Perception of Service Quality, Satisfaction and Intent to Return in Tourists of a Sport Event

The aim of the current study was to investigate satisfaction and the perceived service quality and intent to return in sport tourists of a sport event. This study was descriptive correlation conducted as a field. The statistical sample consisted of 350 tourists who attended the national competitions of a traditional wrestling in Esfarayen city. Shonk (2006) questionnaire was used to collect data. Confirmatory factor analysis was used to determine the construct validity of the questionnaire and Cronbach’s alpha coefficient was applied to determine the reliability of different sections of the questionnaire. Kolmogorov – Smirnov test was used to determine the normality of the data distribution. Pearson correlation coefficient was used to determine the relationship among variables and structural equation modeling (SEM) was used to provide the model and explain the relationship between dependent and independent variables using LISREL software. The results showed that contest quality, access quality and place quality respectively had the highest effect on satisfaction and intent to return in sport event tourists. Presenting sport tourism service quality model can offer guidelines for managers who intend to benefit most from sport tourism events.