Sports Tourism

Participants, Policy and Providers

Mike Weed, Chris Bull

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2012
• Print ISBN: 9780750683753
• eBook ISBN: 9781136435386
• Topic: Business
• Subtopic: Hospitality, Travel & Tourism Industry
• Index: Business

Sports Tourism: Participants, Policy and Providers is an unparalleled text that explains sports tourism as a social, economic and cultural phenomenon that stems from the unique interaction of activity, people and place. Unlike other texts, it establishes sports tourism as a unique area that produces its own unique issues, concerns and controversies. Extensively revised with cutting edge new material based on the latest research in the field, this edition uses recent international case studies to illustrate how theory is used in practice. The text tackles the complex and distinctive issues this sector faces from three viewpoints:

• participants: examining the profiles, motivations and behaviour patterns of sports tourists to create a participation model
• policy: analyzes the response by policy makers to this phenomenon and the problems of achieving integration between two sectors with historically different cultures
• providers: their motivations, aims, objectives and strategies.

Now in its second edition, this book is an essential resource for those studying, teaching or working in sports tourism.

Part 1 Context

Preface

Many of the previously published texts on sports tourism have focused much of their attention on the nature of impacts, with significant emphasis often being placed on its economic impacts. Standeven and De Knop (1999), for example, took this approach presenting, after several introductory and context setting chapters, chapters on economic, sociocultural, environmental and health impacts. In other cases, particular sub-sectors of sports tourism have been addressed. Hudson’s (2000) book on ‘Snow Business’ fell into this category, as did his edited collection (Hudson, 2003a) which contained chapters by a range of authors on sport event, winter sport, marine, golf and adventure tourism.

In contrast to much else published in the field, the aim of this text is not to focus on an analysis of sports tourism impacts, but to examine the behaviours and interests of stakeholders in sports tourism, namely the actual participants, the policy-makers and the providers. However, an important context for this analysis is material related to the way in which links between sport and tourism have developed and the concepts, issues and research insights that are shaping contemporary sports tourism development.

Chapter 1 traces the development of links between sport and tourism over time. The approach in this chapter is to focus on the way in which developments in sport and in tourism have led to increasing links between sport and tourism, rather than revisiting material on the history of sport and of tourism that is covered in much greater detail in other sources. While some of this material is international in nature, the historical overview is presented from a British perspective for two related reasons. First, because a completely international history would be almost impossible given the diverse historical development of sport, tourism and sports tourism around the world and, secondly, given that any history will be derived from a particular perspective, the British perspective has been taken because it is the one with which the authors are most familiar and therefore best equipped to comment on. As such, the historical issues raised will, in some cases, be illustrative of the development of sports tourism rather than directly relevant in every country. In a change from the first edition of this text, the first chapter has been extended to the present day, and now includes a substantial final section on the nature and development of sports tourism at the turn of the Millennium and beyond, thus covering aspects of the material on contemporary impacts that has been the focus of many other texts. One note of particular interest is that, while the earlier sections of Chapter 1 focus on the links between sport and tourism, as the discussion progresses into the previous two decades, the increasing confluence of sport and tourism in people’s lifestyles means that it becomes possible to discern the consumption and provision of sports tourism as a synergistic phenomenon that has become more than the simple combination of sport and tourism.

In extending the first chapter to bring the coverage of the development of sports tourism up to the present day, this second edition has essentially consolidated Chapters 1 and 2 from the first edition of the text into a single chapter. Consequently, Chapter 2 in the second edition provides an additional context that was perhaps missing from the first edition. Chapter 2 examines contemporary sports tourism issues, concepts and research, emphasizing in particular the fundamental nature of knowledge about sports tourism behaviours in informing the development of policy and provision, and in understanding impacts, thus laying the foundation for the remainder of the text which examines, in turn, sports tourism participants, policy-makers and providers. Chapter 2 also comments on a number of varying views on contemporary sports tourism from some of the leading authors in the field, and thus provides a context against which the analysis presented in the remainder of the text can be evaluated.

