Martin Schnitzer

• PhD
• Professor (Full) at University of Innsbruck

Purpose The purpose of this study is to examine the financial compensation and its correlates among volunteers in non-profit sport clubs. Design/methodology/approach A questionnaire was distributed online among sport clubs in Austria. Data were collected in person in clubhouses or at a distance ( n = 1,840 volunteers). The studied correlates inclu...

Purpose - This study aims to explore the multifaceted legacies of sports events, focusing on how the impact of legacies on bidding cities is perceived by representatives of bid committees. By examining the perceptions associated with both successful and unsuccessful bids, the research seeks to highlight the broader implications of the bidding proce...

Objectives Large language models are becoming increasingly significant tools in everyday life, including the context of training and sports. However, the extent to which recreational athletes actually rely on AI-generated training plans and the differences in trust towards these technologies between users and non-users have not yet been investigate...

This study examines resident support for outsourcing competitions within the Olympic Winter Games (OWG), focusing on the sliding events of the 2026 Milan-Cortina OWG. Utilising survey data (n = 585) from Innsbruck-Igls, Austria, the analysis investigates the impact of co-hosting on local perceptions. Our results reveal substantial support for outso...

Introduction Esports have been suggested to enhance hand-eye coordination, fine motor skills, and reaction times. While physical exercise is known to improve these abilities, its impact on short-term esports performance is under-researched. This study aims to evaluate the effects of specific and general physical training on gaming performance, hypo...

Purpose This study analyzes whether a doping scandal occurring during a global major sport event has an impact on on-site spectator satisfaction. Design/methodology/approach The investigation was conducted among 896 on-site event spectators attending a minimum of one event at the Nordic Ski World Championships 2019. Furthermore, five members of th...

Sportvereine stellen einen wichtigen Bestandteil der Gesellschaft in Österreich dar und sind einer der wichtigsten Sportanbieter. Es ergeben sich für die Vereine immer neue Herausforderungen. Vor allem der Bereich der Rekrutierung und Bindung von Ehrenamtlichen scheint für das Überleben der Vereine immer schwieriger zu werden. Ziel dieser Arbeit is...

Resident support has become a key success factor in bidding for and hosting sporting events. While the impact of major events on resident support for similar sized events has been extensively researched, there is a gap in understanding how events influence support for smaller events. This research note addresses this gap by moving towards a more ho...

The time children spend playing digital games has seen a notable increase. The suggested motives for children to engage in gaming are predominantly competition, social interaction, and achievement (Martucci et al., 2023). Concurrently, there has been a concerning decline in physical activity (PA) among children. This shift suggests a potential conf...

Purpose Leadership is a key factor that shapes an athlete’s development, also within team sports; most of this responsibility falls on the coaches. The purpose of this paper is to provide insight into the relationship between a coach’s reputation and athlete creativity as perceived by athletes within team sports. Design/methodology/approach The pa...

Aim Physical activity (PA) has many benefits not only for a child’s physical development, but also for mental health and cognitive function which, in turn, results in broader social and environmental benefits. The World Health Organization announced recently that on average, children are not active enough. Following the salutogenic approach of ques...

This paper aims to explore participants’ willingness to pay (WTP) for offsetting greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions associated with their participation in the World Winter Masters Games 2020 (WWMG20) in Innsbruck, Austria. We collected data from an online survey sent to participants at the event and used the contingent valuation approach to determine p...

Winter sports tourism in the Alps remains competitive and challenges destinations to develop and offer new tourism products. Slope ski touring (SST) is an excellent example. In the Alps, this winter sport has been experiencing a tremendous boom. However, SST has been poorly examined in academia. Thus, we aimed to gain in-depth understanding of the...

The COVID-19 crisis and the related nationwide lockdowns reduced the available types of physical activity, especially in the winter season. Besides closed indoor sports facilities, some outdoor sports were also inaccessible because of curfews and/or the closure of outdoor sports facilities. However, in Austria, the operation of alpine ski areas was...

The positive effects of sport and physical activity (PA) on physical and mental wellbeing are well-documented [e.g., (1, 2)]. However, planetary health challenges, such as the recent COVID-19 pandemic and long-standing climate change issues, raise questions about how these crises effect sport and PA, both now and in the future. For example, how wil...

