Sport Tourism In Lucena City

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

CHAPTER 1

BACKGROUND OF THE STUDY

Sports Tourism is different as an explicit travel outside of the usual environment for either automatic or lively involvement in competitive sport where sport is the prime motivational motive for travel and the touristic or leisure element may act to strengthen the overall experience. This is also a combination of sports activities and travel. From a sport marketing and sport management perspective, it consists of two big categories of

products: a) sports involvement travel (travel for the purpose of involving and participating in a sports, recreation, leisure or fitness activity); and b) sports spectator travel (travel for the purpose of spitting sports, recreation, leisure or fitness activities or events). (Pitts 1997, p31).

Sport tourism is considered as an effective tool to deal with poverty and unemployment and increase economic growth and social welfare of the communities,

especially underdeveloped nations. There are two kinds of sport tourisms: the first one

employs sport for the sake of its tourism development advantages, while the other one is the result of sport based activities (Tassiopoulosa and Haydamb, 2007).

This study had the following objectives and these are: firstly, to know how local residents respond to and recognize the event; secondly, to assess the current management practices and impacts towards the development of a sustainable sport tourism event; and finally attempt to strengthen and contribute to the creation of a sustainable sport tourism industry in Lucena City.

This study will ponder on assessment of sports tourism, sports events and the various benefits and impacts experienced by Lucena City. Further to converse if the big sports events like PRISAA, STCAA, Basketball leagues like Governor’s Cap and etc create good opportunities to improvement of national and international image and what impacts will be generated by the event.

With this understanding gain further knowledge on how Lucena City handle such big events like as being mentioned above and maintain the tourist awareness within the city.

STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

The study aims to know the assessment of sport tourism in Lucena City. It seeks to answer the following questions:

What are the demographic profile of the respondents in terms of:

Age?

Gender?

Civil Status?

Year level?

What are the associated sport tourism activities of the respondents?

What sports dominate in Lucena City?

Competencies of Athletes in Lucena City and its effect in the tourism economy?

What are the contributions of sport tourism in the industry’s progress?

OUTPUT

PROCESS

INPUTCONCEPTUAL FRAMEWORK

Quantitative methodINPUT

Questionnaires

Analyzing the assessment of sport tourism in Lucena City

The conceptual framework shows on how the researcher will conduct the research study. The IPO model is used by the researcher on illustrating the steps on formulating the study. The data for the input will be gathered from the questionnaires of the target respondents of the researcher, quantitative data will be obtained. Quantitative method will be use by the researcher in analyzing the data that will be gathered namely the descriptive method. The descriptive method will be used during evaluation of questionnaires. The output of the process will be an analysis of the assessment of sport tourism in Lucena City.

SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY

Since the study aims the assessment of sport tourism in Lucena City, it would be a great help to the following:

For the researcher, through this study they will learn more and dedicate their extensive amount of their energy in expounding the conceptual foundation of the study.

For the future researchers, may use this paper as a guide and source of information.

They can also use this and serve as their guide or reference especially those whose studies are related in Tourism. The researcher believes that the study will also provide incise knowledge and awareness of sport tourism industry.

For the readers, this study will help readers because it will give them a little knowledge for them on how on the assessment of sport tourism in Lucena City in general and will help them know the effect of sports when it comes to the tourism industry.

For the school, this study can be added to the researches references of the university when it comes to the different studies which are related in sport and tourism and serve as a guide to their study.

For the athletes, being the major respondents of the study, athletes can use this study and serve as their source of information to particular sports that they can participate with. They can also know the different data about the event that they are engaging in.

For the Sports Organizers, they can use this study as a reference about the different data about sport tourism and what particular thing involved in.

For Lucena City itself, this study would give them the relevance of sport tourism and its positive and negative effect in the tourism industry. They will also know the different contributions of sport tourism in industry’s progress.

