Sport Tourism in Times of Change

In terms of popular participation, and in some aspects of practice, (sport and tourism) are inextricably linked ... and there are sound reasons for those links to strengthen.

Glyptis, 1989: 165

Introduction

The Football World Cup, hosted most recently by South Africa in June July 2010, is one of the world's premier team sports events. It is a month-long showcase of football competition, performed in association with (and at times overshadowed by) expressions of high emotion, personal and collective identity, and fervent nationalism. Indeed in a global world, international football is one of the most evident and emotional expressions of national identity (Tomlinson & Young, 2006). The Football World Cup is a stage for Shakespearean-like performances of emotion and drama, glory and despair. Such is the compelling nature of the sport that the stage is inevitably shared by competing actors, including political aspirants, multinational corporate actors, media corporations, spectators and tourists (Cornelissen, 2010).

The Football World Cup is the apex of elite competitive team sport. It stands upon a superstructure of ever-expanding and diversifying participation in sport and recreational activity. Once sport-related international travel was the domain of elite athletes, representing their countries in international competition. With hyper-mobility has come sport-related travel that extends across all spatial scales, levels of competition and competitive–participatory, serious–casual and active–passive dimensions of engagement (Higham & Hinch, 2009). Thus, the Football World Cup has become but one of the manifold diverse forms of sport-related tourism.

Sports, particularly large-scale sporting events dating back to the ancient Olympic Games, have long influenced travel (Keller, 2001). Historically they represent gatherings of athletes, spectators, politicians, royalty and dignitaries, merchants and business people, all seeking an association of some form with sports events that are bounded in space and time. However, the high numbers of travellers currently seeking active and passive involvement in sports is a more recent development (Delpy, 1998). It is increasingly clear that the scale, complexity and potential of sport tourism, as well as the expanding mutual interests of the sport and tourism industries that have developed as a consequence, demand that academic and industry expertise be directed towards this field. This book is about sport tourism and its manifestations in space and time. It seeks to articulate the defining qualities of sport that explain its unique contribution to tourism. It then applies tourism development concepts and themes to the study of sport tourism. Three key questions emerge in the context of sport tourism development: 'What makes sport unique as a tourist attraction or activity?' 'How is sport tourism manifested in space?' and 'How do these manifestations change over time?'.

The book is organised into five parts. Part 1 (Chapter 1) introduces the purpose, structure and goals of the book. It describes the development and growth of sport tourism, and then raises questions that are intended to demonstrate the relevance and challenge the assumptions that the reader may have on this subject. Part 2 (Chapters 2–4) is titled Foundations for Sport Tourism Development. This part is intended to provide the reader with fundamentals in the study of sport tourism, its markets and development processes and the issues relating to sport tourism. Much progress has been made in the study of sport and tourism in recent years (see Chalip, 2006; Chalip & Mcguirty, 2004; Gammon & Ramshaw, 2007; Gibson, 2005; Gratton et al., 2005; Higham & Hinch, 2009; Hinch & Higham, 2005; Hudson, 2003; Jones & Green, 2006; Morgan, 2007; Weed, 2005, 2008a). Chapters 2–4 provide an opportunity to review current insights into sport tourism as a basis for the discussions that follow.

Part 3 (Chapters 5–7) focuses on the spatial elements of sport tourism development. These chapters examine sport tourism development in relation to space, place and the environment. Each of these topics represents important aspects and manifestations of development. Part 4(Chapters 8–10) examines sport tourism development in relation to time. The short-term, medium-term and long-term time horizons provide a temporal framework that allows the authors to consider the immediate sport tourism experience, sport tourism and seasonality, and the dynamic interrelationship between sport and tourism within evolutionary frameworks. Part 5(Chapter 11) concludes by reviewing the preceding discussions to serve as a platform from which to consider the future of sport and tourism, and sport tourism research. This structure provides a framework that allows the authors to raise questions relating to sport tourism development in space and time and to address these questions through the application of relevant theory.

Sport Tourism in Times of Change

Democratisation, the process of opening access to previously restricted opportunities, is a term that applies to the development of sport and tourism in the latter half of the 20th century (Standeven & De Knop, 1999). Participation in some sports remains defined by factors such as social class. 'Irrespective of culture or historical period, people use sport to distinguish themselves and to reflect their status and prestige' (Booth & Loy, 1999: 1). The existence of post-class egalitarian consumer cultures in sport is refuted by Booth and Loy (1999), who state that similar-status groups generally share lifestyle and consumption patterns. The links that exist between socio-demographic status, lifestyle and consumption patterns in sport and tourism heighten the value and utility of defining sport tourism markets in practice.

That said, the forces of globalisation (Bernstein, 2000; Milne & Ateljevic, 2004; Thibault, 2009) and democratisation (Standeven & De Knop, 1999) have had significant implications for the consumption of sport and development processes in sport tourism (Chapter 4). The modern development of sport tourism, then, stands at the cross section of contemporary trends that include the following:

(1) the expanding demographic profile of participants in sports (Glyptis, 1989);

(2) heightened interests in health and fitness in Western societies since the 1970s (Collins, 1991);

(3) increasing demand for active engagement in recreational pursuits while on holiday since the 1980s...