Ski touring is an emerging trend in the Alps, defined as ascending and descending a slope/backcountry with ski-touring equipment. The aim of this research is to understand risk-taking behavior, risk-avoidance behavior and assessed expertise (ascending/descending) of backcountry ski tourers. A cross-sectional survey design was chosen (N ¼ 300). Resu...

The link between sports and tourism has been widely researched. In this context, many studies have focused on sports event (SEs), finding that SEs provide a multitude of opportunities but also face many challenges at a local level. Despite the academic interest in the sports event tourism field, there is still little synthesis and no overview of re...

Most people will agree that skiing down the Streif—one of the world’s most dangerous alpine downhill ski slopes—at nearly 90 miles per hour is quite a risky business [...]

With employees’ leisure pursuit increasing, this study assesses the potential of organizational leisure benefits in hospitality job advertisements as a signal for otherwise non-observable attributes, like organizational leisure support and staff appreciation. Drawing upon signaling theory, a fictional job advertisement was created. A total of 210 j...

Purpose Using the job demands-resources (JD-R) model as a theoretical foundation, this study aims to explore the potential of organizational leisure benefit programs in the interplay of job demands and perceived work-life balance. Design/methodology/approach This article is based on qualitative data collected from semi-structured interviews with 2...

Through restrictions and people’s behavioral changes with regard to public events, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a massive financial impact on professional team sports clubs. Particularly, many smaller clubs that are more dependent on match-day revenues were facing an existential struggle. In this study, we examined the willingness of fans to contr...

Ski touring on groomed slopes (= slope ski touring) has experienced a boom in recent years. However, investigations in terms of slope ski touring and ski tourers are scarce. Thus, there has been a call for more research that also encompasses stakeholders’ opinions. This study aims to provide deeper insights into the trend of slope ski touring along...

Research question Despite various initiatives to promote the Olympic Games, achieving a support rate of at least 50% in an Olympic referendum remains difficult. Thus, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) reoriented the Games’ strict organization with the Olympic Agenda 2020, anticipating increased resident approval for the event. This study is...

Background In Alpine regions, which are very similar due to their topographical location and their wide-ranging sports offerings, the restrictions on sports activities during the COVID-19 pandemic differed in type and level: while in some regions (Tyrol, South Tyrol, Trentino), all sports activities were forbidden except for walking near the home,...

Social media sites are rich communication and marketing tools used by athletes to promote their “brand” and interact with fans. Indeed, the proliferation of social media has led to athletes promoting themselves across multiple platforms. This study examined how the world’s top 10 professional alpine skiing athletes used social media to present them...

Understanding residents' preferences for mega-sports events is a hot topic in tourism and event research. Thus far, most studies have assumed homogeneous preferences, and linear utility additivity of all event attributes when measuring residents' support. This study uses an adaptive choice-based conjoint analysis combined with hierarchical Bayesian...

Mega-events such as the Olympic Games are often seen as the most prestigious tourism events in the world. However, public support for such mega-events has decreased over the past decades. To counteract this negative trend, the International Olympic Committee launched the Olympic Agenda 2020 and later amendments. With Milan and Cortina d'Ampezzo (It...

Zusammenfassung Krisen können Veränderungsprozesse in Unternehmen und Tourismusdestinationen stimulieren. Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist, die COVID-19 Krise als potenziellen Treiber von Innovationen im Tourismus zu untersuchen. Als Fallbeispiel werden Skigebiete in Niederösterreich verwendet, welche im Winter 2020/21 im Gegensatz zu vielen Skigeb...

Outdoor adventure activities have become more popular in recent decades, offering excitement and thrills to their consumers. There has been little research on whether or not outdoor adventure activities impact well-being, especially when these activities are consumed in an outdoor adventure park setting. Thus, this study examined the impact of outd...

Many ski-lift operators are trying to diversify their business by opening summer parks and in so doing, to reposition their resorts as year-round destinations. Almost half of ski-lift operators in Tyrol introduced such parks in the period from 2000 to 2018. The purpose of this study is to assess competitive determinants of following suit by copying...

