Anand Ram­per­sad

Mega and small scale sport tourism has the po­ten­tial to con­tribute to the so­cial, cul­tur­al, eco­nom­ic and in­fra­struc­tur­al de­vel­op­ment of the host coun­try or city. Sport tourism in­volves the trav­el of per­sons for non-busi­ness rea­sons to par­tic­i­pate and or ob­serve sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties (Hall, 1992).

Mega sport­ing events in­clude the host­ing of World Cups for such sports such as foot­ball, crick­et, and rug­by. Small scale sport­ing events in­clude triathlons, marathons and a leg of the for­mu­la one grand prix.

Ac­cord­ing to Za­uhar (2003) sport tourism in­volves a num­ber of ac­tiv­i­ties. In ad­di­tion to ei­ther par­tic­i­pat­ing and or ob­serv­ing sport­ing events, per­sons who trav­el for sport tourism may al­so have a vest­ed in­ter­est in vis­it­ing state of the art sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties such as sta­di­ums.

These may in­clude for ex­am­ple, Lords crick­et ground in Eng­land, Roland Gar­ros in Paris, Mara­cana Sta­di­um in Brazil and the Mil­len­ni­um rug­by sta­di­um in Wales. In ad­di­tion to the icon­ic sport­ing sta­di­ums ap­peal, sport tourists may al­so show an in­ter­est in sport­ing hall of fames and sport mu­se­ums such as the Leg­ends of Bar­ba­dos crick­et mu­se­um.

Sport tourists may not al­ways be in­ter­est­ed in tra­di­tion­al com­pet­i­tive sports and may find ad­ven­tur­ous ac­tiv­i­ties far more invit­ing and ap­peal­ing to their leisure taste. Some of these ad­ven­tur­ous ac­tiv­i­ties may in­clude bungee jump­ing sta­tions, zip line canopy tours, hik­ing trails, wa­ter ad­ven­tures such snor­kel­ing and golf.

Sport tourism of­fers sev­er­al eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits to lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties, the re­gion and or the coun­try. An es­ti­mat­ed 680,000 per­sons from over­seas at­tend­ed the 2012 Lon­don Olympics and Par­a­lympics. These vis­i­tors gen­er­at­ed enor­mous eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty through dif­fer­ent forms of ex­pen­di­ture on sport­ing and non-sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties. There was an in­creased de­mand for var­i­ous forms of ac­com­mo­da­tion–ho­tels and guest hous­es.

Sim­i­lar­ly there was an in­crease in de­mand for sport­ing para­pher­na­lia such repli­ca tee shirts, sneak­ers etc. Non-sport­ing prod­ucts ex­pen­di­ture in­clud­ed food, bev­er­ages, phones, cam­eras, and oth­er elec­tron­ic ac­ces­sories that are as­so­ci­at­ed with trav­el­ers. Ac­cord­ing to Has­sen (2003) the 2003 Crick­et World gen­er­at­ed 1.3 bil­lion Rands for the South African econ­o­my.

Sport tourism pro­vides the host coun­try with high me­dia cov­er­age. This cov­er­age will cov­er not on­ly the sport­ing event but al­so pro­vide im­por­tant in­for­ma­tion about the coun­try's cul­tur­al and en­ter­tain­ment lo­ca­tions as well as an over­all coun­try pro­file.

Such in­for­ma­tion would have been pro­vid­ed when the Caribbean played host to two crick­et world cups in 2007 and 2010 re­spec­tive­ly. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Trinidad and To­ba­go would have ben­e­fit­ted from the me­dia cov­er­age when it host­ed the 2001 FI­FA U17 World Cup for boys and the 2010 FI­FA World Cup for girls.

Mega and small sport­ing events not on­ly of­fer ath­letes and of­fi­cials op­por­tu­ni­ties to es­tab­lish strong so­cial bonds but al­so al­low sport tourists the op­por­tu­ni­ty to forge long last­ing so­cial con­nec­tions with per­sons from host cities and coun­tries. These bonds have the po­ten­tial to re­sult in fu­ture trav­els be­tween coun­tries and so deep­en­ing the ben­e­fits of tourism.

Ac­cord­ing to Mor­ri­son (2005) mega sport­ing events pro­vide a plat­form to in­cor­po­rate so­cial and cul­tur­al fea­tures of the host com­mu­ni­ty/city/coun­try in­to the over­all tourist ex­pe­ri­ence. These events are good oc­ca­sions to show­case the cul­tur­al her­itage of the coun­try such as its his­to­ry, his­tor­i­cal sites, food, mu­sic, art, ar­chi­tec­ture, and over­all what makes the host unique and in­ter­est­ing to want to re­turn in the im­me­di­ate fu­ture.

Sport tourism does not on­ly re­sult from the vis­it­ing and ex­pen­di­ture from tourists but al­so in­volves the de­vel­op­ment of lo­cal in­fra­struc­ture such as sta­dia, ho­tels, trans­porta­tion net­works, roads, telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion, air­ports and oth­er in­fra­struc­ture. Such de­vel­op­ments will pro­vide long term ben­e­fits to com­mu­ni­ties where they have been es­tab­lished.

The po­ten­tial ben­e­fits of sports tourism can on­ly be re­alised if sev­er­al chal­lenges are over­come es­pe­cial­ly in the de­vel­op­ing world. In coun­tries where crime and mat­ters of se­cu­ri­ty are a ma­jor con­cern per­sons con­sid­er­ing to trav­el to these des­ti­na­tion maybe dis­cour­aged to en­gage in any form of sport tourism.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, the al­le­ga­tions of cor­rup­tion and fi­nan­cial scan­dals may al­so serve as a dis­cour­age­ment.

The over­all suc­cess of any sport­ing tourism event is de­pen­dent up­on man­age­ment. Poor man­age­ment due to fi­nan­cial im­pro­pri­ety, poor plan­ning, lack of ef­fi­cient cus­tomer ser­vice, and a host of oth­er man­age­ment's draw­backs may serve as a ma­jor Achilles heel for the suc­cess of any sport tourism event.

Ac­cord­ing to UN Sec­re­tary Gen­er­al Ban Ki-moon (2011) sport tourism has the po­ten­tial to be­ing pow­er­ful tool for de­vel­op­ment and progress. How­ev­er, for this to be ac­com­plished to reap the ben­e­fits of sports tourism prop­er plan­ning and man­age­ment of events have to be un­der­tak­en.