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Volume 3,Issue 9

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26 October 2025

An Analysis of the Multidimensional Enabling Mechanism of Marathon Events on Urban Development: A Case Study of the Yulin Marathon

Fawei Li*
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1 Lanzhou University of Finance and Economics, Lanzhou 730000, Gansu, China
LNE 2025 , 3(9), 301–308; https://doi.org/10.18063/LNE.v3i9.1004
© 2025 by the Author. Licensee Whioce Publishing, Singapore. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ )
Abstract

To explore the empowerment mechanisms of urban marathon events on their host cities, this study takes the 2025 Wenchang Real Estate Yulin Marathon as a case study. Using questionnaire surveys (N=2038), mathematical statistics, and case analysis methods, it conducts an empirical analysis from the perspectives of participant characteristics, event satisfaction, participation motivation, commercial value, and social benefits. The results show that: (1) participants are mainly well-educated middle-class individuals aged 31–45 (65.46%) with strong sports consumption capacity; (2) overall event satisfaction reaches 92.94%, though deficiencies remain in areas such as course support and pre-race expos; (3) health value (77.53%) and cultural experience (59.18%) are the main participation motivations, with 60.3% of participants staying for more than two days, forming a “run-tourism integration” feature; (4) the sponsorship brand exposure rate is 87.49%, but the value co-creation mechanism is still underdeveloped; and (5) the event’s social benefits are significant, with 94.8% of participants incorporating running into their daily exercise routines. The study concludes that the Yulin Marathon has established a multidimensional mechanism through refined experiences, commercial ecology, policy coordination, and run-tourism integration to empower urban development, providing a practical model for the high-quality development of regional marathon events.

Keywords
urban marathon
participant characteristics
event satisfaction
run-tourism integration
value co-creation
sports event empowerment
Funding
This study was supported by the 2023 University Teacher Innovation Fund of the Gansu Provincial Education Department (Project No.: 2023B-096) and the National Social Science Fund of China (Project No.: 23BT022).and the 2023 Lanzhou Municipal Philosophy and Social Sciences Planning Project (Project No.: 23-B24).
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