SCOPE AND LIMITATION

The study focuses on the assessment of sport tourism in a specific place which is Lucena City and not in general public and the limitation of this study in the respondents itself. It is based on them on how honestly and truthfully they answer the questionnaires and in order to answer the questionnaires the researcher will explain the important things about the questionnaires. English language was used in constructing the instrument the questionnaires since the respondents were composed of educated people.

There are 50 respondents who experience the sport tourism. The researcher conducted the study in three days on December 2012 and Lucena City is the research locale of the study.

DEFINITION OF TERMS

Assessment- Assessment is an on-going process aimed at understanding and improving student learning. It involves making our expectations clear to students and setting appropriate outcomes for learning.

 

Motivations- are the driving forces behind a decision made during a person’s life

(Pearce, 1982).

PRISAA- private schools athletes association.

Sports- is defined as any physical activity which is undertaken at a competitive or social

level, where a high level of physical skill is used with internal and external rewards

being the driving forces (Coakley, 2007).

Sport Management- the study and practice of all people, activities, businesses, or organizations involved in producing, facilitating, promoting, or organizing any sport-related business or product.

Sport Marketing- is a subdivision of marketing which focuses both on the promotion of sports events and teams as well as the promotion of other products and services through sporting events and sports teams. It is a service in which the element promoted can be a physical product or a brand name. 

Sport Tourism- is defined as any physical activity which is undertaken at a competitive or social level, where a high level of physical skill is used with internal and external rewards being the driving forces (Coakley, 2007).

STCAA- Sothern Tagalog Calabarzon Athletes Association

Sustainable- able to be maintained at a certain rate or level

Tourism- is the temporary travel of non-residents, who employ various forms of

transport to and from a destination where different impacts and benefits are involved for

the destination (Hall, 2007).

CHAPTER 2

REVIEW OF RELATED LITERATURE AND STUDIES

This chapter consists of Review of Related Studies and Literature that will help to prove the fact and theories of the study and will serve as guide to have a better understanding about the researcher.

What is Sport Tourism?

Sport tourism does not have an absolute definition; however, various research projects

have developed definitions that incorporate its different components.These definitions enable the distinction between everyday tourists and sport tourists.

A comprehensive definition of sport tourism provided by Standeven and De Knop

(1999, p. 12) is "all forms of active and passive involvement in sporting activity,

participated in casually or in an organized way for non-commercial or

business/commercial reasons, which necessitate travel away from home and work

locality". Their definition encompasses all necessary components and has been used by

many researchers. They state that the sport activity can range from a mega event (such

as the Olympic Games) to a local or community event. The sport activity involves

travelling away from the usual place of residence or work to attend the event.

Turco et al. (2002, p. 3) provide a simple concise definition that "includes travel to and

participation in or attendance at a predetermined sport activity". The sport activity as

defined by Turco et al. (2002) can be either competitive, entertainment, educational and

recreational. Various authors agree that sport tourists are either actively participating in,

or watching, sporting activities (Gibson, 1998a, Standeven & De Knop, 1999; Turco et

al., 2002).

One further definition by Gibson (1998b) depicts sport tourism as being leisure-based

travel where an individual travels away from their home community to either play or

watch sporting activities. Her definition includes the associated attractions within sport,

such as visiting halls of fame, sport museums or famous sporting arenas. This definition

provides a different understanding of sport tourism by focusing on sport tourism being a

leisure based activity only.

Explanations of sport tourism commonly mention the types of activities these niche

tourists participate in. Specifically, researchers have attempted to characteristic active and

passive sport tourism (Gibson, 1998a; Gibson et al., 1998; Ritchie & Adair, 2002) so

that stockholders can target the experiences tourists seek while on holidays.

Active sport tourism is when a tourist participates in a sporting activity while on

holidays. These include activities such as golf, tennis, skiing, fishing, scuba diving and

mountain biking (Gibson, 1998a). Gibson et al. (1998) conducted research to assess the

patterns of active sport tourists throughout their lives. The research found that as people

aged they were less likely to be involved in active sport tourism. Realizing this

relationship between active sport tourists and age enables marketers to recognize who

their target market is.

