An Analysis of Service Marketing Mix Factors Influencing Spectator Attendance At an International Badminton Tournament in Thailand

Abstract

Sports have become one of the most popular entertainment and leisure activities in the world which can generate enormous revenue for sport organizations and associated sectors, especially international sporting events also have an enormous impact on the economy of the country. However, the leisure activities related to sports like attending sporting event was not popular among Thai population, although Thai government have been promoting sports and exercise by creating many projects, policies and also hosted several international sporting events. Badminton has become one of the top ten most popular sports in Thailand. Recently, the government has been promoting badminton by recognizing badminton as a professional career in the Professional Sport Act 2013. Many Thai professional badminton players have showed their spectacular and outstanding performance in many high-level international competitions. However, unfortunately, the number of spectators in Thailand international badminton tournaments have been decreasing in the past few years. In order to increase spectator attendance, it is important for sporting event managers to understand what influences spectators to participate in the sporting events. Therefore, the objective of this quantitative research study was to analyze service marketing mix factors (7Ps) influencing spectator attendance at an international badminton tournament in Thailand. Through the findings within this study, they can develop effective marketing strategies for retaining current spectators and recruiting new one.

The study target is spectators who attended one of the two biggest international badminton tournaments in Thailand: SCG Thailand Open 2017 or Princess Sirivannavari Thailand Masters 2017 (n = 200). The online survey instrument with purposive sampling method was used for data collection. Regression analysis was used to analyze the null hypothesis.

The results indicated that product, price, place, promotion, physical evidence and process variables affected spectators desire to attend the international badminton tournament in Thailand. On the other hand, only people variable did not affect spectators desire to attend the international badminton tournament in Thailand. Overall, the results of the analysis indicated that managing the marketing dimensions of people is less important than managing interactive marketing dimensions of product, price, place, promotion, physical evidence and process. However, one implication is that product of the tournament seemed to be the most important element which can attract spectator to the tournament. The tournament managers should place important on developing and improving their strategies in order to attract more high-profile players to the tournament.

Keywords: Service marketing mix, badminton, sport spectator