What Does the State Get due to a Well Organized and Successful International Sporting Event - Case Study Example

Tourism may be defined as a processes through which an individual or group travels for the purpose of recreation or leisure. People who travel for this purpose are called tourists and they may stay out of their usual environment to which they are used to for a number of months but not more than one year consecutively. Tourist may engage in any activity they fancy provided the activity does not gain them any income because if it does then this underscores their tourist status according to Krapf and Hunziker definition of 1941 (Theobald, 1998). A number of activities attract tourists. Tourists are often people from regions outside the venue in which the activity is happening. However, there are incidents of domestic tourists i.e. people from the region within the venue of the tourist attracting event. Tourism is often a source of income to the organising organisation which may or may not be affiliated to the government of that specific country in which the event is taking place. Most of the time the planning of the tourist event involves a government organisation and in such a case the income gained goes to the government. If the event is organized by a non governmental organization then the organization is under obligation to pay tax to the government. Therefore regardless of who is organizing the event, the government earns revenue. The organisers of any tourism event need a strategy to maximize the revenue gained. An event that recurs maybe annually or after a number of years requires that the organisers make it attractive for the visiting tourists so as to encourage a possibility of them coming back again in future and their enjoyment may lead them to favourably sell the destination country (hosting a tourist event) to their friends and family back home. Security is yet another important thing that has to be taken into consideration to guarantee the safety of the visiting tourists. Some events have been cancelled in the past based on security concerns. The organizers have to guarantee the security of every individual attending the tourist event before they can be given the right to host the event. One such tourist event is the world cup 2006 which took place in Germany. Being the 18th instance of the world cup which happens after every four years, Germany was chosen to host the event. German won the right of hosting the event in 2000 and this means that they had six years to prepare for the event. In this event 198 soccer teams representing their nations took part in a qualification process that started in 2003 to see only 31 teams qualify for the finals in Germany (Coleman, 2006). Germany is ranked 7th tourist destination worldwide. The number of tourists visiting German keeps on increasing annually. For example the number of tourists visiting German rose from 23.6 million to 24.4 million in 2006 and 2007 respectively. The number of tourists visiting Germany annually is nothing though compared to France which receives more than twice what German receives annually. Germany therefore set out to utilize the worlds popular and biggest sporting event, world cup 2006, to market itself as a tourist destination. With more than a million visitors that were expected to visit German courtesy of the world cup event, Germany was more than jubilant to receive them because this was a sure boost to it tourism industry. Actually, according to the managing director Tourist Board, Petra Hedorfer, the event was projected to boost the German's domestic economy by more than 9 billion euros. This is extremely impressive for a short term event. The 2006 world cup event was to be more beneficial to German than to boost its domestic economy from the revenue that would come from the more than 1 million visitors most of which were soccer fans. The tourism board planned to use the event as a marketing tool. Through television, German intended to reach the more than 40 million viewers worldwide. This is relatively large audience for the German's tourism promotional advertisements and commercials. German intended to market a number of its tourism attractions such as historical sights; the Brandenburg Gate, the Cologne Cathedral etc. to both the visitors and the viewers. To achieve this, as far as the visitors are concerned, the tourism board arranged arts and cultural programs around the game. To the viewers, the television commercials did the magic. Apart from the historic sights, the German tourism board also intended to promote a friendly and service oriented Germany, its culture, its food e.g. plump, curried sausages and other specialities such as Swabian sptzle, its people, etc. Generally, the event was meant to market German as a tourist attraction (Glyptis, 1991). How were the TV commercials likely to achieve this intention of promoting Germany's tourist attractions This was supposed to work on the proposition that a number of people have never heard of Germany and if they had, they didn't know much about its national heritage, its tourist attractions, its people and even its food. Through the commercials, such people could be supplied with such information and if the commercials were appealing enough, then there was high likelihood for