Sport Tourism: Interrelationships, Impacts, and Issues - Essay Example

? Sports Tourism Case Study (Insert Sports Tourism Introduction The term ‘sport tourism’ has been defined in manyand different ways. According to Standeven and De Knop (1999, p.12), sport tourism refers to all forms of active and passive involvement in sporting activity causally or in an organized way for non-commercial or commercial reasons that necessitate traveling away from home and work locality. Sport tourism can be classified in to three main categories. The first category is nostalgia sport tourism. In this category, people visit museums and halls of fame to view documented articles, trophies, and monuments of great sporting achievements. The second category is active sport tourism. This category includes activity holidays and active events. The third category is event sport tourism. This includes the active and passive participation in sporting events (Gibson, 1998). Gibson (1998, p. 49) further conceptualizes sport tourism to be in three distinct areas: traveling to take part in a sporting event; traveling to watch a sport; or travelling to celebrate, worship, or venerate a sport. More recent definitions of sport tourism suggest that it is more than a two -dimensional synergetic phenomenon. In a more intricate definition, sport tourism is a social, economic and cultural phenomenon that arises from the unique interaction of activity, people, and place (Weed and Bull, 2004, p. 37). Weymouth and Portland as Sport Tourism Destinations Weymouth and Portland are located on the south coast of England. This area provides some of the best sailing waters in the UK. In addition, the area has facilities on land to complement the sailing activities that take place. Before the 2012 Olympic Games, the area already had world class facilities, but some enhancements were necessary to ensure that the facilities were suitable enough to host the sailing competition during the main Olympics and the Paralympics (London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, 2012). Considering that sailing is both a competitive and leisure sporting event, there were several types of sport tourists expected to be in the area during the Olympic period. Gibson conceptualizes sport tourism to be in three distinct areas: travelling to take part; travelling to watch; or travelling to celebrate, worship or venerate a sport. From his conceptualization, the types of tourists that can and were attracted to visit Weymouth and Portland during the Olympics can be derived. The first type of tourists that were attracted in the area are the participants (Gibson, 1998, p. 49). The Olympics bring together athletes and sportsmen from all over the world. Therefore, any sportsman that participated in the sailing competition in both the main Olympics and the Paralympics were tourists. Though their main agenda was to participate in the competition, the fact that they were foreigners makes them tourists by default. Also, the sailing competition was not taking place every single day during the games. The athletes, therefore, had some time to spare in between the races. During this spare time, they toured the area to get to explore its aesthetics and to appreciate the advancements that had been made in the area specifically for the sport. The second area of sport tourism is travelling to watch the sport (Gibson, 1998, p. 49). This was undoubtedly the area that produced the largest number of sport tourists. People from around the world had travelled to London to specifically watch the games that were taking place there. Most of the tourists in Weymouth and Portland during this period had come as spectators to the sailing competition. Considering that they were not entirely caught up in watching the games either, they had some spare time. During this time, they either went to tour the area or participated in the sailing sport for leisure. This is in line with Gibson’s second category of sport tourism which includes activity holidays. Therefore, the agenda for this type of tourist was twofold. Primarily, their agenda was to go watch the sailing competition while their secondary agenda was to incorporate the sport as an activity during their holiday venture. It is also key to identifying journalists as tourists classified under this type. The journalists specifically went to Weymouth and Portland to document all the activities that were pertinent to the sailing competition. Therefore, the main difference between them and the other tourists classified under this type is the fact that they were watching the game for the purpose of documenting reports while the others were watching it purely for leisure. The third type of tourists that were attracted to this region during the Olympics was the type travelling to worship, venerate or celebrate the sport (Gibson, 1998, p. 49). This type of tourists is made up of different kinds of people. The first kind includes the veterans of the sporting activity. The veterans went to the region to reflect on how far sailing has come as a sport, and to celebrate the achievements that they accomplished during their tenure as champions or participants. Some of them also went there to celebrate the current sailors in the form of awards. The second kind was the fanatics. These people specifically went there to venerate the sport together with the icons in the sport. The Importance of Considering More Than Just Economic Impacts When Bidding for an Event When bidding to host an event, most, if not all, of the bidders primarily consider the economic impact of hosting the mega event. However, it is very important for the bidders to develop local support for hosting the mega events. This support can, however, be developed if there is an in-depth understanding of the social dimensions of hosting mega events such as the Olympics. The social impact assessment of mega events and the subsequent implications of tourism development is a very broad activity. It