Ski touring on groomed slopes is a relatively new outdoor sport that has steadily been gaining interest. So far, little scientific attention has been given to this outdoor activity. Thus, few questions have been asked about the motivation for practising this sport, and even fewer about whether the current COVID-19 pandemic has had an impact on the...

Sports event research has displayed gaps in the analysis of different stakeholders' perspectives and satisfaction levels. Consequently, this study aims at laying bare real-time experiences of event stakeholders via a unique mixed method research approach for explaining stakeholder satisfaction. Data were gathered on occasion of the 2016 Internation...

Objectives The study investigated a potential correlation between owning a superregional low-cost ski and leisure card, namely the Leisure Card Tirol (LCT), and perceived quality of life (QOL). Design A cross-sectional, quantitative approach (online questionnaire) was chosen. Methods In total, 1,588 LCT users as well as 684 non-users (residents l...

The Olympic Idea moves almost permanently between idealized and uncritical enthusiasm on the one hand and strict, almost hostile rejection on the other. The aim of this work is to take a well-founded look at various aspects of the Olympic reality and to summarize texts on interesting, current and discussion-intensive Olym-pic topics in one volume....

The purpose of this study was to investigate the use and importance of project management (PM) methods in organizing sports events (SEs). Furthermore, the study analyzed differences in usage and importance of PM methods in relation to the type of SE. Finally, reasons for and obstacles to the implementation of PM methods in organizing SEs were ident...

Recently there has been a trend towards multiday sports walking (i.e. long-distance hiking or = LDH). This study aims to provide deeper insights into motivations as represented by competition, exhibitionism, playing to the limit and sociability, as well as expectations, and attitudes towards LDH and to examine the correlation between these construc...

The Winter World Masters Games (WWMGs) are a large sports event for 30+-year-old athletes. As there are neither competitive qualification requirements for participants, nor entrance fees for spectators, the event can be considered as a participatory sports tourism event rather than a spectator event. In 2020, the WWMGs were staged in Innsbruck, Tyr...

•We analyze overtourism as driver for population's opposition towards mega event.•As a case study the referenda for the 2026 Olympic Games in Innsbruck was chosen.•Over-crowded tourism destinations should abstain from organizing mega events.

Purpose Offline retail stores have been working on improving their in-store customer experience; they have begun to realise the physical advantage they have over online channels. Especially sports products have a number of unique features, such as high emotional involvement or a sense of community; additionally, sports customers put emphasis on mul...

Purpose: While tourism cards are quite common, leisure cards are less popular, especially with respect to scholarly research. This study sheds light on leisure cards by analysing a card covering a wide choice of leisure activities in the most populated area in Tyrol, Austria. Methodology: As research lacks insight particularly into the buyers’ pers...

Objectives The aim of the study was to investigate differences in the frequency and types of engagement in sport before, during, and after the COVID-19 stay-at-home order in Tyrol, Austria. Study design A representative population survey was conducted. Methods A sample of Tyroleans (N = 511) were questioned by a market research institute via onli...

Analyzing residents’ support for events has become popular in sports tourism research. Based on the social exchange theory and the theory of reasoned action, this study tests a model of support for the 2018 UCI Road World Championships (N = 2,265). The findings show that the perceived image fit between an event and a place significantly influences...

Physical activity has a strong impact on physical and mental health. It prevents diseases, strengthens the immune system, and helps to reduce stress. Moreover, physical activity increases the psychological well-being, with outdoor exercise showing even more positive effects. In times when national regulations also restrict the possibilities for exe...

Interest in sport-related tourism increased perceptibly around the millennium, however, a comprehensive conceptual framework for a classification of sport (event) tourism is still missing. The predominant focus of sport tourism encompasses event-related touristic endeavors, such as mega sport events; however, an holistic approach to sport tourism s...

A B S T R AC T Physical activity has a strong impact on physical and mental health. It prevents diseases, strengthens the immune system, and helps to reduce stress. Moreover, physical activity increases the psychological well-being, with outdoor exercise showing even more positive effects. In times when national regulations also restrict the possib...

