The impact of ‘green flags' and ‘red flags' on the decision-making process of sports tourists

Analysing how sports tourists perceive and evaluate the impacts of sport tourism is fundamental to advancing our understanding of their decisions. This study attempts to delve deeper into this issue by investigating how positive impacts or ‘green flags’ and negative impacts or ‘red flags’ influence the behavioural intentions and spending behaviour of this type of tourist. Using a structural equation model applied to a sample of 520 tourists who attended sporting events as spectators or participated in sporting activities in the Valle del Jerte region (Cáceres, Spain), it was found that economic, sociocultural, environmental and urban green flags have a positive effect on tourist loyalty, WOM and expenditure, while red flags have an adverse effect. This analysis presents a novel model that evaluates the impacts of sport tourism from the tourist’s perspective, incorporating behavioural intentions such as loyalty and WOM, and adding expenditure as a behavioural variable. In addition, new strategies are proposed for the effective management of these impacts.