The Role of Running as Sport and Intention to Participate in Tourism Running Event

Abstract

In recent years, there are certain trend amongst sport enthusiast, to take part on sport events located outside their city of residence. Specifically, the trend is peaking up amongst runners, who take part in running races in various destinations. This study aims to identify the antecedents and outcomes variables of running involvement, strength of running event motivation, place attachment, city image, and running event satisfaction to determine how it affects the intention to participate in tourism running event. The authors conducted questionnaire research related to Borobudur Marathon running event, to 104 participants actively engage in running as sport. The study found out that strength of running event motivation, place attachment, and running event satisfaction give positive relations toward Intention to Participate in Tourism Running Event. While Magelang (with its Borobudur) lacks the important social role to attract sport tourist to visit, the act of creating annual sport tourism event like Borobudur Marathon will highly benefits both the organizer and the residents of the city to create a one-of-a-kind running race experience, exclusively to Borobudur area.