Benefits of Sport Tourism for a Destination

Sport tourism not only showcases the sporting abilities of athletes, but can also

highlight the tourism experiences of a destination. Research into the benefits and

impact is considered below, as it relates to the lasting effects of sport tourism.

Hosting a sporting event allows the host country or society to showcase their

cultural, tourism and sporting offerings. The benefits from hosting mega events include

the improvement of infrastructure, increasing the destinations’ capacity for tourists,

promotion and marketing of the destination and economic benefits.

Australian Football League

Australia is a country that is recognized for its sporting ability in international, national and local competitions. It is argued that the nation’s sporting capability has been fostered by the construction of quality facilities to train athletes (Shilbury, et al., 2006; Stoddart,

1986). Australia has hosted major sporting events including the Olympic Games, the

Commonwealth Games, the Rugby World Cup, the Cricket World Cup and various

other international events. Australia also has professional national sport leagues in the 17

sports of basketball, netball, soccer, hockey, baseball and several codes of football. The

Australian Football League (AFL) is the country’s national Australian Football League,

a sport originating from, and largely played in, Australia.

When the AFL first began it was known as the Victorian Football League (VFL) as only

clubs from Victoria were involved. The VFL was established in 1896 with the first

game played in 1897 (Andrews, 2000). The league started with eight Victorian clubs

and over the years expanded as more teams entered the competition (Australian Football

League, 2010a). Nationalisation of the league did not occur till after over 100 years of a

purely Victorian based competition (Wilson, 1990). Alterations to the AFL competition

did not occur until an increase in the number of games scheduled in Sydney beginning

in 1979. However, according to Andrew’s (2000, p. 239) "the league was not content

with scheduling fixtures outside of Victoria and in 1982 it embarked on the more

ambitious goal of relocating the South Melbourne Swans to Sydney on a permanent

basis."

The league further expanded in 1986 when two non-Victorian teams entered the

competition, namely the West Coast Eagles in Western Australian and the Brisbane

Bears in Queensland (Australian Football League, 2010a). At the beginning of the

1990s the VFL acknowledged this expansion, with the league becoming known as the

Australian Football League (AFL) (Australian Football League, 2010a). In the next few

years three more non-Victorian clubs entered the competition: the Adelaide Crows,

Fremantle Dockers and Port Adelaide. During this time a merger occurred between the

Brisbane Bears and Fitzroy, to yield the Brisbane Lions (Australian Football League,

2010a).

After the alteration to the league through the addition of these clubs, the league included

a total of sixteen clubs by 1997. The sixteen teams in the AFL were Adelaide Crows,

Brisbane Lions, Carlton Blues, Collingwood Magpies, Essendon Bombers, Fremantle

Dockers, Geelong Cats, Hawthorn Hawks, Melbourne Demons, North Melbourne, Port

Adelaide, Richmond Tigers, St Kilda, Sydney Swans, West Coast Eagles, and the

Western Bulldogs (Australian Football League, 2010a). The teams are based in Victoria,

South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland and New South Wales. The 2011 AFL

season saw the introduction of the seventeenth team in the AFL, the Gold Coast Suns

based in Queensland (Australian Football League, 2010a). Further expansion will occur

in the 2012 season with the inclusion of another Sydney based team, Greater Western

Sydney, the eighteenth team of the league.

AFL games are not only played in the capital cities of the clubs but also in Tasmania,

the Northern Territory and the Australian Capital Territory (Australian Football League,

2010a). Even though the AFL originated in Australia, in recent years the game has

expanded internationally, with participant numbers reaching 60,000 in other countries in

2010 (Australian Football League, 2010b). The growth saw an exhibition match and the

development of an AFL community program in China in 2010 (Australian Football

League, 2009a). The exhibition match in China attracted more than 7,000 people to the

match and the game streamed live in English and Mandarin with 300,000 viewers

(Australian Football League, 2010b). With the teams spread throughout Australia, some

spectators travel to support their team when they are playing away from home, but the

question remains: What are the driving forces behind these fans’ travel plans and what

other tourism activities do they participate in?