Chapter 1 Tracing the Development of the Sport – Tourism Link

DOI: 10.4324/9780080942117-2

Early Examples of a Link Between Sport and Tourism

The earliest documented example of sports tourism is that of the Olympic Games which date from 776 BC. However, the pan-Hellenic games at Olympia were but the most prestigious of more than a hundred such festivals (Finley and Pleket, 1976). Athletic games were an essential part of Greek life and every self-respecting city had its own stadium (Davies, 1997). However, the touring element was an important part of the sport. The participants were professional sportsmen and toured in order to win prizes; as Davies (1997, p. 127) points out, ‘athletes were not amateurs, being accustomed to arduous training and expecting handsome rewards’. In addition, thousands of spectators travelled to support their athletes and the prestige of their city, possibly in similar fashion to modern day football supporters travelling to support their team. The games at Olympia may have attracted as many as 40 000 people from all parts of Greece (Van Dalen and Bennett, 1971) and ‘there was probably no other occasion in the ancient world when as many people were on the road (or on the sea) for the same destination at the same time’ (Finley and Pleket, 1976, p. 53). Unlike provision for modern day tourists, there was little accommodation and visitors slept in tents or in the open air, although a hostel was established at Olympia in the fourth century (Baker, 1982, quoted in Standeven and De Knop, 1999). The tourism aspect of the games was further emphasized by its wider political aims. It is often advocated that both sport and tourismmay help to bring different peoples and cultures closer together and a key aim of the ancient games was to bring ‘a strong sense of cultural unity to a politically divided country’ (Davies, 1997, p. 127).

The Romans continued the travel element associated with sport, although in different forms. Athletic activity ‘became more health and socially oriented’ (Standeven and De Knop, 1999, p. 15) and less competitive and, as such, the related tourist activity was no longer significant. The gladiatorial combats and chariot races which replaced athletics as the principal spectator event were essentially home grown affairs, at least as far as the spectators themselves were concerned. One activity that did involve travel was the penchant for bathing, although how active this pursuit happened to be and thus how far it deserves to be considered as sport is no doubt open to debate. While bathing was also primarily a local activity (Rome had almost nine hundred baths), the ease of travel and the spread of the empire had led to a number of foreign towns such as Spa in Belgium, Baden-Baden in Germany, Tiberias in Israel and Bath in England becoming fashionable resorts for travelling Roman officials because of their bathing facilities (Standeven and De Knop, 1999).

The other influence on sports tourism which Standeven and De Knop (1999) attribute to the Romans is that of the survival of ball games. The Romans’ disposition to travel enabled the ideology of games as a means of fitness to be disseminated throughout Europe and it is argued that but for this, ball play would probably have disappeared due to its association with pagan customs.

It is important to highlight these ancient antecedents because they demonstrate that sports tourism is not a totally modern phenomenon; that some of the motivations which may influence current activity could have been present several thousand years earlier. Despite these earlier examples, however, there is relatively little evidence of much sports tourism occurring between the Roman period and relatively recent times.

Standeven and De Knop (1999) discuss connections between sport and tourism in the middle ages and renaissance period but little is provided in terms of real sports tourism other than jousting tournaments and real tennis, and even these are rather limited. In the case of the former, professional knights would tour as a way of making their living and there would thus seem to be some similarities here between the knights and the athletes of ancient Greece, although the early tournaments were unregulated, warlike and ‘there was no provision for spectators and few spectators were present’ (Guttmann, 1992, p. 148). Eventually, between the twelfth and sixteenth centuries, the tournament was ‘civilized’ and transformed into both an elegant sport and spectacle but only for aristocrats and upper ranks of society. Similarly, real tennis, for which international games are recorded, became popular in the sixteenth century but was also purely the preserve of aristocrats.

