5.95),
and also signicantly higher than the mean score assessed 20
months later (Time 3, M 6.03). However, the mean score for
affective DI assessed at Time 2 was lower than the mean score
assessed at Time 3, which indicates an increase in affective DI from
Time 2 to Time 3; although the pairwise comparison results
revealed that this increase was not signicant. This result indicates
the affective DI held by sport tourists after attending the event
signicantly declined over time, but this decline did not continue
indenitely. At a certain point in time, affective DI stopped
dropping and began to rebound (see Fig. 2). Hypothesis 1a was,
therefore, supported.
Furthermore, no signicant main effect of time on Conative DI
was observed, F(2,98) 2.59, p 4.05, .05. As shown in Table 2,
the mean score for Conative DI assessed at Time 1 (M 6.31) was
higher than the mean score assessed at Time 2 (M 6.17), but not
signicantly. A similar non-signicant decline was observed in
Conative DI from Time 2 to Time 3 (M 5.85). However, the
pairwise comparison results revealed a signicant decay of conative DI from Time 1 to Time 3, F(1,49) 4.38, p o.05. This result
indicates the conative DI held by sport tourists after attending the
Table 2
Descriptive statistics for main within-subjects variable.
DI Components Time 1 (2 weeks
after the event)
Mean

3.4. Analysis
The data analyses were performed in the following two stages.
First, utilizing SPSS 20.0, a series of General Linear Model (GLM)
Repeated Measures analyses were employed to test how the
affective DI and conative DI of sport tourists changed over the
20-month after participating in the event. Second, the changed
pattern of affective DI and conative DI were examined under the
moderating effects of previous experience, actual revisitation, new
information acquisition, and the psychological connection level.

247

Affective DI
Conative DI

6.44
6.31

Time 2 (10 months Time 3 (20 months

after the event)
after the event)

SD

Mean

SD

Mean

SD

.86
.83

5.95
6.17

1.05
1.36

6.03
5.85

1.16
1.59

Note: n 50.
n

Means signicantly differ from all other time points, at po .05.

4. Results
General linear models for repeated measures were used to
enable the direct comparison of the sport tourists responses to
post-event investigations of their DIs at three different time
points, as well as the examination of interaction effects from the
psychological and personal factors. The outcome variables were
affective DI and conative DI. The main within-subjects factor was
time (three levels: Time 1 vs. Time 2 vs. Time 3). The betweensubjects factors/moderators were the psychological connection
levels with the destination (Destination Awareness, n 4; Destination Attraction, n 23; Destination Attachment, n 13; and
Destination Allegiance, n 10); previous experience (First-time
Visitors, n 6; Repeat Visitors, n 44); actual revisitation (Revisitors, n 41; Non-revisitors, n 9), as well as new information
acquisition (Yes, n 20; No, n 30). Mauchly's test indicated that
the assumption of sphericity had not been violated; therefore, the
signicance of estimated mean differences between the time
points was not adjusted.
First of all, the GLM repeated measures analysis revealed
a signicant main effect of time on affective DI change, F(2,98)
6.45, p o.01, .116. As illustrated in Table 2, a signicant decline
was observed in the affective DI over the three time points after
attending the event. The mean score for affective DI assessed two

Fig. 2. Affective DI change over time.

Fig. 3. Conative DI change over time.

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N. Chen et al. / Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 2 (2014) 241252

event would continue to decline over time, despite the magnitude

of decay being modest (see Fig. 3). Hypothesis 1b was, therefore,
rejected. In addition, the effect sizes () suggest that the effect of
time on affective DI change was very strong (Z 0.10), while only
moderate for conative DI (.05) (Pierce, Block, & Aguinis, 2004). In
other words, affective DI was more susceptible to change over
time than conative DI.
The tests for the moderating effects from the aforementioned
between-subjects variables revealed mixed results. First, no signicant interaction effects were observed on either affective DI or
conative DI change from previous experience (p4.05), or from
new information acquisition (p4.05), or from actual revisitation
(p4.05). Therefore, Hypotheses 35 were rejected. Second, a signicant Time  PCM Stage interaction effect was observed for
conative DI: F(6,92) 2.73, po.05, .15; but not for affective DI
(F(6,92) 2.07, p4.05, .12). Hypothesis 2 was thus partially
supported. Figs. 4 and 5 illustrate the change in the two DI
components at three time points over the 20 months after participating in the event, for the four PCM groups.
A Tukey HSD Post hoc test was conducted to check whether
signicant differences were present across all four PCM stages in

