“ WILD LEAGUE ” IN WATER POLO : AN EXPLORATION OF RECREATIONAL SPORTS EVENT VISIT MOTIVATION

Scope of this study was to identify motivational factors related to specific recreational sport event: “Wild league” in water polo, which takes place in Dubrovnik, have very long tradition. First goal of the study is to determine the relationship between motivational factors related to this event, as well as with socio-demographic variables. Second goal is to determine the differences in motivational factors, according to several independent variables, mainly related to the previous experiences with sports and touristic destination. The cross-sectional study is conducted. The sample of 125 participants was examined, using the Questionnaire on sports event. All participants were Croatian citizens, excluding those who are born, and currently live in Dubrovnik. Major sports tourism motives of the potential tourists in this sporting event, were obtained. In general, the importance of the benefits of sports and tourist destination prevailed, as compared with their limitations, which appeared as an important factor only in participants who didn’t visited Dubrovnik yet. At the participants, pull factors, i.e. advanced sports and travel motives slightly dominated over push motives, but statistically significant only in females, who expressed more sophisticated pulling tourist motives, such as the acquisition of knowledge about the destination. Correlations indicate that previous interest in sport, particularly in water polo and Wild League, are moderate positively associated with pushing motives. Moreover, previous recreationally engaging in sports, as well as destination-related origin, appeared as the important factors for having more emphasized pull motives for visiting this sport event. Level of the education did not appear as important factor in differentiating main type of motives in target population. Results provide initial information about the possibility of profiling potential tourists who could be motivated to visit the destination by this particular sports event.


INTRODUCTION
This research has a fundamental purpose of a framework to explore the motivation for sports tourism in the context of recreational water polo competition Wild League in Dubrovnik.The insights from this study can provide the guidance on the possibility of improving conditions for sports and / or cultural tourism in terms of the local attractive recreational-sports event.

Sports tourism
Sports tourism includes travel from the primary residence for the purpose of participating in sports activities (recreational or competitive), travel by participating in sports competitions elite level, as well as visits to sporting attractions such as water parks or "houses of the fame" (Gibson, Attle, & Yiannakis, 1997; Gibson, 2004).The basic resources of a particular tourist destination are natural and cultural resources, tourist facilities, communications infrastructure, accommodation and the restaurants.The combination of local tourism resources and the services that are offered, determines the type of tourism, which belongs to a particular place: for example, coastal (marine), mountain tourism, sport, religious tourism, gastronomic, conference, or business tourism (HM Government, 2014).

