Repeat tourism, play, and monetary spending

Tourism is examined as a phenomenon that can be best understood as a form of play. Tourism and resulting economic behavior are examined as stimulus-seeking play that contains distinct stages of exploration, assimilation, and creativity or withdrawal. To exemplify such ideas, the impact of repetition of a given tourist experience on economic spending was determined using data from a large-scale survey of tourism at university level football games at The Pennsylvania State University. This study involved measurement of behaviors and monetary spending of over 1,600 football tourists during a 1-year period. A strong negative association was found between repeat attendance at football games and per game expenditures.