Travel overseas for a game: the effect of nostalgia on satellite fans’ psychological commitment, subjective well-being, and travel intention

Abstract

Sport tourists have the potential to create a significant impact on the development of regional economy and tourism. Especially, satellite fans who enthusiastically support foreign-based teams through media platforms are now drawing attention in the fields of sport and tourism. However, despite the attention from academia and industry, it has not been much studied on factors influencing satellite fans' psychological and behavioral responses. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to extend theoretical evidence of the relationships among satellite fans' nostalgia, psychological commitment, subjective well-being, and travel intention. Data were collected from satellite fans of European professional football leagues in Singapore. The findings showed all hypothesized relationships identified to be significant except for the direct path from satellite fans' nostalgia to travel intention. However, the indirect effects of nostalgia on travel intention were established through psychological commitment and subjective well-being. The findings of this study shed light on the role of nostalgia on satellite fans' psychological and behavioral outcomes. As a result, this provided a fresh perspective for sport tourism marketers to strategize new marketing styles that utilize nostalgic elements to generate satellite fans' nostalgia.

Understanding Active Sport Tourist Behaviors in Small-Scale Sports Events: Stimulus-Organism-Response Approach

“…Chang et al [28] employed new physical surroundings (S), utilitarian value (cognitive organism), hedonic value (affective organism), and re-visitation (R); the main contribution of their study was to incorporate a functional value in their SOR-based conceptual model. In the sport tourism context, Cho and his colleagues incorporated nostalgia (emotions) as key stimuli that affect tourist behavioral intentions [22,23]. Considering these findings, the present study aimed to explore the relationships between emotional experience (S), functional value (cognitive organism), emotional value (affective organism), tourist satisfaction (R), and destination loyalty (R) to better understand behaviors of participatory tourists to a small marathon event.…”

“…In investigating tourist behaviors, the stimulus-organism-response (SOR) theory has become one of the most widely used theories by incorporating input (S), processes (O), and outputs (R) for decades [21]. In sport tourism contexts, a few studies have employed SOR theory to elucidate sport tourists' behaviors [22,23]. These studies considered emotions (nostalgia) to be stimuli, and their influence on attitudinal components (organism) and consequence behavioral intention (response) were examined.…”

Sport nostalgia builds customer equity and future behavior

“…Nostalgia has been investigated as one of the essential constructs researching individuals' behaviors in various settings, including sport tourism (Cho et al , 2019b, c, 2020b), consumer behavior (Holbrook and Schindler, 2003) and leisure (Cho, 2020; Cho et al , 2019d, 2020c). In particular, nostalgia has been highlighted to affect individuals' behavioral intentions (Cho et al , 2020a, d). For example, in the context of tourism, Leong et al (2015) provided empirical evidence that nostalgia was a strong motivator for tourists to revisit their travel destinations.…”

“…Given that nostalgia has been understood as an emotion that is evoked by positive past experiences (Davis, 1979; Stern, 1992) and creates attachment with brands or companies, resulting in consumers' purchasing behavior (Muehling and Sprott, 2004), it is essential to explore the role of nostalgia on customer equity to provide a more holistic approach in understanding consumers' behavior. In particular, nostalgia has been identified as a significant emotional factor to understand individuals' psychological and behavioral responses (Cho et al , 2020a, d). However, it should be noted that the role of nostalgia, regarded as an individual's emotion (Sedikides et al , 2004), in establishing customer equity has not been examined in the extant literature (Heinberg et al , 2019).…”

How nostalgia forges place attachment and revisit intention: a moderated mediation model

“…In other words, when sport tourists remember fond sport-related experiences and feel nostalgic, they may find themselves being attached to the place. This sense of attachment would then further motivate them to seek similar experiences in the future, indicating that nostalgia is a key factor in predicting individuals' behavior (Cho et al, 2021a andMuehling andPascal, 2011).…”