the change pattern of affective DI and conative DI. The results

revealed that signicantly different conative change patterns were
only present between destination awareness and the other three
levels. Further examination of the pairwise comparisons results
revealed that those sport tourists holding the lowest psychological
connection level with the destination (i.e., awareness) declined
signicantly more in both affective DI and conative DI than the
three more highly connected groups. In other words, a continuous
decline was observed in both the feelings and visit intentions of
the least psychologically connected group over the 20 months.
Signicantly less decay was observed for all the other three PCM
groups in both affective DI and conative DI over the same
examination period. In particular, the sport tourists who held the
strongest psychological connection level with the host destination
(i.e., allegiance) demonstrated very stable feelings and revisit intentions over time.

5. Discussion and conclusion

Overall, the results of this study provide two main ndings.
First, different change patterns were observed in affective DI decay
and conative DI decay over a 20-month period. The decay of
affective DI over time was more pronounced in the rst 10-month
interval and then gradually slowed, eventually coming to a full
stop, and even rebounding in the second 10-month interval. In
other words, affective DI decay did not persist over timeit can be
re-stabilized at some point. On the other hand, the decay of
conative DI was slow at rst and then accelerated. Within the
examination period of 20 months, the conative DI decay did
demonstrate a continuous trend, although the magnitude of decay
within each examination interval was modest.
Second, the change pattern of conative DI over time was
moderated by the psychological connection level that a sport
tourist has with the host destination (i.e., destination involvement). Individuals with weaker psychological connections were
more susceptible to decline in their intention to revisit the
destination over time. Moreover, the decay of both affective DI
and conative DI over time was not moderated by sport tourists
familiarity with the destination.
5.1. Decay of affective and conative DI components over time

Fig. 4. Affective DI change over time for four PCM groups.

Fig. 5. Conative DI change over time for four PCM groups.

The hypothesized existence of an end-point for the decay of

sport tourists affective DI over time was supported (H1a) while
the hypothesized existence of an end-point for the decay of
conative DI over time was rejected (H1b). These results indicate
that the conative dimension of DI appears to be more susceptible
to decline over time than affective DI. Both affective and conative
components are considered highly emotive and context-sensitive
(i.e., temporally and spatially dependent), and so they can be
considered to be unstable over time and/or cross different situations (King et al., 2012). However, the nature of their instability is
different. Affect is more stable over time than conation because it
is directly derived from cognition which is less easily inuenced by
external factors (Li et al., 2009).
The signicant decline of affective DI in the rst 10-month
interval supports the ndings of King et al.'s (2012) study, further
conrming the halo effect which leads to articially inated
evaluative judgments of sport tourists towards the host destination when they have just returned from the event, as well as the
temporal effect on human memory which leads to a natural
decline over time. On the other hand, a relatively stable asymptote
emerged in the second 10-month interval on the affective DI's
continuing change. This indicates that sport tourists feelings
towards the host destination do not continually decline over time,