those with means wishing to visit German and see for themselves what had been communicated in the commercials. This was the long term strategy that the Germany tourism board was laying to boost its tourism industry long after the world cup. This according to German was an achievable strategic plan because South Korea recorded a boost to its tourism industry after the 2002 world cup it co-hosted with Japan. Another important strategy in place was to ensure that the world cup 2006 event maximized the benefits other than the negative impacts. Such an event is very expensive to organise and it requires very diverse sources. For Germany, the funding came mainly from international broadcasting rights, corporate sponsorships, and, ticket sales. This event required entrepreneurial projects infrastructure laid down by the organisers such that at the end of the day the major beneficiary remains to be the host of the event. A good example of such entrepreneurial arrangement was the sale of sporting apparels by the German apparel maker Adidas. Others included host's hotels offering accommodation and food to the boarding visitors. A number of these entrepreneurial arrangements were meant to earn German more income than what had been spent to organise the event. Apart from the financial gain that goes to the organisers, those not involved directly in the organisation of the event also gain tremendously. Examples of such people are hotel owners, shop owners, artists selling their merchandise, prostitutes offering services etc. In fact, it was recorded that t-shirts, flags and condoms led in terms of sales. Adidas alone sold more than 1.7 million t-shirts bearing the colours of the national German soccer team. Therefore, the entrepreneurial infrastructure laid by the organisers ensured that other entrepreneurs benefited from the event (Gratton et al, 2000). Apart from the tourism boost, the organisation of the event may lead to leaving a legacy for the host long after the event. How did German perform as compared to other initial hosts This is the question that the organisers wanted to answer in advance as they organised the event. There were empty seats witnessed in the world cup 2002 and German was eager to avoid such a mistake. They were keen to maximize gains, both material and non material, from the event. They therefore, had two main strategies to solve the problem. First, they had anticipated the lack of need for the tickets allotted to the sponsors and they thus planned to re-circulate such hanging tickets to the public to maximize seat occupancy. Through this they aimed to sell up 2.9 million tickets to ensure that all the seats were occupied. Indeed the event was ranked as one of the best attended world cup based on the seat occupancy. Almost all the seats were occupied in most of the games. Second, there were also other arrangements for the non ticket holders. The organisers installed gigantic screens for public viewing in major towns including around the venues. This was meant to create a festival mood around the country and discourage overcrowded venues which could lead to security challenges. The gigantic screens also set the pace for a festival mood that in turn encouraged spending. German appeared to want to outshine the previous event. This was demonstrated by the fact that there were four ticket categories ranging from 35 to 600 as compared to the three that had been offered in the 2002 World cup event. (Dale et al, 2007). Apart from shining where South Korea and Japan had failed, German also needed to make its own legacy. For this reason, Germany maintained very high standards of the sporting infrastructure ever witnessed. These standards ranged from the soccer pitches to stadia conditions. High standards and qualities of not only the sporting infrastructure but also things like the entrepreneurial systems, mass media services e.g. TV, security systems, private sponsorships managed to offer Germany exactly what it had wanted, a legacy. It is important to note that the event was highly rated in terms of its success and the tourism boost in the subsequent years served to confirm this. As stated earlier, the strategy laid by the Germany in hosting the 2006 world cup was not limited to the satisfaction and comfort of the chanting visiting soccer fans but it was generally a long term plan to boost the tourist industry. In 2007, one year after the event, Germany National Tourism Board (GNTB) recorded a tourist boosts that the world cup event had bolstered and thus decided to launch a new logo combining the three colours of the German flag in an image resembling a ball to evoke and provoke the world cup memories. To have reached such a decision, it is clear that the German had indeed planned to reap long term benefits from the world cup event (Urban Land Institute and Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP, 2005). It is evident that hosting a popular sporting event such as the world cup does not only afford economic benefits but also high benefits in the areas of sports witnessed through an increased sporting participation. German strategy was maximum participation in the event they were hosting. This was witnessed from the German's unyielding support for their national team that finished third in the event. This led to