Content area
Full text
Introduction
Tourism industry players operate in an extremely competitive environment characterised by high levels of ambiguity, complexity and constant changes (Alsawafi, 2017). Recent events such as an increase in security unrest, rising fuel prices, global slowdown of the economy and political instability can make cross-border tourism susceptible to losses (Huang et al., 2015). In this volatile landscape, tourism industry players must develop capabilities in detecting environmental changes and offer an accurate response that positions them effectively. In this regard, it becomes essential for them to understand what causes various market segments to travel and visit a foreign destination (Chang and Chiang, 2019; Lee et al., 2019; Shan et al., 2020). This would provide marketing managers, travel agencies and even policymakers more significant insights into designing tourism products at a destination to facilitate touring intention.
One of the niche markets that has gained popularity is the destination marathon. Since the early 1970s, destination marathons have become a key event in tourism calendars. Destination marathons promise tourism industry growth, an enhancement to the image of the host city and improvement to social benefits for the community (Jeong and Kim, 2019; Qiu et al., 2019). For instance, the 2017 New York City marathon saw participants from 124 countries, attracted 2.5m spectators along the course, and generated an economic impact of US$415m (Forbes, 2017). Likewise, the Malaysian Investment Development Authority reported that some of the best marathons in Malaysia including the Standard Chartered Kuala Lumpur Marathon, Penang Bridge International Marathon, Kuching Marathon and Melaka Marathon, attracted more than 100,000 enthusiasts in 2018, and contributed to the overall RM5bn of sports tourism receipts (Mida, 2019). Given the economic potential of destination marathons, organisers are increasingly pulling out all the stops by involving the government, partners and other stakeholders to give the event the boosts and the support it needs to provide one of the best experiences for the marathon enthusiasts.
Various literature converges to three similar points on the growing popularity of destination marathons. First, it provides a distinct image of “active”, “heroic” and “mass participation”, which has, in turn, cast a positive image for the host destination. Secondly, destination marathons have been identified as an activity that improves participants' mental health that...