Sport Facilities VIII

Motricidade © Edições Desafio Singular

2019, vol. 15, S2, pp. 13-18 http://dx.doi.org/10.6063/motricidade.18360

1 University of Madeira

* Corresponding author: [email protected]

Sport tourism and destination planning

Josep-Francesc Valls1*, Luís Mota1, Mara Franco1 SHORT PAPER

INTRODUCTION

The globalization of the economy has placed

sports tourism in the most relevant contemporary

mass phenomenon. The events and the practice

of sports amalgamate the show, the industry and

marketing. In one hand, there are spectators of

sports events in the stadiums, those who watch

them either at home or in public places, the video

game fans, in the other hand, there are

practitioners of the different activities, and those

who travel to places where they are celebrated, or

sport events have elapsed. Finally, they are

shaping a new culture of healthy living, a new

model of playful life and community living: active

citizenship (Sport England, 1999), generating

numerous businesses. Sport has become a

determining factor in the offer of tourist

destinations. This facilitates the differentiation

and at the same time be more competitive in the

international framework.

In the middle of the digital revolution,

innovation has reached this growing sector,

applying Big Data and algorithms to customer

analysis; to urbanism and the design of the

facilities where tests are carried out; to

infrastructures, services and materials; to

training, food and nutritional products of

athletes, to health and rehabilitation; to the

organization and management of events; to

services, channels, media and video games; and to

the analysis of the profitability generated by these

events.

Figure 1. Flows generated by sports activities. Source: adapted from Pedrosa, Salvador, 2003

14 | JP Valls, L Mota, M Franco

In this way, it has become one of the main

drivers of destinations’ economic development,

contributing to increasing the percentage of

tourists and becoming a determinant element of

the brand image of the destination. The

multiplier effect of sport reaches 1.22% in the EU

countries, accounting for 1.76% of the EU Gross

Value Added (GVA) comparable to agriculture,

forestry and fisheries combined, and representing

2.12% of the total employment of the Union (EU,

2014).

This trend already accounts for 25% of the

income of the tourism sector worldwide. In the

United States, the 46.5 billion dollars that sport

managed in 2005, it almost doubled in 2017,

(Witmann, 2018). In Spain, in 2016, 10.1 million

foreign tourists traveled to this country for sport

reasons, spending an average of 1.194 euros,

22.5% more than ten years ago (Egatur, 2017).

The spectacle, participation and nostalgia

sport events-subsequent visits generate flows of

all kinds, namely the consumer goods-sports

equipment, tickets, fees, travel, accommodation

and stay, visits to the city, and other type of

services. They are related to the event

organization, clinics, high performance centers,

sports betting, and sponsorships, advertising and

TV rights (Pedrosa, 2003). Furthermore, the

revenue generated by attending to such events, is

a contribution to the tax framework, pays for

building and maintaining stadiums and the

organization itself.

Figure 2. Sport Tourism at the service of a destination

RESULTS

Between 2014 and 2017, the number of

Europeans who say they never practice sports

went from 42 to 46%, a negative trend occurring

since 2009 (European Commission, 2018).

However, in the last Eurobarometer, some

minor changes to worse. Remains highly

sustained, being the countries exporting tourists

and the athletes dedicate more time and

economical resources (European Commission,

2018). In addition, remarkable results are

expected in the medium and long term, being

favorable to sports practice because of

transnational initiatives that are being carried out

under community impulse (European

Commission, 2018).

As benchmarking, it must be affirmed that the

flow of tourists increases in search of places to

practice sports. In the case of Spain, one of the

tourism leading countries of the world market,

10.6 million foreign tourists practiced some sport

during their stay in Spain, generating an expense

of 114 euros a day. That means 1.207 euros spent

per person during their total stay, 69 euros less

than the average located at 1.138 euros (Egatur,

2018). The preferred activities were hiking,

mountaineering, water sports, golf and popular

marathons.

Sport tourism and destination planning | 15

We distinguish six segments of sport tourism

customers (Newland & Aicher, 2018):

1. Attendees to live shows and in person to

any type of sporting event, from the world

soccer championships or any other

specialty of any category, to the most

minor tournament

2. Those who follow the celebration of events

through the television - at home, in the

club or in any establishment ad hoc, radio

broadcasting, written media, and

streaming

3. Videogame players, at home

4. Athletes who perform at an event

individually, professionally or amateurly.

5. Athletes who participate in an event

collectively as a club

6. Travelers who visit the places where an

event was held in both the first and second

groups.