Even though intangible legacies play an important role in the context of major sports events, research lacks both in depth and breadth. This paper, therefore, investigates intangible legacies of the Innsbruck 2012 Youth Olympic Games by surveying young residents (n = 1,338) 3 years after the event was staged. Special attention was paid to the youth...

Small-scale events represent an important asset for the development of tourist destinations. As local stakeholders play a major role in conceptualizing and developing small-scale events, this study sheds light upon stakeholders’ perceptions toward such events. The current study was carried out through qualitative interviews based on the case of the...

Bis dato liegen im Bereich Sportmanagement kaum veröffentlichte Befragungen von Absolventen österreichischer Hochschulen vor. Daher wurde im Rahmen die-ser Fallstudie neben der Analyse von drei Curricula (1994, 2002, 2007) eine retro-wie Berufszufriedenheit untersucht. Die Berufsfelder der Stichprobe stimmen fünf bis zwölf Jahre nach Studienabschlu...

Very little scholarly research analyzes sports event visitors' satisfaction using longitudinal study designs. Thus, this study investigates whether or not satisfaction with event services and products among sports event visitors is constant over time. Data were collected during the 2017 Crankworx Mountain Bike Festival staged in Innsbruck (Austria)...

Physical activities have been proven to have an impact on general well-being in everyday life; however, literature lacks an analysis of the effects of physical activities in vacation settings. Thus, the study aimed at assessing the impacts of physical activity on well-being during vacation by taking a longitudinal approach. We utilized a pre-post w...

Previous research has concentrated on traffic and health-related effects in relation to arrival patterns (e.g., stress in connection with means of transport, travel distance, and time). However, tourist mobility behavior during a vacation and potential health-related associations as well as its correlation with physical activity habits and mobility...

E-biking is a trend in tourism and everyday life, especially in the alpine context. It provides a broader field of activities and constitutes a mobility feature for subsequent activities. The trend raises the question whether tourists utilize e-mountain bikes for other reasons or have other motivational backgrounds than common mountain bikers, espe...

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) lacks candidates willing to host the Olympic Games (OG) and has reacted to this situation by introducing the Olympic Agenda 2020 (OA)—a reform process making the OG more attractive for potential hosts. This study analyzes whether the OA plays a crucial role for the future of the OG. We, therefore, examined...

Tourism has become a highly competitive sector, forcing destinations to reinvent and constantly enhance extraordinary experiences in accordance with their miscellaneous destination characteristics, whilst considering mountain biking as a growing phenomenon. This study, therefore, aims at providing a general profile of bike park visitors and at iden...

Even though coopetition in the context of tourism is not new, research lacks concrete examples within the leisure business and about its effects on local communities. Hence, this study investigates a super-regional alliance of tourism and leisure suppliers as well as its effects on the community in the region of Tyrol, Austria. In the framework of...

On the basis of the Youth Olympic Games (YOG), we assess if and how the youth in the communities of the YOG host cities have been influenced concerning their perception of the Olympic values (OV) and the Olympic movement (OM). Special attention of the study is paid to the analysis of intervention mechanisms which the local youth underwent (e.g. att...

Volunteers play an important role in delivering events, especially events over a longer period of time. As example the FIS Nordic Ski World Championships (Nordic WSC) take place every two years in a member country of the International Ski Federation (FIS). These events usually last 12 days and combine competitions in cross-country skiing, ski jumpi...

A B S T R AC T CURRENT ISSUES IN SPORT SCIENCE (CISS) has published in the last year 50% of the research articles in the section 'sociology & economics'. The topics of these recently published articles in CISS show the importance and diversity of this area of research. The growing body of research in sport management has demonstrated that this scie...

Impact and legacy research of touristic issues has become more popular with the appearance of manifold approaches to examining tourism. In recent years, the region of Western Austria has successfully staged multi-sport youth events, with two being staged in Innsbruck, Tyrol (YOG 2012; ICG 2016) and one in the region of Montafon, Vorarlberg (EYOF, 2...