N. Chen et al. / Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 2 (2014) 241252

but tend to stop and re-stabilize at a certain point. This non-linear

trend can be explained by the classic forgetting curve of
Ebbinghaus (1964). Ebbinghaus conducted in-depth investigations
into human memory and forgetting functions. He maintains that
the curve of human forgetting will not show a never-ending
downward trend. Moreover, since affective DI refers to the emotional meaning that travelers attach to destinations based on
travel benets they seek (Walmsley & Young, 1998), it is likely
impossible for tourists to totally forget their meaningful emotional
connection with a specic destination.
On the other hand, the continual decay pattern of conative DI
over time discovered by this study might be attributed to the
following two reasons: the recency effect (Anderson & Farkas,
1973) and the novelty-seeking motivation of tourists (Dann, 1981).
First, the recency effect suggests that recent consumers tend to
repurchase and that the strength of their repurchase intention will
decline over time (Jang & Feng, 2007). In the current context, this
suggests sport tourists may tend to return to a recently visited
destination, but over time, the strength of their revisit intention
decreases. This temporal effect is supported by previous tourist
behavior studies (e.g., Assaker, Esposito Vinzi, & O'Connor, 2011).
Oppermann (1998) even suggests that, with the passage of time,
intention to revisit a destination diminishes; and that at a certain
point, vanishes completely.
Second, novelty seeking is recognized as a powerful motivation
for leisure tourists (Jang & Feng, 2007; Li, Cheng, Kim, & Petrick,
2008) due to its high relevance to curiosity, sensation seeking, and
an exploratory drive (Lee & Crompton, 1992). Sport tourists are no
exception. When they select a travel destination as leisure tourists,
the preference may be given to the destinations they have never
been to, rather than to visited destinations. Moreover, as Carlsen
and Charters (2007) suggest, the perceptions and memory of
a travel experience are inuenced by subsequent events and
stimuli. Thus, as memories of a specic place are replaced by
newer stimuli and attractive options over time, the revisit intention of tourists becomes increasingly distant from any particular
past experience.
5.2. Psychological connection with the destination
The hypothesis for the moderation effect of the psychological
connection with the destination on dimensional DI change over
time was partially supported (H2). The sport tourists with weaker
psychological connections were more susceptible to decline in
both affective DI and conative DI over time than were those with
stronger psychological connections with the destination. This
result provides further evidence for the crucial role of psychological connection in the temporal persistence of DI change (King
et al., 2012). As described in Section 2.3, this paper assumes a fourstage developmental process in sport tourists psychological connections with an event destination, developing from the lowest
level (awareness) to the highest level (allegiance). Individuals at
the awareness stage showed signicantly more decay in both
affective and conative DI over time than the people in the other
three higher stages. This is understandable given that at the lowest
level, sport tourists are only aware of the destination with very
basic knowledge or perceptions and have not yet established any
emotive attitudes towards the place. These less developed feelings
and behavioral intentions thus decline more easily with the
passage of time. In other words, visitors with low psychological
connection are more likely to switch to other travel destinations
over time.
From the second level of psychological connection, destination
attraction, sport tourists have formed a positive connection to the
destination represented by a distinct interest or preference to visit
this destination. Moreover, reaching the attachment stage means

249

that a more meaningful individual-destination bond has been

formed as the psychological connection continually strengthens
and becomes more stable (Funk, 2008). As shown by the change
curves in Figs. 4 and 5, destination attachment introduces the
concept of continuance and an element of stability to the
individual-destination connection in terms of behavior, rather
than affect/feelings. This result reects the fact that when a sport
tourist starts to assigning a more personalized and symbolic
meaning to a specic destination, a more stable and predictable
behavior can be expected (Beaton et al., 2009). Finally, the affective
and conative outcomes of the allegiance level have been shown by
this study to be the most resistant to change over time. The
destination allegiance level, therefore, can represent the most
stable and durable connection which contributes to an individual's
psychological commitment and behavioral loyalty towards a travel
destination (Beaton et al., 2009).
In conclusion, the ndings indicate that the level of psychological connection with a destination could perform well as
a predictor of tourists DI changes over time. The theoretical
PCM framework is thus substantiated as an appropriate tool for
examining sport tourists DI changes over time. This is of particular
signicance in promoting the theorization of DI change studies. In
addition, the ndings have conrmed that psychological connection is a critical factor in the temporal persistence of DI (Flay, 1978;
Sengupta, Goodstein, & Boninger, 1997). From an empirical viewpoint, it is impractical to expect a tourist could maintain a strongly
positive emotion or revisit intention towards a specic destination
over time if that tourist does not possess a strong psychological
connection with that place, especially in an increasingly competitive global tourism market (Baloglu, 2001b). Therefore, an ultimate
benecial goal of destination marketing should be to cultivate
potential and/or actual visitors psychological connections to the
destination, if marketers want to keep a sustainable positive image
and retain the repeated visitors.
5.3. Personal inuential factors on DI decay
As the rejection of hypotheses H3H5 indicates, no signicant
differences were observed between the rst-time and the repeat
visitors in either affective DI or conative DI decay over time.
Moreover, sport tourists actual revisitation and new information
acquired during the examination interval had no effect on their DI
decay over time. These ndings are contrary to the assumptions
based on existing literature (e.g., Fakeye & Crompton, 1991; Hu &
Ritchie, 1993; Milman & Pizam, 1995). Tourism researchers have
reported differences between rst-time and repeat visitors in
terms of their demographics, trip features, destination perceptions, perceived value, and travel motivations (Li et al., 2008).
While it is agreed that differences do exist between these two
tourist groups (Fakeye & Crompton, 1991; Fuchs & Reichel, 2011),
this study did not yield similar results. First-time and repeat
visitors demonstrated similar patterns in the change to their
feelings and behavioral intentions towards a destination over
a 20-month period.
On the other hand, as proposed in the continuing changes to
post-visit DI in the theoretical framework, the actual revisitation
and new information sought after participating in the event will
bring new stimuli (i.e., new encounters/experiences and new
information), which might induce a change of DI. Thus, those
sport tourists who revisited the event destination, and those who
searched for more information about the destination, should have
a different DI change trajectory from the people who did not
return or did not search for new information after the event.
However, this study did not nd the predicted differences between
revisitors and non-revisitors, neither between new information
seekers and non-seekers. These results might be explained by the

