Commentary - Sport as an Avenue of Tourism Development: An Analysis of the Positive and Negative Impacts of Sport Tourism

Recognition of the negative effects that are often associated with sporting megaevents has emerged relatively belatedly in the academic literature. Much attention has focused on the economic development potential of sporting events (Burgan & Mules, 1992). Various authors suggest that positive image and identity, inward investment and tourism promotion through media coverage and the televising of sport also help to justify hosting sports mega-events. Roche (1994: 1) states that 'mega-events are short term events with long-term consequences for the cities that stage them'. In many cases, it seems, the long term consequences for the host cities are negative. It appears that with increasing scale, the potential for sporting events to create negative impacts also increases (Olds, 1998, Shapcott, 1998). Despite this, little academic attention has been paid to the tourism potential of regular season domestic sport competitions, national championships and local/regional sport. At these levels of sport the potential for negative impact is minimal, while the tourism development potential that they offer remains largely unresearched.