Sport tourism spectators’ environmental sustainability intentions in an international surfing event

Resumo

The assessment of environmental strategies and practices is an essential factor in in sport tourism events environmental sustainability. Thus, this investigation aimed to study spectators’ environmental intentions in an international surfing event using the sport sustainability campaign evaluation model (SSCEM).

A questionnaire was applied to 343 spectators of the World Championship Tour at Peniche, Portugal. The data were analysed with the Structural Equation Modelling Analysis.

The results confirmed the influence of points of attachment and internal constraints on spectators’ attitudes towards environmental campaign. However, attitudes towards environmental campaign did not influence spectators’ sustainability intentions. Only, external constraints and past behaviours were associated to spectators’ sustainable intentions. This research added valuable knowledge on the factors influencing the sport consumers’ environmental intentions providing knowledge to sport managers to better plan future campaigns regarding the target audience. Furthermore, this investigation confirmed the SSCEM's ability to analyse the consequences of the environmental campaigns developed by the sport tourism events.