In Search of Relived Social Experience: Group-Based Nostalgia Sport Tourism

TLDR

Some fans travel to follow professional sport teams, but the reasons behind this behavior are not fully understood. The study aims to answer why some fans travel to follow professional sport teams. The authors used participant observation and ethnographic interviews to examine the motives and behaviors of a group undertaking a 5‑day bus trip to watch its team play in a distant city. The study found that nostalgia is a key element of the experience, with nostalgic recollections of past trips driving repeated travel and socializing new members, and identified five nostalgia‑related themes—motive, norms and rituals, best experience, trip suggestions, and socialization—suggesting that group‑based nostalgia may play a more significant role in fan travel behavior than previously recognized and can foster repeat purchase.

Abstract

Why do some fans travel to follow professional sport teams? In order to answer that question, participant observation and ethnographic interviews were used to examine the motives and behaviors of a group that undertakes a 5-day bus trip to watch its team play in a distant city. Nostalgia was identified as a key element of the experience. In particular, nostalgic recollections of past trips were found to be a vital basis for repeated travel by the group and for socializing new members. Five themes having to do with nostalgia were identified: nostalgia as motive, norms and rituals as objects of nostalgia, best experience as object of nostalgia, nostalgia as a basis for trip suggestions, and nostalgia through socialization. It is suggested that group-based nostalgia can play a more significant role in fan travel behavior than has heretofore been recognized and that nostalgic appeals can foster repeat purchase.