Elite active sport tourists: Economic impacts and perceptions of destination image

Active sport tourism has been defined as travel away from the home environment to actively participate in sport. However there is a dearth of research focusing on active sport tourists. Furthermore, researchers also identified a significant gap existed in the sport tourism literature regarding elite athletes. Although research focusing on hallmark sport events has been abundant, several researchers have identified a lack of research on small-scale sport events. Thus, the purpose of this research was to provide an analysis of elite active sport tourists' expenditures and the resultant direct economic impact of these expenditures, as well as their perceptions of the host destination in a small-scale international sport event: East Asian Games. A total of 140 elite athletes from eight different countries and regions in East Asia participated in this study.