can, therefore, be prudent for aspiring hosts to assess the perceptions of the locals towards hosting the event as this will be an indicator of the societal impacts of hosting the event. With the perceptions of the locals at hand, it becomes much easier for the aspiring host or host in particular to make decisions that have integrated the interests of the community at large (Shipway and Henderson, 2012, p. 730). The main reason why host nations do not put much consideration into the societal impacts of hosting major sporting events is the fact that the events have what would be tremendous economic impacts. These impacts range from employment opportunities as sources of income during and after the event, and tax revenues during the event. The Olympics and the world cup are good examples of the major sporting events that have such benefits. Putting the 2004 Olympic Games in Greece into focus, one can certainly derive the vast economic benefits that the country gained from the event. However, the host nation got extremely carried away in the economic benefits and forgot the impending societal harms of hosting the prestigious and highly anticipated event. During the event, it was noted that the levels of human trafficking increased, though marginally, during the event (Hennig et al., 2006, p. 12). However, this rate increased marginally simply because the government had initiated preventive activities to counter the problem which was anticipated to intensify during the Olympic period. Before the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games, a study was conducted to assess the perception of the society towards hosting the games. The study was conducted in two stages: one in 2007 and the other in 2009. In 2007, only 52% of locals believed that hosting the event was going to disrupt the lives of the locals in terms of peace and tranquility and by the second stage of the study, the rate had risen to 63%. This was the case of the Olympic Games in 2012. The rate of crime also increased during the games and this was one of the causes of disruption of the peace and tranquility of the locals (Shipway and Henderson, 2012, p. 733). Apart from simply disrupting peace and tranquility and the risk of possible increases in the rates of human trafficking, hosting a major event has the possibility of increasing pollution levels in the host cities or country. During the 2012 London Olympics, the beaches in Weymouth and Portland were frequently visited by the tourists. This meant that the beaches were overcrowded and therefore, the locals could not spend their leisure time there. In addition, the massive crowds of people around the beaches increased the rate of pollution by littering in the area. This, as a result, contaminated the waters in the area and also altered the aesthetic value of the region. When tourists stream in during major events, there is increased traffic activity. One has, therefore, to consider the possible impacts of increased carbon emissions with keen consideration of its effects on the environment. Also, traffic congestion is expected to be on the rise, thus the local economy will be losing revenue during the time that they spend in traffic. The Economic Impacts of Different Types of Sport Tourists As indicated earlier, there are different types of sport tourists. Some travel for participation, others travel for spectating, and others do it for veneration. At this point it would be of importance to analyze the economic impact that the different types of tourists have. The types of sport tourists will vary in sizes and subsequently in economic impacts. In simple phrase, different types of sport tourists have different economic impacts during an event (Pedersen et al., 2011, p. 244). To emphasize more this fact, it is necessary to compare two types of sport tourists and the kind of economic impact that they bring. The first type of sport tourists to be analyzed is the participants. This type of sport tourist is perhaps the most impactful on the economy. Their impact is more on a secondary level than it is on a basic level. The participants are the driving force of any sporting event. Without their presence, the event cannot go on. All the other types of tourists attend the events to simply see the performance of the participants. Therefore, all the events practically revolve around the participants and for this reason, they have a great economic impact, but on a secondary level (Ritchie, 2004, p. 259). The second type of sport tourists are the spectators. On a primary level, this type of sport tourists is the most economically impactful. This is because they bring revenue to the host directly by either attending the games or even participating in holiday activities during events. The spectators account for over 90% of all the revenue that is realized during major sporting events such as the Olympics, and therefore, have the greatest impact on the economy among all the other types of sport tourists. References Gibson, H. (1998) ‘Sport tourism: A critical analysis of research’, Sport Management Review, 1, pp. 45–76. Hennig, J., Craggs, S., Larsson, F. and Laczko, F. (2006) ‘Trafficking in human beings and the 2006 World Cup in Germany’, Sport Management Review. London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games (2012) Weymouth & Portland [Online]. Available at: http://www.london2012.com/venue/weymouth-and-portland/ [Accessed on December 5, 2012]. Pedersen, P. M. (2011) Contemporary sport management. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Ritchie, B. W. (2004) Sport tourism: interrelationships, impacts and issues. Clevedon, England: Channel View Publications. Shipway, R. and Henderson, H. (2012) The Business of Tourism. 9th ed. Harlow: Pearson, pp. 730–737. Standeven, J. and De Knop, P. (1999) Sport tourism. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. Weed, M. and Bull, C. (2004) Sports tourism: participants, policy and providers. Oxford: Butterworth Heinemann. Read More