Conference Paper

Leivadi, S., Tzoumaka, E. (2023). The authentic marathon swim: Understanding swimmers’ experiences and behavior in a small-scale sport tourism event. In V. Katsoni (Ed.), Tourism, travel, and hospitality in a smart and sustainable world (pp. 571–585). IACuDiT 2022. Springer, Cham.

Authors

Stella Leivadi & Eugenia Tzoumaka

DOI

https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-26829-8_36

Abstract

The Authentic Marathon Swim is a small sport tourism event which consists of an open-water swimming event, and it is organized by the Municipality of Istiea-Edipsos at Pefki in the island of Evoia, Greece. The event includes six races (14.5-km, 10-km, 5-km, 3-km, 1.5-km, and a 500-m kids’ race). It has historical significance because it replicates a 2.500-year-old event that of Skyllias and his daughter Hydna who are considered according to Herodotus the first marathon swimmers. This event has a short but dynamic history of 3 years, all of them under the pandemic circumstances. Nevertheless, the last version of the event (2022) attracted 170 participants (55 children) from 14 different countries. The purpose of this paper was to describe the participants’ experience and behavior. This was investigated through a questionnaire which included questions related to the quality of their experience with the event; the location and its amenities; spending (accommodation, food, retail) while at the event; and future intentions regarding the event and the location as well as other administrative questions (e.g., location of residence, travel companions, location and duration of stay, etc.). Overall, the findings of this study revealed that this is a successful event which contributes not only to the image of the location but it also has a significant economic impact. In addition, the results also confirm previous research, which claims that positive word-of-mouth and the behavioral intentions of active tourists are affected positively by the destination image (i.e., Kaplanidou and Vogt, Journal of Sport & Tourism 12:183–206, 2007; Kaplanidou and Gibson, Journal of Sport & Tourism 15:163–179, 2010; Kaplanidou et al., Journal of Sport Management 26:237–248, 2012; Zhang et al., Tourism Management 40:213–223, 2014). In conclusion, findings have practical applicability to policy makers (local government and officials) as well as to event marketers.