Motives in sports tourism: push and pull factors
Tourism and sport are the key elements of contemporary culture, having an important impact on the society as a whole (Ottevanger, 2007;Whyte, Hood, & White, 2012).Within the sports tourism, there is an essential difference between active and passive participating sports audience.The last (several dozen) years there has been a significant increase in sports tourism related to sporting events, and for many tourists, attending or participating in sporting events, has become the main reason for travel (Delpy, 1997).Most of the motives of sports tourism in the literature tends to categorize the reasons for tourist travel motives as "escaping from" (e.g. the noise, working everyday routine, routine in general, etc.) and / or "running on" (e.g.places where you can confidently relax or entertain) certain destination (Pizam, & Mansfeld, 2000;Mohamed, & Othman, 2012).
A "pushing" (push) factors represent mostly socio-psychological motivation, based on the need "running away from" everyday current human environment.The desire to escape on certain tourist destination (due to its attractiveness, or some other reason), can be called "pulling" (pull) factors (Ottevanger, 2007).Dann (1977, from Kim, & Chalip, 2004) provides a basic model with seven different categories of tourist motivations.these are: tourist trips which are the response to what is currently missing to someone (pushing factors); the attractiveness of a particular destination (pulling factors); wish to fulfill own fantasy; motivation with a clear purpose, such as visiting friends and relatives or learning; different types of motivation; already experienced motivational experience; motivation which is self-defined (with the meaning that it is better to define tourists within certain situations, not only observing their behavior).Crompton deepens Dann's theory of pushing and pulling factors, and believes that there are nine motives for tourist travels, seven of which are socio-psychological or pushing motives, while the other two are cultural or pulling motives (Crompton, 1979, from Kim, & Chalip, 2004).Pushing motives are escape, self-exploring, relaxation, prestige, regression and social interactions.Pulling motives are the novelty and education.Two main types of pushing and pulling motives could be identified: personal and interpersonal (Mannel, & Iso-Ahola, 1987, from Pizam, & Mansfeld, 2000).They point out that the purpose of both types of motives is the fact that people want to leave behind personal or interpersonal problems and find personal or interpersonal awards.Personal awards are self-determination, sense of competence, challenge, learning, exploring and relaxing.Interpersonal awards are the result of social interactions (Pizam, & Mansfeld, 2000).Hall's (1992) model distinguishes between two types of active participation in sports tourism: active participants consider their participation as a medium of self-expression, while the competitors have strong competitive motives in this active participation.On the other hand, passive consumers of sport do not participate in sports activities, but they are following these major sports events, by visiting distinguished sports websites or monitoring of sports news.Gammon and Robinson's (1997) model differentiates two forms of sports tourism: the term "sports tourism" is used if sport is the main reason for travel, while the term "tourism sport" is used when the participation in sports activities is secondary activity among many others.Standeven and De Knop (1999) made the distinction between different sports tourism purposes.One principle is based on the purpose of rest (someone travel to rest and for some of them it is not a purpose of their holidays), while the other principle is a presence or the absence of need to be active and passive sports tourists.Passive sports tourists are those who want to visit sporting events or sports museums.Active sports tourists can engage in sports activities with the rest, where the sport is the main purpose of travel, or in vacation with sports activities, where the sport is a subsidiary activity.In addition to the authors who differ participating actively and passive audience, there are also several other theories.Weed and Bull (2004) distinguish five categories of sports tourism: sports training, sports events, elite sports events, sports tourism with the active participation and tourism with occasional involvement in sports activities.Reeves (2000, from Hinch, & Higham, 2004) identified six different types of sports tourism visitors, divided as: random, sporadic, occasional, regular, committed and driven.

Previous findings
Among numerous studies in this area, Green & Chalip (1998) investigated the female soccer players in the United States, which took part in the annual tournament in Florida.Their research revealed that playing football not away from home or the place (Florida) is not the motive, which attracts players, but the fact that they could be together with colleagues engaged in the same sport, from distant places the United States.Kim & Chalip (2004) investigated 600 Americans attending the FIFA World Cup in South Korea and Japan in 2002, obtaining the findings that the main reason for their visit to South Korea and/or Japan was their interest in the World Cup.Financial constraints have influenced negatively on people going to similar events.It is interesting that the people themselves have the ability to create a quality of some sports center.The example of such new appeared "sports center" is a collection of football fans who watch matches in public places on a temporary set TV screens, e.g. during the World Cup in Germany in 2006 (Hinch, & Higham, 2004).Gathering people creates a place that attracts people who were not interested in particular sport, but just like "being in a sports atmosphere".There are three qualities of the importance of sports tourism: attachment to the place, the identity of the place and dependence on a place (Hinch, & Higham, 2004).In a study of a motivation for visiting Wimbledon tournament, it was shown that the motives of the parties are the main reason why people want to visit this great sporting event, while the second motive is the attractiveness of the host-destination (Ottevanger, 2007).It was surprising that the festivities around the event for the spectators were more important than the competition itself.The visit to this great sporting event (unlike other forms of the tourism), had not be seen as a "time for a break" (Ottevanger, 2007).

