Sports Training
Sports Participation
Tourism Luxury Sports Tourism
Tourism with Sports
Content General Tourism Sports
Events
Figure 5.1
Olympic Tourism Policy Rings.
Source:derived from Weed and Bull, 1997a.
sub-areas. For example, collaboration on ‘Facility Development’
under ‘Facility Issues’ is linked to policy considerations for a range of Olympic tourism products (e.g., ‘Sports Events’ and
‘Sports Training’) under the central ‘Olympic Tourism’ area.
Like the original Policy Area Matrix for Sport and Tourism, the Olympic Tourism Policy Rings aim to summarize those areas in which agencies responsible for developing policy for Olympic tourism might reasonably be expected to collaborate. As such, it is useful to examine some examples from around the world of both successful and less successful policy collaborations. Such exam-ples might usefully be considered in the context of the nature of sports-related Olympic tourism as being derived from the inter-action of activity, people and place, with many policy initiatives focussing on the place element. Perhaps the most obvious exam-ples from the Olympic tourism product policy ring are in relation to Sports Event tourism. Whilst the focus is usually on maximiz-ing the economic contribution of such events, a further consider-ation relates to the post-event use of major arenas and specialist facilities constructed for such events. The athletics stadia used for
the Atlanta Olympics (1996) and the Manchester Commonwealth Games (2002) incorporated temporary stands which allowed for the adaptation of the facilities for the long term use of the Atlanta Braves Baseball team and Manchester City football club, respec-tively. In each of these cases the experience of place generated by and associated with athletics is different to that required for both baseball and football. Consequently, modifications to these stadia were made to ensure their long term use, where a different group of people would expect a different place experience in watching a different type of activity. An example from the Facility Issues ring is provided by Calgary, who had mixed success in ensuring that the facilities constructed for the 1988 Winter Olympic Games were suitable for dual use for both spectator events and general casual community sport. Here the requirement was for places that would be capable of adaptation to produce different place experiences for different people participating in or watching a range of different activities. On one hand, the Canmore Nordic Ski Centre, in addition to continuing to host events, provided for 40,000 recreational cross-country skiers in its first year of post-Olympic operation. On the other hand, the luge and bobsled track, the ski-jump tower, and the indoor speed-skating oval have not attracted nor been adaptable for community use, although events such as World Cup Speed Skating continue to be hosted (Granson, 2005; Whitson and MacIntosh, 1993; 1996).
Securing and using Resources and Funding to promote and develop Olympic tourism is a key policy ring where collabora-tion between sport, tourism and a range of other interests could develop much further than is presently the case. Whilst the chan-nelling of resources into projects that use high profile sport to regenerate communities has been a feature of city marketing in the USA for some time, there is often extended debate about the use of resources for an Olympic Games, particularly if costs appear to be continually rising and policy planning and part-nership is seen to be lacking. In this respect, some of the con-cerns expressed in the run up to the Athens Olympic Games of 2004 provide a useful example (see also Chapter 8). In the context of a rising budget and a perceived lack of planning, the President of the Athens Hotel Owners Association claimed that while hotel owners were investing over 500 million Euros in modernizing hotels, they were being let down by the gov-ernment who were squandering resources on ‘sloppy solutions’
such as the accommodation of Olympic tourists on islands cou-pled with the organization of day trips to Athens to watch the events (Sports Business, 2002). The lack of resources allocated to proper planning structures was also criticized by the Managing Director of the Greek Association of Tourism Enterprises, who
condemned the government for not doing ‘anything all these years to formulate a marketing strategy that would make the Olympics the pole attraction for millions of foreign visitors to Greece.’ (Yannopoulos, 2003). Such a marketing strategy, had it been developed (as it has in other cases – see discussion of the Winter Games in Turin in Chapter 6), could have served to attracting new people to the area through the packaging and pro-motion of a range of new and existing activities. The aim is that new people and activities will serve to revitalize the place and consequently improve both the Olympic tourism experience and the lives of local residents. The unfortunate aspect of the Athens case is that there was a desire to do this as illustrated by both Buhalis (2001) and the Greek Minister of Culture, who each refer to a desire to use the 2004 Games to develop the Greek tourism product beyond a straightforward resort-based beach tourism destination to a more diversified offer that would include urban and cultural tourism.
Related to such marketing strategies and initiatives are areas in the Policy and Planning ring such as the development of codes of practice. In Wales, where activity tourism is an impor-tant market, the Wales Tourist Board established an Activity Holidays Advisory Committee to supplement the work of the British Activity Holidays Association, through which it liaises with the Sports Council for Wales to develop and maintain codes of practice to ensure the safety of activity holidays. Such aspects of sports tourism might be utilized as part of a policy to pro-vide opportunities to ‘escape’ from the Olympic Games for those minded to do so (see discussions on Olympic tourism flows in Chapter 3). Finally, in relation to the Information and Lobbying policy ring, Gunn (1990) describes a collaborative initiative in South Africa relating to research and advice. The South African Tourism Agency and the Recreational Planning Agency collabo-rated on a joint research programme to identify tourism strengths in relation to sports and recreation facilities and resources. As such, a key role for regional policy makers outside of the Olympic host city/region is in assessing the product strengths that their region can utilize to capitalize on the Olympic Games (see discus-sion of Olympic tourism products in Chapter 1 and the London 2012 Games in Chapter 10). These examples highlight the ways in which the sports tourism experience might be enhanced by col-laborative accreditation and research initiatives that ensure that people use the most appropriate places in the most effective and safest ways for the most appropriate activities.
What the examples above show is that policy collaborations relating to Olympic tourism are not always successful in deliv-ering the strategies required to fully leverage the opportunities
that exist. As such, it is useful to turn to a consideration of the issues that might impact upon Olympic tourism policy devel-opment and collaboration and Weed’s (2001b) Model of Cross Sectoral Policy Development as applied to the sport and tourism sectors. Weed (2001b, 2003a) discussed the range of factors that mitigate against cross-sectoral policy partnerships, identifying the structure and culture of the respective policy communi-ties for sport and for tourism, ideologies, definitions, regional contexts, government policy, organizational culture and struc-ture, and individuals as being the key influences. The follow-ing section examines each of these factors in turn and discusses the way in which they may manifest themselves in relation to Olympic-related policy partnerships between sport and tourism.
Influences on Olympic-related policy partnerships
Six influences on policy liaison between sport and tourism inter-ests were identified by Weed (2003a), and these each have the potential to impact upon Olympic-related policy partnerships.
However, a further factor, namely the structure of the policy communities for sport and for tourism (Weed, 2001b), also wields an influence in providing the context within which policy liaison takes place. Consequently, such policy structures and cultures are discussed in the first section below, thus providing a context for the subsequent sections which discuss in turn how ideologies, definitions, regional contexts, government policy, organizational cultures and structures, and individuals may affect Olympic-related tourism policy development.