Sport events can have large dimensions

(Olympic Games, world championships, World

Police and Firefighting Games, etc., Formule-1,

etc.) moving thousands of people; medium-sized,

mobilizing hundreds of people, and small-sized

ones, whose proportion is quite minor.

Identifying the target, among European

practitioners it is found that:

• The market remains constant, very similar

to the last ten years, but the practice of

sports increases. In addition, we expect

spectacular results in the medium and long

term favorable to it, thanks to the EU

guidelines. The target countries are still the

Scandinavians, Portugal, Switzerland,

Germany and, despite the decline in activity,

Spain and Austria

• The daily expenditure of sport tourism is

higher than the average spending of holiday

tourists in a percentage close to 6%

• The segments for Madeira are groups 4 -

Athletes who perform at an event

individually, professionally or amateurly-

and 5 -Athletes who participate in an event

collectively as a club -

• The dimension of sport events is

preferentially medium and small

Types of sporting events

The International Olympic Committee

accepts a total of 66 sports activities, distributed

among those of summer sports (28), winter

sports (7) and other sports recognized by that

body (31).

There is a border between the sports accepted

by the International Olympic Committee and

tourism. These are activities related to walking,

running, fitness, opening training, corporate

wellness, spinning, and aerobics, associated with

urban life, outdoors, adventure, and discovery,

that fit perfectly with the main demands of sports

activity of Europeans when they travel, as quiet

sports activities. We would say that sports

activity has become a sport on demand for each

group or person, at any time of the day.

ORGANIZATION

Although a very important part of medium

and small sporting events has been done so far

thanks to the voluntarism of a few, the

management by clubs, associations and the

various public administrations advances

throughout Europe towards a complete stage

professionalization, especially when the

development of this activity involves attracting

tourists in an increasingly competitive

environment.

To develop an event and properly use spaces,

an organizing team with the appropriate

administrative services is required. Whether it's

a sport club or individual sportsmen, the

organizing team requires:

• Economic resources. Three sources of

financing appear: private brands, through

advertising, sponsorship and contracts with

media for retransmission; public

administrations; and the exploitation of the

activity itself and the different spaces, based

on ticketing, memberships, concessions,

exclusivities and rights over merchandising

products. These three sources guarantee the

profitability of the event. Each one of the

financiers looks for the profitability adapted

to their interests: economic, social and

environmental;

• Adequate spaces for the celebration of

events whether private or public. Both the

16 | JP Valls, L Mota, M Franco

enclosures and the outdoor spaces are

immersed in a profound process of urban

reorganization;

• Methodologies and tools in the management

processes, in customer loyalty, in marketing

information systems, SIM, in the

management of brands

• Contacts with athletes, with federations,

with referees, with brands and sponsors,

with local assistants, visitors and tourists;

• Offline and online media interested in

generating consumable content by broad

audiences, which generate audiences and

economic flows that provide enough

resources to adequately remunerate the

entire circuit;

• Public-private management, which is

usually the most competitive, since it

balances the search for economic, social and

environmental benefits;

• Sports management, which is one of the

specialties on the rise in academic

education. Manage this series of elements to

obtain the key factors of success of the

events. Fortunately, this course, the

University of Madeira has started a degree in

Hotel Management that facilitates the

training of students in tourism, which will

allow in the medium term to have talent

prepared to expand to this field of tourism.

The availability of numerous natural spaces

valued in Madeira, such as those of the levadas

and mountains, and of sports facilities makes

Madeira an ideal place to encourage this type of

market, sport tourism.

NECESSARY INFRASTRUCTURE

Game Sports events require sports

opportunities, equipment, services and

complementary products (Heinemann, 1988).

Regarding opportunities, we must mention

sports facilities; means of transport and roads;

parking, facilities for supplies and evacuation;

sports environments, such as home-club and

social premises; points of sale of sports clothing

and accessories. In terms of equipment,

sportswear, accessories, food, medical and

rehabilitation services, repair, computer

equipment and other auxiliary means. Regarding

the provision of services, learning of the sports

discipline; training; advice on programs; sports

events. As for complementary products, shows

and sporting events, sports, travel, insurance,

betting, video games.

In this sense, the tourist offer of Madeira is

sufficiently complete to undertake this new

market, although it will have to adjust the

lodging, the restoration, the intermediation, the

transport, the tourist activities, the shopping to

the growth of the future demand of sport

tourism. Additionally, expand the services

around the Levadas and the mountain to complete

a product with high added value.