Wild League as a sports event
Owning a strong position of the City of Dubrovnik as a destination of culture tourism means inventing new forms of presentation and promotion of this touristic center (Rudan, 2012), while in the same time striving to keep the Dubrovnik tradition and culture (Vrtiprah 2006).The local traditional sporting (in fact recreational sports) events, which are observed by tourists or in which they actively participate, may be developed into an attractive touristic product (Šiljeg, Perinić Lewis, & Sindik, 2014).The Wild league ("Divlja liga"), as a cultural and sports event, offers a wide variety of impressive, formal cultural products.It is simultaneously a lively and layered tradition, as well as the spirit of the local Dubrovnik atmosphere (Šiljeg et al., 2014).The Wild league is a popular amateur water polo competition, which is taking place in Dubrovnik's beaches.Although it is based solely on the enthusiasm and the volunteer activities of all of the participators and organizers, its rules and regulations are precisely defined and well respected (Šiljeg et al., 2014).This tournament has an exceptionally local character.The first precondition for play in in this tournament is being a local inhabitant (Divlja liga 2015).The fact that Wild league tournament is held between end-July and mid-August, means that this local recreational sport activity might be much better integrated into the touristic offer, representing the cultural and economic potential of the City and the County (Šiljeg et al., 2014).
Hence, as the component of the sports (recreational) and cultural tourism product, the Wild league ought to be better emphasized in Dubrovnik's touristic offer.The challenges of affirming the Wild league as Dubrovnik's distinct brand are being explored in this study, by the insight in differences and correlations between sports touristic motives, different sociodemographic variables, as well as the issue-related variables (interest in sports, Dubrovnik's heritage, etc.).
Therefore, the overall objective of the research was to determine the factors related to sports tourism in the context of recreational water polo competition Wild League in Dubrovnik, in Croatian citizens, who may actually be potential tourists.The first goal of the study was to determine the correlation between the very different motives of sports tourism, and then the correlation between these motives with participants' age, their education level and the duration of follow-up of this sporting event.The second goal was to determine the differences in the motives of sports tourism in relation to the gender and marital status of participants.

METHOD Participants
The purposeful sample of 125 participants was examined.The wide inclusion criterion was Croatian citizenship, excluding those participants who are born, and currently live in Dubrovnik.By their age group (N), the distribution of participants was as following: 21-30 (17), 31-40 (35), 41-50 (42), 51-60 (24), age >60 (5).By gender, there were 44 male and 81 female participants.By the frequency of previous being in Dubrovnik and its environment (N), the distribution of participants was as following: never (5), less or equal twice (26), 3-5 (46), more than 6 times (48).By the reason why someone most often came in Dubrovnik and its environment (N) the distribution of participants was as following: never in Dubrovnik (5), business (22), private -touristic (77) and private -other reasons (21).According to educational level (N), participants are distributed as follows: high school (6), college (bacc.)(16), graduate (mag.)(66), master of science (19) and Ph.D. (18).According to their engaging in sports (N), participants are distributed as follows: not interested in sports (4), no time for playing sports (10), playing sports recreation in the past (26), playing sports actively in the past (23), playing sports recreation now (58), playing sports actively now (4).According to Dubrovnik's heritage, 110 participants have not Dubrovnik's heritage, 6 have closer relatives, while 9 were born in Dubrovnik or its environment.According to the interest in sports (Likert scale with the range from 1 -absolutely not interested to 5 -absolutely interested), the median is 4 (interested in sports).According to the interest in water polo (Likert scale in range from 1 -absolutely not interested to 5absolutely interested), the median is 3 (indifferent about water polo).For the question "Have you ever heard about Wild League?" (with Likert scale with the range from 1 -never heard about to 5 -very familiar with this event), the median is 3.
The first set of the items relates to the majority of the demographic variables and previous sports experience, while the items No. 1-8 are related to the pushing factors (categories: escape from everyday life, relaxation, self-exploration, fun and socializing).Items No. 9-16 refer to the pulling factors (categories: news, self-development and destination).Finally, items No. 17-20 relate to restrictions (category: the risks and threats).The estimates for each item are expressed on a Likert scale of five degrees, varying in range from strongly disagree (1) to strongly agree (5).In this study, the dimensions of the questionnaire showed satisfying reliability type internal consistency.Cronbach's alpha for pushing factors was 0.885, for pulling factors 0.736 and for limitations 0.638).The questionnaire was distributed to the participants, translated in Croatian language.The data were collected from October to November 2015, by online survey (Google Surveys tool), while the participants are informed about scientific purpose of the research and guaranteed anonymity.

Statistical analysis
The correlations were calculated by Spearman's rank-correlation coefficients, while the differences between two independent samples of subjects are tested with t-tests for independent samples or Mann Whitney U-test.Kruskal Wallis tests are used for testing the differences among more than two independent sample of subjects.All statistical significances are commented on the significance level at p <0.05 and p <0.01.Statistical analysis are performed using statistical package IBM SPSS 23.0.

