Sports tourism refers to

travel Travel is the movement of people between distant geographical locations. Travel can be done by foot, bicycle, automobile, train, boat, bus, airplane, ship or other means, with or without luggage, and can be one way or round trip. Travel c ...

which involves either observing or participating in a

sporting event Sport pertains to any form of competitive physical activity or game that aims to use, maintain, or improve physical ability and skills while providing enjoyment to participants and, in some cases, entertainment to spectators. Sports can, t ...

while staying apart from the tourists' usual environment. Sport tourism is a fast-growing sector of the global

travel industry Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism ...

and equates to $7.68 billion.

Classification of sport tourism

There are several classifications of sport tourism. Gammon and Robinson suggested that sports tourism can be categorized as ''Hard Sports Tourism'' or ''Soft Sports Tourism'', while Gibson suggested that there are three types of sports tourism: ''Sports Event Tourism'', ''Celebrity and Nostalgia Sport Tourism'' and ''Active Sport Tourism''.

Hard and soft sport tourism

The "hard" definition of sport tourism refers to the quantity of people participating at a competitive sport events. Normally these kinds of events are the motivation that attract visitors to the events.

Olympic Games The modern Olympic Games or Olympics (french: link=no, Jeux olympiques) are the leading international sporting events featuring summer and winter sports competitions in which thousands of athletes from around the world participate in a vari ...

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...

, F1 Grand Prix and regional events such as

NASCAR The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing, LLC (NASCAR) is an American auto racing sanctioning and operating company that is best known for stock car racing. The privately owned company was founded by Bill France Sr. in 1948, and ...

Sprint Cup Series could be described as hard sports tourism. The "soft" definition of sport tourism is when the tourist travels to participate in recreational sporting, or signing up for leisure interests.

Hiking Hiking is a long, vigorous walk, usually on trails or footpaths in the countryside. Walking for pleasure developed in Europe during the eighteenth century.AMATO, JOSEPH A. "Mind over Foot: Romantic Walking and Rambling." In ''On Foot: A Histor ...

skiing Skiing is the use of skis to glide on snow. Variations of purpose include basic transport, a recreational activity, or a competitive winter sport. Many types of competitive skiing events are recognized by the International Olympic Committee ( ...

running Running is a method of terrestrial locomotion allowing humans and other animals to move rapidly on foot. Running is a type of gait characterized by an aerial phase in which all feet are above the ground (though there are exceptions). This is ...

and canoeing can be described as soft sports tourism. Perhaps the most common form of soft sports tourism involves

golf Golf is a club-and-ball sport in which players use various clubs to hit balls into a series of holes on a course in as few strokes as possible. Golf, unlike most ball games, cannot and does not use a standardized playing area, and coping ...

in regards to destinations in

Europe Europe is a large peninsula conventionally considered a continent in its own right because of its great physical size and the weight of its history and traditions. Europe is also considered a subcontinent of Eurasia and it is located entirel ...

and the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

. A large number of people are interested in playing some of the world's greatest and highest ranked courses, and take great pride in checking those destinations off of their list of places to visit.

Sporting event tourism

''Sports event tourism'' refers to the visitors who visit a city to watch events. The two events that attract the most tourists worldwide are the Olympics and the FIFA World Cup. These events held once every four years, in a different city in the world. Sport tourism in the United States is more focused on events that happen annually. The major event for the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

is the Super Bowl, held at the end of the year in different city every year. Even though the

National Hockey League The National Hockey League (NHL; french: Ligue nationale de hockey—LNH, ) is a professional ice hockey league in North America comprising 32 teams—25 in the United States and 7 in Canada. It is considered to be the top ranked professional ...

started the annual NHL Winter Classic game in 2008, the 2014 New Year's outdoor hockey game rivaled the Stanley Cup Tournament in popularity and "revitalized the NHL". As of 2015, the newest trend in college basketball was to start the season off with annual tournaments such as the Maui Invitational held in

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only state ...

, and the Battle for Atlantis which is played in the

Bahamas The Bahamas (), officially the Commonwealth of The Bahamas, is an island country within the Lucayan Archipelago of the West Indies in the North Atlantic. It takes up 97% of the Lucayan Archipelago's land area and is home to 88% of the ar ...

. This idea of pairing quality sports events with the Bahamas attractions raised the island's profile and brought in more visitors and dollars to the country. The Battle for Atlantis brought more than 5,000 fans in during

Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden ...

week for the three-day tournament. The event helped to increase hotel capacity from what is typically around 60 percent this time of year to 90 percent. Sport tourism "is a growing market and many different cities and countries want to be involved,”

Celebrity and nostalgia sport tourism

''Celebrity and nostalgia sport tourism'' involves visits to the sports halls of fame and venue and meeting sports personalities in a vacation basis.

Active sport tourism

''Active sport tourism'' refers to those who participate in the sports or sport events.

Rugby football Rugby football is the collective name for the team sports of rugby union and rugby league. Canadian football and, to a lesser extent, American football were once considered forms of rugby football, but are seldom now referred to as such. The ...

, football,

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

, etc are considered active sports and many sport events (which we call tournaments or festivals) are organized each year in most of the countries in the world.

References

External links

{{Tourism

Tourism Tourism is travel for pleasure or business; also the theory and practice of touring, the business of attracting, accommodating, and entertaining tourists, and the business of operating tours. The World Tourism Organization defines tourism mor ...

Types of tourism