A prop­er­ly de­vel­oped sports tourism pol­i­cy pro­vides a good plat­form for suc­cess through im­ple­men­ta­tion, clin­i­cal mon­i­tor­ing, and eval­u­a­tion. Sports tourism in­volves the trav­el of per­sons for non-busi­ness rea­sons to par­tic­i­pate in and or ob­serve sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties (Hall, 1992). Ac­cord­ing to Za­uhar (2003), sports tourism in­volves sev­er­al ac­tiv­i­ties.

In ad­di­tion to par­tic­i­pat­ing in and at­tend­ing sport­ing events, per­sons who trav­el for sports tourism may al­so have a vest­ed in­ter­est in vis­it­ing state-of-the-art sport­ing fa­cil­i­ties such as sta­di­ums.

These may in­clude, for ex­am­ple, Lord’s crick­et ground in Eng­land, Roland Gar­ros in Paris, Mara­canã Sta­di­um in Brazil, and the Mil­len­ni­um rug­by sta­di­um in Wales.

In ad­di­tion to the icon­ic sport­ing sta­di­um’s ap­peal, sports tourists may al­so be in­ter­est­ed in the sport­ing halls of fame and sports mu­se­ums such as the Leg­ends of Bar­ba­dos crick­et mu­se­um.

Sports tourism is about an EX­PE­RI­ENCE. It is not on­ly about the sport­ing event but about what else is avail­able in the host coun­try to ex­pe­ri­ence that may or may not be re­lat­ed to sport.

For in­stance, some high­lights of at­tend­ing the 2018 FI­FA World Cup were vis­it­ing Red Square, Vladimir Lenin’s 94 years old (now 99 years) em­balmed body, and St Basil’s Cathe­dral, to name a few non-sport­ing in­ter­ests. The over­all ex­pe­ri­ence was so re­ward­ing; re­vis­it­ing Rus­sia is on the cards [once the mat­ter with Ukraine is ‘re­solved’.

The same is for vis­it­ing An­tigua in 2018 to at­tend the ICC Women’s T20 World Cup se­mi-fi­nals and fi­nal and to ex­pe­ri­ence the cul­ture and a few of the is­land’s 365 beach­es. Sports tourists may on­ly some­times be in­ter­est­ed in tra­di­tion­al com­pet­i­tive sports and may find ad­ven­tur­ous ac­tiv­i­ties far more invit­ing and ap­peal­ing to their leisure taste.

These ad­ven­tur­ous ac­tiv­i­ties may in­clude bungee jump­ing sta­tions, zip line canopy tours, hik­ing trails, and wa­ter ad­ven­tures such as snorkelling and golf. The key is un­der­stand­ing the de­mands of sports tourists. So­cio-de­mo­graph­ic da­ta can­not be un­der­es­ti­mat­ed.

Sports tourism of­fers sev­er­al eco­nom­ic ben­e­fits to lo­cal com­mu­ni­ties, the re­gion, and the coun­try. An es­ti­mat­ed 680 000 per­sons from over­seas at­tend­ed the 2012 Lon­don Olympics and Par­a­lympics. These vis­i­tors gen­er­at­ed enor­mous eco­nom­ic ac­tiv­i­ty through dif­fer­ent ex­pen­di­tures on sport­ing and non-sport­ing ac­tiv­i­ties.

There was an in­creased de­mand for var­i­ous ac­com­mo­da­tion ho­tels and guest hous­es. Sim­i­lar­ly, there was an in­creased de­mand for sport­ing para­pher­na­lia such as repli­ca tee shirts, sneak­ers, etc.

Non-sport­ing prod­ucts ex­pen­di­ture in­clud­ed food, bev­er­ages, phones, cam­eras, and oth­er elec­tron­ic ac­ces­sories as­so­ci­at­ed with trav­ellers. Ac­cord­ing to Has­sen (2003), the 2003 Crick­et World gen­er­at­ed 1.3 bil­lion Rands for the South African econ­o­my.

Sports tourism pro­vides a host coun­try with high me­dia cov­er­age. The me­dia cov­er­age will cov­er the sport­ing event as well as pro­vide aware­ness of a coun­try’s so­cio-cul­tur­al, eco­nom­ic, and en­ter­tain­ment iden­ti­ty, such as the four In­ter­na­tion­al Crick­et Coun­cil [ICC] World Cups in the Caribbean in 2007, 2010, 2018, and 2022 and the sched­uled ICC T20 Men’s World Cup in 2024.

The same high-pro­file re­gion­al ben­e­fits are as­so­ci­at­ed with the ten edi­tions of the Caribbean Pre­mier League [CPL]. For ex­am­ple, Trinidad and To­ba­go would have ben­e­fit­ted from the me­dia cov­er­age when it host­ed the 2001 FI­FA U17 World Cup for boys and the 2010 FI­FA World Cup for girls.

The same will hap­pen when Trinidad and To­ba­go host the VII Com­mon­wealth Youth Games on Au­gust 4- 11, 2023.

Mega and mi­nor sport­ing events of­fer ath­letes and of­fi­cials op­por­tu­ni­ties to es­tab­lish strong so­cial bonds and al­low sports tourists to forge long-last­ing so­cial con­nec­tions with per­sons from host cities and coun­tries. These bonds have the po­ten­tial to re­sult in fu­ture trav­els be­tween coun­tries, deep­en­ing the ben­e­fits of tourism.

Ac­cord­ing to Mor­ri­son (2005), mega-sport­ing events pro­vide a plat­form to in­cor­po­rate so­cial and cul­tur­al fea­tures of the host com­mu­ni­ty/city/coun­try in­to the over­all tourist ex­pe­ri­ence.

These events are good oc­ca­sions to show­case the coun­try’s cul­tur­al her­itage, such as its his­to­ry, his­tor­i­cal sites, food, mu­sic, art, ar­chi­tec­ture, and over­all, what makes the most unique and ex­cit­ing to want to re­turn in the im­me­di­ate fu­ture.

Sports tourism not on­ly re­sults from tourists’ vis­it­ing and ex­pen­di­ture but al­so in­volves the de­vel­op­ment of lo­cal in­fra­struc­ture such as sta­dia, ho­tels, trans­porta­tion net­works, roads, telecom­mu­ni­ca­tion, air­ports, and oth­er in­fra­struc­ture. Such ac­tions al­so pro­vide long-term ben­e­fits to com­mu­ni­ties.

Sports tourism suc­cess de­pends up­on pol­i­cy, im­ple­men­ta­tion, mon­i­tor­ing, and eval­u­a­tion.