Analysis of the Sport Consumer Behavior and Identification of a Niche and Tourism Market Opportunities for Extreme Athletes in Croatia

Contemporary development of tourism, as well as sports, has increased the possibilities in which they create new touristic products together. A healthy way of life, draws attention to the more frequent sporting lifestyle and thus travelling motivated by sports. When we add increasingly desirable adrenaline content actively sought by young people, as well as the saturation of classical sports, we realize that there is a growing demand for the content offered by extreme sports. This paper analyzes the characteristics of sports consumers, with particular emphasis on extreme sports and its users. For the purpose of analyzing the characteristics of extreme athletes, as well as supply and demand for this specific type of sport, a two-part study was conducted. With the first, online questionnaire survey, the attitudes of tourist agencies and other creators of extreme sports offerings were surveyed in order to register the offer for this profile of tourists. Subsequently, a second questionnaire was created to analyze the characteristics and reasons for the travel of extreme athletes and to create their classical profile. 288 respondents participated in the survey, of which 103 tourism subjects (who answered the first questionnaire) and 185 extreme athletes (who answered the second survey questionnaire). Research has shown that tourism subjects are increasingly aware of the strengths of tourists of this profile and plan to increase the content adapted to their needs. On the other hand, it provided us with concrete guidelines for creating the profile of extreme athlete tourists.