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In the year the Olympic Games return home to Greece for the first time since 1896, it is worth reflecting on the growing importance of sports tourism.
It is a sector which is hugely important but hard to quantify, whether you are looking at spectator or participation sports. Some travel exhibitions have sports events running alongside them, while there are some specialist sports exhibitions devoted mainly to golf. An example of a travel exhibition combined with sport is the International Fair of Tourism and Sailing in Belgrade.
The Olympic Games in Athens (August 13-29) will attract over five million spectators, with air seats and hotel beds booked up for weeks either side of the event despite fears that some of the sports facilities might not be ready in time.
The international travel industry feels Athens is not doing itself any favours by hiking prices, with many hotels insisting on a minimum three-week booking during August.
But the long-term benefits for Greece certainly include a big increase in conference and incentive travel, with many enquiries pouring in to the new Athens Convention Bureau headed by Calli Travlos.
The old airport in Athens, closed in 2001, is being transformed into a state-of-the-art exhibition centre. The Megaron Concert Hall’s new convention centre opened in May with facilities for up to 2,000 delegates, while Thessaloniki, Crete, Rhodes and Kos also have major exhibition and conference facilities.
Travel exhibitions can expect increased bookings from Greece-based organisations as a result of the Olympics, but golf gives them the opportunity to focus on one particular sport.
A golf event was held alongside MITT – the Moscow International Travel and Tourism Exhibition – in March. Reed Travel Exhibitions (organiser of World Travel Market and conference and incentive event EIBTM) runs theInternational Golf Travel Market (IGTM), which is next held in Estoril, near Lisbon, on December 6-9.
Attendance at last year’s IGTM, in the Dominican Republic, illustrates the potential of golf for general travel exhibition organisers. It attracted 116 senior golf travel buyers from 25 countries, and 252 exhibiting companies from 37 countries including country pavilions from Portugal, Scotland, Wales, Italy, Ireland, the Costa del Sol and France, and new exhibitors Hungary, Jamaica, Cyprus, Greece, Trinidad & Tobago, Puerto Rico and Brazil.
Statistics by the International Association of Golf Tour Operators provide further proof of the importance of the sport. The UK is the largest European market with 1.8 million active golfers, 51% of whom go on holiday specifically for golf. Sweden is the second biggest with 380,000 golfers (70% go on holiday), followed by France (280,000, 51%) and Germany (250,000, 70%).
The golf tourism industry worldwide is worth $10 billion a year of which $8.3 billion is spent in the US.
Sports are very important in the conference and incentive travel market, according to EIBTM marketing manager, Mandy Torrens.
“Many corporates run a sports-related incentive including golf, water-sports, adventure sports etc. Adding this to a meeting or incentive can make the trip more appealing for delegates, and therefore many of these suppliers would exhibit at EIBTM or other similar events,” she says.
Stanislava Blagoeva-Duschell, president of ETTFA, adds: “Sports tourism is a growing segment but it is so diversified that it is impossible to generalise or combine all sports and related tourism products under one roof.
“Golf is the closest sport to travel, due to the real estate – with golf courses and adjacent hotels in the big inbound destinations. Organising sports and travel exhibitions alongside each other is common, but mixing them is difficult.”
Theodore is the Co-Founder and Managing Editor of TravelDailyNews Media Network; his responsibilities include business development and planning for TravelDailyNews long-term opportunities.
