EXPLORING EXPERIENTIAL QUALITY IN SPORT TOURISM EVENTS: THE CASE OF MACAU GRAND PRIX.

Understanding tourists' future behavior is significant for local tourism profits. This paper aims to examine the interrelationships among experiential quality, tourist satisfaction, experiential trust, sharing tourism experience on social media, and extension effect. 796 responses were collected in the 66th MGP (Macau Grand Prix) via questionnaires. The results reveal that four dimensions (physical environment quality, access quality, outcome quality, and enjoyment quality) have positive effects on experiential quality. In addition, the results also indicate the following relationships: Experiential quality has a significant effect on tourist satisfaction; experiential quality and tourist satisfaction positively influence experiential trust; tourist satisfaction and experiential trust have significant effects on behavior of sharing tourism experience on social media, and both tourist satisfaction and experiential trust positively influence extension effect. This paper identifies the dimensions of experiential quality in sport tourism events and it plays a leading role in extending literature on tourists' behavioral intentions of sharing behavior on social media and extension effect. The findings assist practitioners to implement marketing strategies of MGP, which enhance the extension effect and the new marketing promotions through social media. They also help various stakeholders such as destination managers and travel agents to trigger and increase local tourism profits. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]