RESULTS
Table 1 shows the differences in the motives of sports tourism, by participants' gender and Dubrovnik heritage.No statistically significant gender differences in the motives of sports tourism were found.In terms of Dubrovnik heritage (closer relatives or born in Dubrovnik vs. without Dubrovnik's heritage), only significant difference is found in pushing motives.Participants with Dubrovnik's heritage showed more pronounced pushing motives, than those who do not have this heritage.The differences in motives of sports tourism, according to personal engagement in sports, were not statistically significant (Table 2).Differences in the motives of sports tourism by the most often reasons for being in Dubrovnik are statistically significant both for pushing motives and limitations (Table 3).Participants who are going in Dubrovnik because of private -other visits have the highest pushing motives, while the lowest medians are found for private -touristic visits.On the other hand, participants who have never been in Dubrovnik perceive the highest limitations, while the limitations are the least for these who are coming in Dubrovnik because of private -other reasons.In Table 4, the correlations between the motives of sports tourism, educational level, age group and other variables are presented, for all participants together and separately for males and females.For pushing motives, the correlations with other variables (except the intercorrelations between sport motives) have very similar sizes, directions and levels of significance for males, females and all participants together.Positive and moderately high correlations are found with variables: interest in sports in general, interest in water polo and previous knowledge of Wild league.For pulling motives, the correlations with other variables are in general with lower sizes (although positive directed) than for pushing motives.All these correlations with pulling motives were non-significant for males, while for all participants significant correlations are found with the interest in water polo and previous knowledge of Wild league.Only in females, significant correlations with pulling motives are found with the interest in water polo.Finally, the only low and negative correlation with the limitations is found between previous being in Dubrovnik (and its environment), for all participants and for females (not in males).Although pushing and pulling motives are moderately high and positively intercorrelated in all three samples of participants, pulling motives moderately and positively correlate with limitations only in males.

