Within this general context we organize Chapters 5–13 into three parts (each of three chapters), which consider sport and tourism in terms of activity,
Sport and Tourism: Activity, People and Place 11
people and place (respectively). This conceptualization is principally derived from the writing of Weed and Bull (2004), as elaborated by Weed (2005) in his editorial for a special issue of European Sports Management Quarterly on sports tourism method and theory. In his editorial Weed (2005) is critical of definitions of sport tourism, and particularly classifications of sport tourism which categorize sports participants as ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ (e.g., Gammon &
Robinson, 1997; Standeven & De Knop, 1999), which may be seen to effectively subordinate sport to tourism, or vice versa, in order to understand the sport tourism experience. Rather, sport tourism might be understood as
‘.a synergistic phenomenon that is more than the simple combination of sport and tourism’ (Weed, 2005:233). This requires that the unique features of sport and tourism, as they exist in combination, are understood and considered in an integrated manner so as to allow an exploration of the heterogeneity of sport tourism phenomena.
This conceptualization may in part be derived from Standeven and De Knop (1999:58) who see ‘sport and tourism as cultural experiencesdsport as a cultural experience of physical activity; tourism as a cultural experience of place’. Thus sport involves some form of physical activity, be it competitive or recreational, structured or unstructured, goal orientated or participatory (Hinch & Higham, 2004). In all of its diversity, sport involves engagements with people as competitors, co-participants, spectators, officials and hosts/
guests. Indeed even individual sports, some of which take place in extreme isolation (e.g., mountain running, ultra-marathon and solo yachting), involve interactions with other people given that ‘participants may reference their participation in terms of the subculture of the activity’ (Weed, 2005:233).
This can give rise to the experience of inter-personal authenticity in sport (Hinch & Higham, 2005:253) through feelings of tourist ‘communitas’
(Turner, 1974; Weed, 2005).
By the same token, tourism involves interactions with other people most obviously through contact with fellow travellers. Even the most independent forms of lifestyle travel involve the development of backpacker ‘trails’ that are inadvertently established among those who, ironically, seek to escape any notion of an established trail. Similarly, all forms of tourism involve inter- actions with local communities in some form or another, be they with tourism industry service staff or local residents who have little or no asso- ciation with the tourism sectorper se. In the absence of common interests (e.g., sports competition) beyond the service encounter, many such interac- tions are problematically fleeting, contrived or standardized. Of course the interplay between hosts and guests occurs in places that are beyond the tourists’ usual environment of work and/or other routine domestic activities.
Tourism inevitably involves a spatial travel dimension (Dietvorst &
Ashworth, 1995) which takes the tourist to other places. The appeal of such places may in part lie in the fact that they are unusual or unfamiliar. Equally, in a globalized world of high mobility, travel may take people to places of regular visit, where inter-personal interactions are different but familiar nonetheless (Mu¨ller, 2005).
Thus sport tourism may be viewed, according to Weed and Bull’s (2004) conceptualization, as the amalgam of specific sporting activities, being undertaken by people in various forms of competitive interplay or other interaction, that occur in places (of high or low familiarity) that may be instrumental to the sport and/or tourist experience. This conceptualization sits most comfortably with the foregoing discussion given that it allows a shift ‘.away from a dependence on either sport or tourism as the primary defining factor’ (Weed & Bull, 2004:234). Weed (2005) has called for dedi- cated and critical consideration of sport tourism as it relates to the interac- tion of activity, people and place. We set out in this book to contribute to addressing this call. So, set within the broader context of globalization, mobility and identity (Part 2), the themes of activity (Part 3), people (Part 4) and place (Part 5) give this book its structure (Figure 1.1).
In Part 3 (Activity) we consider elite competition (Chapter 5), sport spectatorship (Chapter 6) and the pursuit of serious leisure through recrea- tional sports (Chapter 7) – three distinct activities – as they relate specifically
Activity
Place People
Sport &
Tourism
Globalization, mobility and identity
FIGURE 1.1 Sport tourism as a composite of activity, people and place set within the contextual themes of globalization, mobility and identity.
Sport and Tourism: Activity, People and Place 13
to sport and tourism experiences, within the context of the themes estab- lished in Chapters 2–4. Then, in Part 4 (People), those who engage in sport- related tourism are discussed with specific attention paid to the search for authenticity through sport-related travel (Chapter 8), transient migrants – those who adopt mobile lifestyles entirely or in part to pursue their sporting passions (Chapter 9) and migrants and diasporic communities (Chapter 10).
Finally, in Part 5 (Place), we discuss place in terms of modern landscapes and retro parks (Chapter 11), place attachments and meanings (Chapter 12) and place competition (Chapter 13). These chapters include invited case studies written by scholars in a range of disciplines whose works provide critical insights into the complex interplay of sport and tourism as it is addressed in this book.
The subjects of discussion presented in Chapters 5–13 are indicative as opposed to representative of the three themes activity, people and place. For example, in terms of People (Part 4), we consider elite athletes as tourists, people who for all intents and purposes have always been treated as producers of sport rather than consumers of the places in which they engage in their sporting endeavours (Higham, 2005). Obviously the destination needs of elite athletes differ fundamentally from the needs of spectators and others who travel to a specific place to experience a particular sport or competition. Dis- regarding the destination needs of elite athletes continues by and large, despite clear signs that sports organizations, managers, support personnel, funding agencies and sports people themselves are thinking ever more critically about the experiences of elite athletes at places of training, preparation (e.g., accli- matization) and competition (Francis & Murphy, 2005), but also as places of leisure, rest, stimulation (e.g., from the routines of training) and pressure relief as no less important elements of preparation and competitive performance.
In Part 4 (People) we could alternatively have focused the spotlight of our discussions on sports media celebrities, business travellers, football hooli- gans, university/college athletes, professional or amateur athletes, individual or team competitors, members of particular sports subcultures, representa- tives of professional sports organizations, event bid groups, casual participants in sports, or competitive sports people ranging from age group (child/youth) to Masters competitors (among countless others). Here we seek not to justify the subject matter that we have chosen to include in this book, but only to highlight the diversity of sport and tourism phenomena. Notwithstanding this point, integration of our discussions of activity, people and place within the overarching themes of globalization, mobility and identity is attempted in Chapter 14, the concluding chapter, so as to draw coherent conclusions on the subject of sport tourism as it currently stands, and to provide insights into the future, and future research serving, the study of sport and tourism.
PA R T 2
Globalization, Mobility and Identity
PA R T 2
C H A P T E R 2
Sport and Tourism in a Global World
Globalization, in all its complexity, has emerged over the past two decades as the major socio-economic force. In many ways, sport and tourism have been at the forefront of globalization both in exhibiting its manifestations and as agents of its processes. Although there are substantial bodies of literature that examine this phenomenon in the separate realms of sport (Maguire, 1999; Miller, Lawrence, McKay & Rowe, 2001) and tourism (Cooper & Wahab, 2001; Mowforth & Munt, 1998), there have been few attempts to study globalization at the confluence of these fields. In this chapter we redress this omission by articulating an understanding of globalization in the context of sport tourism. This chapter examines the processes of globalization, the role of culture and consumption and the key globalization issues that have emerged in the realm of sport and tourism.