The effect of fan identification level on destination image and destination attachment in football

Football, which is the most followed sports branch in the world today and dragging the masses after it, has gone beyond being a mere sport and has turned into a giant economic sector and at the same time has become a tool that makes a great contribution to the promotion and advertisement of countries and cities. In this way, destinations have had the opportunity to develop a positive image and attachment to potential tourists through football, and also have the opportunity to get a share from the huge economic sector created by football. The most important reason for football to become such an important phenomenon is the fans. Because when there are no fans to watch the football match and spend money on various segments of this sector, it will not be possible to talk about the popularity of football. In this study, the effect of the fan identification level of the fans with their teams on the destination image and destination attachment is discussed. In this context, a face-to-face survey was conducted in Kadıköy district of Istanbul with 398 participants and 394 surveys were included in the analysis as a result of the examination. The survey used in the research consists of 4 parts. In the first part, demographic questions, in the second part the affective image scale, in the third part the sports fan identification scale and in the fourth part the destination attachment scale are included. Data analysis was done using SPSS 22.0 and LISREL 8.80 package programs. In the analysis process, first of all, the validity and reliability analyzes of the scales used in the research were made, and then normal distribution tests were applied. Since the data showed normal distribution, t-test for paired groups, one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) for more than two groups, and regression analysis were used to determine the direction and degree of the relationship between dependent and independent variables. In cases where the homogeneity of the variances could not be achieved, the welch test was applied instead of the one way analysis of variance ​and the games-howell test was performed in multiple comparisons. As a result of the analysis, it has been determined that the fan identification level has a positive effect on the destination image and destination attachment. At the same time, it was found that there is a positive and significant relationship between destination image and destination attachment.