Georgia Yfantidou, Ourania Matsouka, George Costa and Maria Michalopoulos, Department of Physical Education and Sports Science, Democritus University of Thrace
Abstract
This paper examines the human needs that predict the preference of sports tourism in
Greece; explores the tourist typology and emphasise at sport tourist roles. The sample was 269
sports tourists who visited Greece in summer. The questionnaire is based on the Tourist Roles
Preference Scale of Gibson and Yiannakis (2002), and was translated in Greek, German and
Russian. This survey suggests promoting sports tourism especially to women and also to create
and promote sports events for ages over 40, because there is a lack of participation in those
groups and a lack of events that match to these ages and gender. Furthermore, this exploratory
research has revealed that in the future tourist behaviour is suggested to be described by only 8
tourist roles.
Keywords: sports tourism, needs, motivation, behaviour
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