the mora1le soccer in Germany. As Markus Kurscheidt, an expert in sport economics puts it; the Germans became sure of themselves once again. The event was also seen impact the social aspect of the hosting community. It inculcated a feeling of national pride as they show cased their heritage and culture through songs and dance. One marked social aspect noted by the visiting soccer fans was the hospitality portrayed by the Germans. This emphasis on hospitality has seen a number of tourists visit German to explore the people and their culture. Prostitution was one alleged negative aspect that was portrayed during the world cup event. The German authority encouraged this because of its economic gain to those in that industry. There were mixed reactions towards this support but over time, prostitution has boosted the tourism industry markedly especially after the world cup. First, from the condom sales, Durex condoms maker recorded 30% more condoms sold during the event, showed that despite the fact that the fans had focused on soccer and drinking, sex was never forgotten. It has since been believed that some of the tourists that have visited German have done so to explore the alleged sex rich German. However, it is difficult to state categorically why tourists visit a destination, but the power of sexual adventure can mo longer ignored. We have often heard terms such as sex tourists. This is enough to put the issue to rest. A few tourists confess that they travel for sex but still there are those that are ashamed to say. Germany, since word cup ha recorded a number of tourists some of which travelled entirely in search of German based sexual escapades (Teela, 2008). Any government that understands the benefits that come with hosting a mega sporting activity such as the world cup does all in its capacity to make the event a success. The efforts demonstrated by such a government may vary from investing heavily in the preparations or laying security infrastructure to satisfy the guarantees required by the governing body of the sporting event in question. The government involvement in the funding of the preparations not only the immediate financial gain but also boosted national image in the international community. Of great concern is the positive impact on tourism the event can positively make. Any government enjoys major revenues from its tourism sector and a boost to this industry means more revenue. The German government was also not left behind in its intervention of the 2006 world cup preparation. The federal government provided about 247million to help construct and renovate stadia that were to be used for the events. The government also remained supportive of any major sport event bidding. In fact, the three major political parties in Germany (Christian Democratic Party, the Christian Social Union and the Social Democratic Party) signed a coalition that encouraged Germany's continued bidding for major first class international events. Government's intervention is a clear indication that the ROI of the event is really good and the long-term promotion of Germany as a tourist destination. The financial benefit that the event brought to Germany continues to be felt up to date. According to the World Cup organizing committee's president, Franz Beckenbauer, World Cup tourists would have increased Germany's GDP by 3.88 billion by 2008. Therefore, the benefit of hosting a major sporting event such as world cup can not be ignored any more as most countries now more than any other time are keen to register more and more bids to host major and minor sporting and even socials events because of the benefits such events have on the economy and even on promotion of the hosting country's tourist offerings (Gratton et al, 2000) In conclusion, if a country has all the capacity required to host a major sporting event such as world cup, bids and wins the right to host such an event, the country cease to be the same again both economically and socially. This can be established from the fact that the world cup 2006 boosted Germany's image in the international community. By 2007 Germany rose from 4th to 1st place in the worldwide image comparison Germany's image had increased particularly in tourism and culture making more tourists to visit. Economically, Germany also registered substantial gains with investment and immigration increasing from 4.4 points in 2005 to 4.9 points immediately after the world cup event. Germany still continues to enjoy a good image, viable tourist destination, viable GDP as a result of the event, more foreign investors, etc simply because of a well organised and successful international sporting event. References. Glyptis, S, 1991: Sport and Tourism. Belhaven: London, pp.165-183 Gratton et al, 2000: The Economic Importance of Major Sport Events: Managing Leisure, 5 (1): 17-28 Urban Land Institute and Pricewaterhouse Coopers LLP, 2005 Emerging Trends in Real Estate. Urban Land Institute p.52 Theobald W, 1998: Global Tourism; The Next Decade. Butterworth-Heinemann Publishers p. 10 Coleman M, 2006: Wicked World Cup 2006 Scholastic Publishers Dale et al, 2007: Travel & Tourism Book 1. Great Britain: Harcourt Education Limited Teela S, 2008: Paying for Pleasure; Men who Buy Sex. 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