Investigating Incentives for Participation in Adventure Children Camps & Marketing Implications

The objective of this study was to investigate consumer behavior issues in a summer children adventure camp setting. Specifically, the study aimed to: a) identify the personal incentives that drive children to participate in adventure summer camps and categorize them in dimensions, b) investigate which of the incentives dimensions are the most important ones in predicting children’s word-of-mouth communications. The sample of the study consisted of one hundred and fifty six (N=146) children, who participated in an adventure camp located at the mainland of Greece. The results indicated that: a) six personal incentive dimensions revealed from a factor analysis of the personal incentive scale, named: i)“live the nature” (M=4.2, SD=.83) ii)“camp experience” (M=4, SD=.67),, iii)“making new friends” (M=3.9, SD=.96), iv) “activities participation” (M=3.5, SD=.97), v) “meeting old friends” (M=3.4, SD=1.1), and vi) “independence”,(M=3.3, SD=1.2), b) the second hypothesis was confirmed successfully (F=18, R=.23, p<001), with the “camp experience” (B=.36, p<001) dimension be the most powerful and consistent predictor of word-of-mouth communications, following by the “activities participation” (B=.11, p<01) and the “live the nature”. (B=.08, p<05) dimensions. The managerial implications of these results are discussed.