摘要：AbstractThis study explores the long-term effect of events in destination marketing: the ability of events to generate repeat visits to a particular area. From this point of view, events can be treated as the free sampling method in destination marketing. When a person visits an event, they also ‘get a taste’ of the area in which it is taking place. And if this experience is positive, the probability of them returning later specifically to explore the area should rise. The aim of this study is to quantify the long- term effect of events in destination marketing. We analysed the post-event behaviour of more than 56,000 visitors of almost 143 small and medium-sized sports and cultural events that took place in Estonia during the years 2006-2009. We applied passive mobile positioning data in this study:. This is data, which is automatically recorded in the memory files of mobile operators. Mobile positioning enabled us to study visitors’ behaviour in greater detail, both temporally and spatially. The main theoretical contributions of this study are: (1) that events are able to generate repeat visits and therefore have a long-term effect in the context of destination marketing; and (2) that this ability is dependent on the type and regularity of events. For destination managers and governments this study provides a number of suggestions on how to make more effective use of events in destination marketing.
关键词：Destination marketing;free sampling;sales promotion;repeat visitation;Estonia;passive mobile positioning;events