As modest improvements in transportation enabled people to travel more easily from the sixteenth century onwards, there is no doubt that opportunities for sports tourism also increased. One key tourism phenomenon which has received much coverage in the literature is the European Grand Tour (see, for example, Towner, 1985, 1996; Withey, 1997) which began in the sixteenth century and lasted until the nineteenth, and involved the wealthy in society travelling to various destinations in Europe. Towner (1996, p. 96) describes the Grand Tour as ‘a re-emergent form of cultural tourism which had existed in the ancient world’ and thus we have yet another key link with the touring behaviour of the ancient Greeks and Romans. The essential influence, according to Towner (1996), was the development of a ‘travel culture’ deriving its inspiration from the cultural and intellectual movements of the renaissance and, then, later the enlightenment. And, while sport may not have been the principal motive, certainly in the early phases of the Tour, it did feature to some extent in later periods. While formal education was more important for the early Grand Tourists, social skills became more prominent in the seventeenth century and these included, among other things, such physical pursuits as riding and fencing; and one seventeenth century writer (quoted by Towner) clearly lists ‘exercise’ as one of the motives for the Tour. In addition, as Baker (1982, p. 61, quoted in Standeven and De Knop) has suggested, it is likely that ‘young gentleman (may have been) more active than contemplative and physically adroit as well as learned’.

While it is possible to identify some examples of sport associated with this tourism phenomenon, it is the broader influences of the Grand Tour which have real significance for sports tourism. The Grand Tour provided an early model for the tourist industry in general, in terms of specific itineraries and the eventual development of a limited tourist infrastructure. While it was still primarily associated with the upper classes, this development laid the foundations for the eventual growth of mass tourism in later centuries. More specifically in relation to sports tourism, the Grand Tour also opened up the Alps as a tourist destination. The earlier ‘classical Grand Tour’, linked to galleries, museums and high cultural artefacts, eventually shifted to the ‘romantic Grand Tour’ which saw the emergence of ‘scenic tourism’ and a new taste for mountain scenery (Towner, 1996). This change in tastes and the development of centres in the Alpine region thus paved the way for the subsequent growth of sports activities, such as climbing and skiing, which are so prominent today.

Increasing Linkages in the Industrial Age

One of the key constraints on the development of sports tourism prior to the nineteenth century was the lack of suitable transport. As indicated above, there were incremental improvements from the fifteenth century onwards involving more comfortable coaches and, in the eighteenth century, greatly improved roads, at least in Britain if not everywhere in Europe. But transport was primarily slow and costly. For example, the journey time from London to Bath in 1680, a distance of 107 miles, was around 60 hours. Vastly improved roads had cut this time to 10 hours by 1800 (McIntyre, 1981), but the time and cost still meant that only the wealthy in society could travel substantial distances. It was not until the development of the railways in the nineteenth century that a relatively cheap and efficient form of transport was afforded to the population at large, enabling sports tourism to develop beyond the small and exclusive upper class activity that had existed hitherto. As Vamplew (1988, p. 11) points out, the railways ‘revolutionized sport in England by widening the catchment area for spectators and by enabling participants to compete nationally’.

The railways were the product of industrialization which, along with the associated urbanization, had profound implications for sports tourism. The impact of new factory working regimes, urban living conditions and urban middle class attitudes on the nature and development of leisure in general and sport in particular are well documented (Myerscough, 1974; Cunningham, 1975; Lowerson and Myerscough, 1977; Walton and Walvin, 1983; Clark and Critcher; 1985; Bailey, 1987; Mason, 1989; Cross, 1990) and there would seem little point in reiterating much of that story. Similarly, much has been written on the gradual development of tourism from the latter part of the nineteenth century (Pimlott, 1947; Walton 1981, 2000; Ousby, 1990; Gregory, 1991; Towner, 1996; Withey, 1997; Inglis, 2000). What is important here is the influence of urban-industrialization on the specific activity of sports tourism and, in this respect, two clear trends can be discerned: the development of sports requiring the participants themselves to travel and the development of sporting activity involving travelling spectators.

In relation to participant sports tourists, two very different groups emerge at this time: those who travel to participate in competitions and those who travel in order to use particular facilities or resources which may not be available to them in their own locality. The nineteenth century was a particularly important era in the development of competitive sport as attempts were made to transform vari...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of Tables
• List of Figures
• List of Boxes
• Acknowledgements
• Prologue to the Second Edition
• Part 1: Context
• Part 2: Participants
• Part 3: Policy
• Providers
• Case Studies
• Epilogue – Progress in Sports Tourism?
• References
• Index