Profiles of visitors attending the 2013 Confederation of African Football (CAF) Nations Cup tournament in Port Elizabeth, South Africa

The aim of this study was to investigate the profiles of the visitors who attended the 2013 CAF AFCON in Port Elizabeth. During the event, face-to-face interviews were conducted with visitors, using a systematic, spatially-based purposive sampling technique. The data were captured using the Statistical Package for the Social Sciences (SPSS). Key findings revealed AFCON attendees to be generally young (18 - 34 years old) and well educated, with the majority having attained a diploma/ postgraduate degree. They were found to exhibit outgoing tendencies, and engaged in a range of activities. Furthermore, the findings indicated that many visitors were first-time attendees at the AFCON tournament, and that their ratings of general impressions and experiences of South Africa/Port Elizabeth were, on average, very good. The significance and the contribution of the study findings can assist tourism planners and marketers in the planning, in the hosting, and in the management of future sporting events, as they provide the travel and behavioural trends of prospective sport fans.