ECONOMIC, SOCIAL AND ENVIRONMENTAL

BENEFITS

The positive impact of sport events is the

income, the improvement of the infrastructures

and their maintenance, the transport service

created, the pride and sense of belonging, the

volunteer and the active participation of the

community, and the image that is generated in

the off and online media. The negative impacts

are the overcrowding, the increase of robberies

and criminality, traffic congestion and

displacements, the increase of garbage (Barker,

Page & Meyer, 2002) and the medical and safety

problems that are generated.

Apart from seeking the balance of the

economic results of the accounts of each event,

the sports policy should tend to improve the

social aspects - that is, improvement of the

salaries of the people, creation of new jobs, of the

green spaces at the service of the population, of

the community sport practice, of the general level

of life, of innovation- and environmental of the

destination. In this way, green events are planned

to encourage attendees and participants to adopt

pro-environmental behaviors (Hyoung, Nelson &

Kim, 2015).

Well, it is difficult to establish the

measurement to know the real impact of a sports

event. Most tangible aspects are auditable, but

intangibles are much more complicated.

The measurement problems that are

presented are of a conceptual nature - depending

on the understanding of sports spending in

relation to entertainment, recreation, tourism-;

Sport tourism and destination planning | 17

statistical - low level of practice data, clothing

and exclusive materials, sports spending, the

breakdown within national statistical services

between entertainment, leisure and culture-; and

methodologies - incidence of sport in industry

and distribution in national accounting (Pedrosa

& Salvador, 2003).

In the face of megalomania in the

construction of spaces for sport, rationality is

imposed, enabling those infrastructures and ad

hoc services for each project. Sport tourism

cooperates to the sustainability of the territory

and heritage and cooperates with slow tourism, a

new way of traveling more relaxed and with a

much smaller ecological footprint.

BRAND IMAGE OF COUNTRIES

The brand image of a country or a tourist

destination is an umbrella that protects all those

elements that constitute it. Sport tourism is one

of the ones that can bring more value and infuse

a special mark. In this way, the vision of Madeira

offering itself as slow tourism can generate an

attraction of tourists interested in a different way

of traveling differentiated from the massive sun

and beach tourism, which marries the

contemporary play mentality and has a higher

disposition to pay more.

The idea is to develop a public-private

management for spaces where not only social

conditions of the population are improved, but

the environmental wealth of the island is

preserved.

It is necessary to associate the perceived value

of quality, of emotional response, of price, of

experience to the reputation of destiny and this

will produce fidelity.

The brand image of Madeira would increase

its value if this input relative to sports tourism is

added

Figure 3. Sport tourism attribute incorporated to the Madeira brand

In search of the clear differentiation regarding

the sun and beach offer of most European

islands, sport tourism is associated with the

concepts of sustainability and slow tourism,

within the most advanced trends of the new way

of traveling.

CONCLUSIONS

From the explanations of this paper the

following conclusions can be drawn:

a) Sport has become a determining factor in

the offer of tourist destinations. Thanks to

this, they move towards differentiation and

toward greater international

competitiveness

b) The data provided in this paper indicates

that there is an important sport tourism

market in Europe, mainly in Scandinavia and

in the traditional emitting countries of

tourists to Madeira

18 | JP Valls, L Mota, M Franco

c) This is a target that is willing to perform

quiet sports activities such as walking,

running, fitness, outdoors, opening training,

adventure or discovery

d) This target spends 6% more than when

traveling for other tourist activities

e) Madeira can grow in the sport segment of

medium and small events both in individual

activities and clubs, and both among

neophytes and intermediaries. The

fundamental reasons are the available

natural spaces, such as the levadas, the

mountain. And above all the association of

the tourist image to sustainability and slow

tourism

f) It requires adjusting the offer of tourist and

para-tourist services and infrastructure to

the evolution of the new demand

g) In the digitization phase of the sector in

which the world tourism market lives,

Madeira can take advantage of the

opportunity to promote digital

transformation in the field of sport tourism.

Acknowledgments: Nothing to declare.

Conflict of interests: Nothing to declare.

Funding: The authors would like to thank Tourism Project: Characterization, Impact and Sustainability of Madeira Tourism, co-financed by the Operational Program of the Autonomous Region of Madeira 2014–2020 (Portaria No. 92/2015), M14-20-01-0145- FEDER- 000007, of the University of Madeira.

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