Nachdem die Forschungsansätze im Bereich der nicht messbaren (intangiblen) Effekte von Sportgroßveranstaltungen dürftig sind, versucht dieser Beitrag am Beispiel der Olympischen Jugendspiele (YOG) die Langzeitwirkungen der YOG aus Sicht von deutschen und österreichischen Athlet/innen, die an den YOG 2010 und 2012 teilgenommen haben, 5 bzw. 3 Jahre...

While scholarly attention with respect to the social impacts of sports events has increased in recent years, there is still little research discussing the wide-ranging community-related impacts stemming particularly from major sports events. Local political leaders, as (elected) representatives of the community, are important stakeholders within th...

Research in doping has focused on potential intervention strategies, increasingly targeting predicting factors. Yet, findings are inconsistent, mostly athlete-centred and explain only limited variances in behaviour. This critical review aims to (a) summarize studies that identified predictors of doping intentions, susceptibility, and behaviour in e...

The aim of this study was to define the role of the relative age effect in the 12th Winter European Youth Olympic Festival 2015. The birth dates of all 899 participants and anthropometric data of 655 participants were analyzed. A significant relative age effect was present in the total sample and among the male athletes but not in the female athlet...

Background: The prevention of injury and illness remains an important issue among young elite athletes. Systematic surveillance of injuries and illnesses during multi-sport events might provide a valuable basis to develop preventive measures especially focusing on adequate information for youth athletes. Aim: To analyse the frequencies and characte...

Ziel der vorliegenden Arbeit ist es, erstmals einen Einblick in die ökonomischen Implikationen der Durchführung der Olympischen Jugend-Winterspiele am Beispiel von Innsbruck 2012 (YOG 2012) zu geben. Auf Basis einer Zuschauerbefragung (n = 1182) werden Konsumausgaben von YOG-Eventbesucher ermittelt, indem ein ökonomischer Primärimpuls sowie ein ind...

There is a lack of scholarly research into long-term local organizing committee (LOC) budget forecasts in the bidding stages of a FIFA World Cup. As FIFA increasingly takes control of LOC revenues and contributes to the LOC's costs, the bid committees are adopting a strategy to distort their budgets. On the one hand, this situation encourages commi...

The first Winter Youth Olympic Games held in Innsbruck in January 2012 attracted about 1,000 adolescent athletes aged between 14 and 18. At large-scale events such as the Youth Olympic Games, coaches, chefs de mission, and others accompany athletes and, therefore, gain a deeper insight into their behavior. This study aims at assessing young elite a...

The present study aimed to explore underlying motivational factors of volunteerism at a special sporting event for persons with intellectual disabilities. The volunteer survey (n = 252) assessed sociodemographic characteristics, motives, satisfaction with life, psychological well-being, and affectivity of mainly intrinsically motivated volunteers v...

The Youth Olympic Games (YOG) were introduced and officially inaugurated in Singapore in 2010, constituting the first new Olympic event to be staged since the 1924 Winter Olympic Games. The structure of the YOG is based on the model of the European Youth Olympic Festival, which was introduced three decades ago. Being a new international sports even...

The Youth Olympic Games (YOG) was initiated by the International Olympic Committee (IOC) in 2007 aiming to reach out to a younger target group. Besides the introduction of a Culture and Education Programme the creation of new competition formats was an important initiative. The objective of this study was to assess the spectators’ perception of the...

To ensure the highest technical performance, speed, safety, excellent control and to improve competitive performance, a successful regulation of competitive anxiety is necessary. Therefore, it seems crucial to identify factors influencing competitive anxiety of adolescent athletes. Research suggests that people reporting high quality of life are mo...

Research on mega and other large-scale events started becoming popular more than 30 years ago, especially in the field of tourism and leisure. Scholars mainly discuss the economic impact of these events1 whereas studies commissioned by event organisers often attempt to justify the use of taxpayers’ money in staging these events.2 Literature reviews...

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) has awarded the 1st Winter Youth Olympic Games in 2012 to Innsbruck, a two-time Host City for Olympic Winter Games in 1964 and 1976. The Youth Olympic Games (YOG) have been newly created by the IOC in order to reach a young, global audience promoting Olympic values and sport. Innsbruck's credibility and exp...