Examining Constraints, Facilitators, and Negotiation in Skiing Participation: A Cross-cultural Study

Abstract

Sports and leisure activities constitute a vital aspect of daily life. Although extensive research has developed various models and factors to understand sports participation, encompassing individual, sociological, and psychological perspectives (Grima et al., 2017), the focus has predominantly been on summer sports, resulting in a relative paucity of research on winter sports. A literature review on winter sports participation reveals a notable scarcity of theoretically grounded cross-cultural research (Hudson et al., 2010). Therefore, this dissertation underscores the influence of cultures on sports participation, focusing on the activity of downhill skiing while highlighting cultural differences that provide a foundation for further exploration of cross-cultural behaviour in the winter sports industry. To achieve this purpose, the focus was placed on two markets, specifically the Beijing (China) emerging market and Vancouver (Canada), a traditional and declining market. The research drew on leisure constraints, facilitators, and negotiation theory. This dissertation progressed through three distinct phases of research, each culminating in a research article. The first phase explored the relationship between constraints, facilitators, and skiing participation behaviour among participants in Beijing. The second phase involved a confirmatory analysis of the leisure constraints theory among participants in Vancouver, focusing on the relationships between constraints, facilitators, and skiing participation. In the final phase, negotiation strategies were examined in both cultural groups, generating valuable insights and implications for further empirical testing. Cumulatively, this dissertation makes conceptual and empirical contributions to the literature on downhill skiing by conducting a cross-cultural comparative analysis between an emerging and declining market. It offers valuable insights and actionable strategies for ski resort managers and marketers to attract more guests from China’s emerging ski market while addressing the decline and retaining current skiers in Canada’s declining ski market.