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N. Chen et al. / Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 2 (2014) 241252

effect of information strength. Researchers have identied that the

tourist DI is subject to change when two conditions are met the
new information conicts with the old information held by
the tourist, and the new information is persuasive enough. This
provides us with an explanation for the results of the current
study: the sport tourists did not receive any new information
about the destination after returning from the event, or the new
information they received was not persuasive enough. Therefore,
the images (i.e., affective and conative images) of this destination
held by these sport tourists were not changed.
In addition, caution should be exercised when generalizing
these ndings because of the case study approach adopted by this
study. Consideration regarding the prole of the sample is therefore emphasized. A signicant proportion of the sample (88%) was
not rst-time visitors to the host destination when they travelled
to attend the 2009 event. Among this large group of repeat
visitors, 61% had already visited the destination more than three
times. Therefore, the rejection of hypotheses H3, H4, and H5 could
be considered a valid result based on the signicant regular visitor
prole that the majority of the sample had. As such, it would be
reasonable to infer that these regular visitors had already formed
stable DIs of this destination before participating in the marathon
event, and that their DIs would not be easily changed through
additional visits or the acquisition of new information.
5.4. Theoretical and practical implications
5.4.1. Theoretical implications
This study makes several theoretical contributions. First, it
examined the DI change over a long period of time by conducting
a three-wave longitudinal panel study. This contributes empirical
ndings to the DI change literature by monitoring the same
individuals post-visit image changes towards a travel destination
over time through the repeated measures analysis. The ndings
highlight that DI change and particularly decay is not uniform but
structurally divergent among key components. Second, this study
applied a comprehensive multi-stage PCM framework to examine
the post-event DI change over time of sport tourists and the
factors inuencing this change. This represents a new approach
aimed at stimulating the theorization and systematization of DI
study. Lacking a conceptual framework and being atheoretical has
long been regarded as a major shortcoming of contemporary DI
research (Echtner & Ritchie, 1991; Gallarza et al., 2002).
Moreover, the ndings of this study contribute to the development of the PCM theoretical framework itself. The PCM was
developed for application to both sporting and leisure objects
(Beaton & Funk, 2008; Funk et al., 2007), but has only received
preliminary examination in the tourism domain (i.e., Filo et al.,
2013). Adopting the PCM in DI change studies allows for a closer
exploration into the different attitude change patterns of leisure
consumers who possess different psychological connection levels.
Prior to this study, the PCM lacked empirical examination of the
attitude change process occurring at each stage, and even less
consideration was given to the stability of the attitudinal and
behavioral outputs over time. The current study provides initial
ndings that affective DI and conative DI, as the outcomes of the
psychological process, will decay over time but the decay of
affective DI will stop at a certain point. Moreover, when the
individual's destination psychological connection level strengthens, the decay of both affective DI and conative DI diminishes.
In addition, by examining the moderating effect of sport
tourists psychological connections and personal destination
experiences on their affective DI and conative DI changes over
time, this study provided a chance to comprehensively examine
the interaction effects of selected personal, psychological and
environmental factors on attitude change processes. This is an