DISCUSSION
At first, when considering average values of scores for pushing, pulling motives and perceived limitations in sport tourism, linked with the Wild League (for all participants in total, for different independent variables), it could be noticed that scores for pushing and pulling motives are around or slightly above theoretical average.On the other hand, perceived limitations are around of slightly below theoretical average.These findings might indicate two explanations.
First, that the Wild League is very specific sports (or/ and cultural) event, which is attractive for specific profiles of tourists only.Secondly, the reputation of Dubrovnik as touristic destination has a potential to prevail many limitations, perceived by tourists, especially those who had visited Dubrovnik before.
Differences in the motives of sports tourism were not obvious by gender or by participant's personal engagement in sports.Dubrovnik's heritage appeared as the factor linked with stronger pushing motives.Similarly, stronger pushing motives were more relat-ed with travelling to Dubrovnik because of private causes (non-touristic).Pushing motives were more strongly linked with interest in sports in general, as well as in the water polo and (more) previous knowledge about Wild league.
Based on these findings, it seems that the pushing motives of this specific type of sports (and cultural) tourism were more emphasized for the participants who have some relatives (or friends) in Dubrovnik, independently of gender and personal engagement in sports.They probably have more positive experiences about staying in Dubrovnik, not (only) linked with sports or cultural events.It could be considered that pushing factors of positive motivation for sports tourism might overcome the constraints in our participants, who are probably giving stronger attention to the benefits of this sports tourism destination, more than on the restrictions (Sindik, 2014).This specific setting on benefits can potentially indicate the attractiveness of this tourist destination for tourists (Ottevanger, 2007).Consequently, it is understandable that the participants who had never been in Dubrovnik perceived the highest limitations, while negative correlations are found between previous visiting Dubrovnik (and its environment), in all participants and in females.Positive intercorrelation between pushing and pulling motives in all participants, could be explained simply in terms of the attractiveness of some touristic destination, which can be simultaneously place for relaxing (running away from) and place which is particularly attractive destination (going to this place) (Kim, & Chalip, 2004).Pulling motives are positively and significantly associated with the interest in water polo, but only in females.As tentative "advanced" psychological motives (attractiveness of the destination is more important than escape from everyday life), it seems like pulling motives are more linked with this specific interest in female participants.This finding could be surprising, but not when considering the fact that sport tourism (especially this sports recreational, which is more cultural than typical sport event).Namely, for active physical exercising, for example in the student population, male students are more motivated by intrinsic factors (need for power, competition and challenge), females are more often driven by extrinsic motives (body weight control and appearance) (Egli, Bland, Melton, & Czech, 2011).Active participation is sport could be attractive for several types of motives: fun, enjoyment, improving skills, and learning, being with friends, success, winning and health (Gaston-Gayles, 2005; Mouratadis, Vansteenkiste, Lens, & Sideridis, 2008; Waldron, & Dieser, 2010).Probable reason why pulling motives positively correlate with limitations only in males could be more emphasized need for rest in males, than in females.The need to be relaxed through sports and physical activities could be stronger emphasized in men (Egli et al., 2011).In the previous research with similar measuring instrument in Croatia, the results revealed that women observers of particular sport event (windsurfing championship) have more pronounced pulling motives (innovation and education) (Sindik, 2014).Similarly, possible explanation could lead in direction that women are not just "funs" of the recreational water polo players.They might have more sophisticated interests than men have (sport, cultural, etc.).Overall, it seems like that about the Wild league event, the attractiveness of the destination is at least similarly important as the sport recreational event.On the contrary, in the case of the Wimbledon tennis tournament (Ottevanger, 2007) or the World Cup in South Korea and Japan in 2002 (Kim, & Chalip, 2004), the sports event itself were the dominant reason for visiting certain destination.However, Wild League is probably more cultural tourism event than sport recreational.Richards (2002) suggests that an increase in cultural tourism stems from the growing supply of cultural attractions and a growing number of tourists.The growth of the cultural tourism market is accompanied by the segmentation of the market, but also by the increasing competition (Outspan Group Inc., 2009).Within this competition, new market opportunities could be seen through the development of creative tourism (Richards, 2002; Rudan, 2012).
The main shortcoming of the study is relatively small and insufficiently representative (purposeful) sample of participants.This is also the reason of limited possibility of greater generalizability of the results obtained.In spite of this relatively small number of participants, applying the original measuring instrument showed satisfactory reliability and discriminability.However, although the possibility of generalization of the findings in this study is small, the results may give some insight into the motivation of potential tourists motivated by Wild league as a sport-recreational and cultural event.As a fundamental advantage of the research can be highlighting the fact that this is probably the only study that quantitatively studied Wild league as the "discrete touristic 123 potential" (Šiljeg et al. 2014).Therefore, the practical implication of this study could be mainly related toward using these indicators and belonging measuring instrument (however, as well as these preliminary results) in estimation the Wild league as the "discrete touristic potential".The opportunities within the sport tourism field, by maximizing the potentials of some destination by understanding all elements integral to sport tourism (Delpy, 1997), could be applied in this case, too.Namely, the Wild League within could be put into various touristic packages, linked with other sports and/ or cultural offer.

CONCLUSION
The results revealed that there were no statistically significant gender differences in the motives of sports tourism, as well as according to participant's personal engagement in sports, while only one significant difference is found by Dubrovnik's heritage.Participants with Dubrovnik's heritage showed higher pushing motives, than those without Dubrovnik's heritage.Highest pushing motives showed the par-ticipants who are going in Dubrovnik because of private reasons -other visits, while the participants who have never been in Dubrovnik perceive the highest limitations.Positive and moderately high correlations with pushing motives are found with interest in sports in general and in water polo, previous knowledge of Wild league.Only in females, significant correlations with pulling motives are found with the interest in water polo.Low and negative correlation with the limitations is found between previous being in Dubrovnik (and its environment), in all participants and in females.Pushing and pulling motives positively intercorrelated in all three samples of participants, while pulling motives positively correlate with limitations only in males.The most reasonable explanations of the results obtained are that the Wild League is very specific sports and cultural event, which is attractive only for specific profiles of tourists.On the other hand, Dubrovnik itself is very attractive destination, which prevails many perceived limitations.Therefore, there are many possibilities to put the Wild League within few interesting touristic packages, linked with other sports and/ or cultural offer.

Table 1 .
Differences in the motives of sports tourism, by gender and Dubrovnik heritage

Table 2 .
Differences in the motives of sports tourism, by personal engagement in sports

Table 3 .
Differences in the motives of sports tourism by the most often reasons for being in Dubrovnik

Table 4 .
Correlations between the motives of sports tourism, educational level, age group and other variables