Characteristics of Olympic tourists by the example of Sochi 2014

The article presents the results of studying tourists during their visiting the Olympic Games in Sochi 2014. Using the survey of 404 tourists the authors have obtained their the socio-demographic and behavioural characteristics. The research results show that the Olympic tourists are people usually middleaged, comfortably situated, mostly experts, entrepreneurs and leaders who viewed the visiting Olympic Games as the main purpose of the trip to Sochi. Accordingly, the desire to cheer on favorite athletes, to visit the home Olympic Games, to plunge into the festive atmosphere influenced on the decision to. The decision they took in advance and organized the trip mostly on their own, without resorting to intermediaries. The authors have revealed that the level of their travel expenses in Sochi significantly higher than the cost of conventional tourists. Using the method of structural equation modeling, it has been determined that the value of the total travel costs directly depends on its duration and conversely from the assessment of the quality of services rendered. In turn, size of income, sources of payment, the purpose, the number of events planned to visit, and a method of organization affected the duration of the trip. In assessing the quality of services the following factors were considered: participation in the Olympics, the length of stay in the capital city of the Games, the evaluation of ticket availability and terms of making a decision about the trip. The obtained results allow the organizers ofgreat sport events to take into account the characteristics of visitors, considering the purpose of their travel and living expenses, which in turn may be useful in calculating the economic effects of events and their contribution to the economy of the host destinations.