important development, given that most empirical studies of PCM

have focused on psychological factors (e.g., Filo et al., 2009, 2013).
In conclusion, the ndings obtained from this study are expected
to make a signicant contribution to the advancement of knowledge about tourism DI change over time and can help practitioners
realize the signicance of adjusting DI promotion strategies in a
timely manner.
5.4.2. Practical implications
The study results relating to the different change patterns of
affective DI and conative DI over time provide some managerial
implications. Conative DI was more susceptible to decline over
time due to a lack of novelty resulting from previous visitation(s).
Given that repeat visitors Affective DI is highly positive, the
marketing efforts of the destination should concentrate more on
developing and promoting novel tourism products that can meet
revisitors desire for novelty, thereby maintaining and improving
repeat patronage. On the other hand, destination marketers need
to help potential revisitors activate their positive feelings through
proper customer relationship strategies, as well as eliminate or
overcome their barriers to revisit. In general, marketers will have
opportunities to react to and inuence sport tourists decisionmaking with effective communication and marketing strategies by
considering the change patterns of DI over time.
Furthermore, the moderating effects of psychological connection on the stability of tourists DI over time suggest that it is
necessary to further differentiate tourist segment markets. Tailored image positioning and communication strategies should be
developed for distinctive segment of the tourist market (Baloglu &
McCleary, 1999b) to sustain or improve a positive pre-existing DI
over an extended period. Moreover, cultivating visitors attachment and allegiance/loyalty to the destination should be set as the
highest goal for destination marketers if they want to attract
repeat patronage. Day (1969) argued that genuine loyalty is
consistent purchase behavior rooted in positive attitudes towards
the product/brand. Following this lead, two-dimensional measurement (i.e., attitudinal & behavioral) has dominated loyalty studies,
and this approach has also been followed by destination loyalty
researchers (e.g., Oppermann, 1999, 2000). The ndings of this
study suggest that future efforts of destination management
organizations should focus more on building the behavioral loyalty
of visitors. Without such a change of focus, the nuances of what is
actually contributing to an enduring destination loyalty cannot be
understood (Baloglu, 2001b). This study contributes to an
enhanced comprehension of sport tourist loyalty development
towards a destination by providing a deeper understanding of how
the underpinning psychological connection progresses.
In addition, this study, through the application of the PCM
framework, establishes a new typology of tourist loyalty. By examining sport tourists image changes towards a destination, as well as
their psychological connections to the destination, marketers are
able not only to segment tourists by their connections, but also to
understand how the DI change differs at each stage. Such insight can
inform future targeted marketing initiatives.
5.5. Limitations and future directions
There are three main limitations to this study which should be
addressed. First, the small sample size is acknowledged as the
most salient limitation. It is well known that one of the signicant
difculties associated with conducting longitudinal panel studies
is attrition. Attrition can occur through death and withdrawal of
participants, or by losing touch with participants, or by non-return
of surveys by participants. Some types of attrition can be reduced
by identifying the risk factors for a specic type of attrition (Young

N. Chen et al. / Journal of Destination Marketing & Management 2 (2014) 241252

et al., 2006). Special strategies such as high incentives should be

utilized to retain panel members and improve response rates.
A lottery draw was used by the authors at each round of the
follow-up study so that a similar response rate was received. To
further improve the response rate, building up personal contacts
with the panel members outside of the online communications
may be useful in future studies.
The second limitation is the generalizability problem of the study
results because the current case study approach only permits the
results to be generalized for the sample population and the case
destination. This research was limited to a single annual marathon
held by a mature tourism destination in the southeast of the United
States. The event attracted more domestic than international participants, and the foreign participants were mainly from countries
geographically close to the destination and most of them were
repeat visitors. This resulted in a high percentage of respondents
being fairly familiar with the destination, and their impressions of
this destination had been formed previously and were more difcult
to change at any decision-making stage compared with the impressions of rst-time visitors. Therefore, this study cannot guarantee
the same results would be produced with different samples or
different sport events. Accordingly, replicating this study in other
sporting event settings and with broader samples would strengthen
the validation of the results and heighten condence for generalizing the results. Further studies conducting similar assessments are
needed for comparative purposes before any denite conclusions
can be drawn.
Additionally, the limited number of survey waves conducted
within a limited time period also restricts the generalizability of
the ndings. In this paper, the surveys were conducted at three
time points at 10-month intervals (i.e., two weeks, 10 months, and
20 months after the event participation). Surveys adopting different time intervals may generate different results. Moreover, the
three waves were still limited for examining DI change over time,
and longer-term monitoring would be necessary to investigate the
temporal effects of DI change. Future research could increase the
survey frequency over a longer examination period, using different
intervals.

6. Conclusion
According to the best of the authors knowledge, the present
study is the rst to monitor the same sample's post-event DI
change over three time points using a longitudinal panel approach.
The results suggest that the decline of post-event affective DI held
by sport tourists tended to stop and re-stabilize over time, while
the decay of conative DI tended to continue over time. Affective DI
was more stable than conative DI over the long term. Moreover,
the psychological connection of sport tourists with the destination
moderated their conative DI decay over time. These ndings
provide support for strengthening the focus on the psychological
connection of individual travelers with the destination in future
tourism marketing strategies, and for developing differentiated
market segment communication strategies to cultivate tourist
loyalty to destinations.

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