Survey studies of fishing tournaments and their participants provide vital data to researchers. First, researching the social and demographic characteristics of tournament participants leads to a better understanding of the tournament clientele and provides information that will help organizers to better market the tournament and attract additional participants in the future. Second, they provide participants with an opportunity to evaluate and give feedback on the tournament. Third, they provide the basic foundation for posing various "what if" scenarios for future tournaments. Finally, since tournaments can provide opportunities for community and state economic development and demonstrate how fishing tournaments can have positive effects on the local economy, tournament studies allow researchers to better understand the extent of this impact.

All questions included in the survey were pretested in previous tournament studies (Ditton et. al 1999) and agreed upon by the Virginia Beach Department of Convention and Visitor Development and the tournament staff. This study is funded by the city of Virginia Beach. The objectives of this study are 1) To profile the population of anglers participating in both the Buff Foundation / Sertoma By the Bay Billfish Tournament and the Virginia Beach Red, White, and Blue Tournament through their social and demographic characteristics, level of fishing participation and involvement, tournament fishing motivations, attitudes towards catching fish, expenditure levels, and satisfaction with the two tournaments; 2) To determine the economic impact of both tournaments on the city of Virginia Beach as well as the state of Virginia. This will include extrapolating weighted sample angler tournament expenditures of participants and nonrespondents to known numbers of anglers; and 3) To test for statistically significant (P<0.05) group differences between the two tournaments on relevant survey variables.

Executive Summary

We mailed questionnaires to all participants in two new offshore fishing tournaments held between June 26th and July 3rd in Virginia Beach, VA in an effort to learn more about the angler market attracted to the events. Specifically, the purpose of the survey was to provide tournament planners with feedback on participants’ demographic characteristics, overall level of fishing participation and involvement, tournament experience preferences, tournament-related expenditures, and satisfaction with the two events.  The city of Virginia Beach was also interested in the level of angler expenditures associated with the Red, White, and Blue event and resultant economic impacts. There were 251 anglers registered for the Virginia Beach Red, White, and Blue (RWB) Tournament and 44 anglers registered for the Buff Foundation / Sertoma by the Bay Billfish (BFSBB) Tournament, with complete mailing information for 219 and 44 anglers, respectively.  In the former event, 102 usable surveys were returned with 5 reported as non-deliverable for an effective response rate of 50.9%.  In the latter event, 20 usable surveys were returned with 4 non-deliverables for an effective response rate of 62.5%.  A telephone check of anglers participating in the Red, White, and Blue Tournament indicated there were no differences between respondents and non-respondents in terms of their overall tournament expenditures.  Because of the small number of participants in the Buff Foundation / Sertoma by the Bay Billfish Tournament due to bad weather, resultant sample size was too small to test for significant differences between these anglers and Red, White, and Blue tournament anglers.   Only results for the Virginia Red, White, and Blue Tournament will be summarized below.