How important is a bike park visit for the overall tourist destination experience?

• Main Authors: Philipp Schlemmer, Florian Falkner, Lisa Müller, Christian Raschner, Martin Schnitzer
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Taylor & Francis Group 2019-01-01
• Series: Cogent Social Sciences
• Subjects: sports tourism; tourist satisfaction; destination perception; bikepark; destination marketing
• Online Access: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23311886.2019.1613027

Tourism has become a highly competitive sector, forcing destinations to reinvent and constantly enhance extraordinary experiences in accordance with their miscellaneous destination characteristics, whilst considering mountain biking as a growing phenomenon. This study, therefore, aims at providing a general profile of bike park visitors and at identifying key success factors for a bike park in the context of a destination. A quantitative survey (n = 325) was conducted in a cross-sectional design. The results suggest differing types of visitors with diversified perceptions of a bike park’s key success factors related to the overall perception of sojourn satisfaction. This research extends the literature by (1) shedding light on a booming phenomenon and revealing profiles of bike-park tourists, (2) pointing out key success factors of a bike park and (3) providing information about the perceptions of a bike park related to the overall tourism destination.