Tourist Motivations

The motivations behind tourists’ decisions vary, as do the factors which brunt on their

decisions. These factors have been included into various theories which explain

tourist. A theory related to motivations that has been applied within various industries including tourism, is Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs Theory (1970). The theory recognizes that a need might vary from the most critical to the least critical at any one point in time. For example, when applied to tourism, a traveler might consider if the

destination is secure from any major threat, with safety being the most important need

to be satisfied.

Australian Sport Tourist’s Motivations

State and national level sports are played at venues located throughout Australia which

encourages fans to travel to support their teams or individuals when playing. Various

research projects have been undertaken on Australian sports, however, in relation to

Australian sport tourism there has been minimal research. Ritchie, et al.’s (2002)

research into Super 12 Rugby Union profiled sport tourists attending games in the

Australian Capital Territory. There have also been a couple of research projects which

focus on the motivations of AFL fans to travel to games (Neale & Funk, 2006; Hoye &

Lillis, 2008). However, as discussed below, these particular studies did not address the

tourism experiences of these tourists, the comparison between clubs, or interstate travel

to Western Australia.

Hoye and Lillis (2008) used the MSSC scale to examine the travel motivations of

Geelong Football Club fans travelling to any of its four to six interstate games a season.

The research identified that the social interaction which occurs on trips between fans of

this club was a significant motivational factor for the frequency of travel (Hoye & Lillis,

2008). In regard to the other motivating factors Hoye and Lillis (2008) concluded that

these factors did not have an influence on high investment travel but should be regarded

as generic influences associated with the attraction to the actual sport. A limitation of

this study was that it only focussed on one club; this enhances the importance of the 25

current research project as it will investigate motivations more broadly using data from

AFL interstate sport tourists of several clubs.

Neale and Funk (2006) undertook research into the motivations, attitudinal loyalty and

attendance behaviour of Fremantle Football Club fans when attending a home game

using the SII scale. Team interest was a major drawcard to attend the games, while

interest in a specific player was the least important motivation (Neale & Funk, 2006).

The results of Neale and Funk’s (2006) research indicated that some factors were suited

to attracting fans to game such as vicarious achievement, social interaction and drama.

Again this study only analysed one team within the AFL competition and related only to

the home team’s fans. These two research projects did not consider interstate AFL sport

tourists travelling to Western Australia, a factor that will be considered by this study.

Review of related studies

Domain of sport

The popular perception of sport is best reflected by the adage that sport is what is written about on the sport pages of the daily newspapers (Bale 1989). However, a cursory comparison of the sport pages of newspapers from the variety of countries demonstrate that sporting activities vary substantially between places. While attractive in terms of its simplicity, this definitional approach fails to capture the essence of sport in terms of commonalities found in diverse sporting activities.

Definition arising from the study of sport sociology is particularly insightful when combined with the concepts of tourism. One of the most influential definitions of sports to emerge within this area is Loy et al.’s (1978) game occurrence approach. They conceptualize sport as a subset of games, which is turn as a subset of play. Sport is described in terms of institutional games that requires a physical prowess. In a similar fashion, Mc Pherson et al. (1989: 15) defined sports as a structured, goal oriented, competitive, contest-based, ludic physical activity.

Sport is structured as the same as sports are governed by rules that related to space and time. These rules maybe manifest in a variety of ways, including the dimensions of playing area and the duration or pacing of the game or contest. They also tend to be more specific formal variations of sports, especially as the level of competition increases. In informal variations of sports these rules are often very general: for example, the unwritten etiquette of surfing (A. Law, 2000).

Conceptualizing Sport as a Tourist Attraction

Green and Chalip (1998: 278) have noted that from the stand point of theory, it is necessary to understand what sport shares with, and what distinguishes it from other touristic activities. Tourist attraction theory provides a useful framework for gaining insight into these unique aspects of sport tourism. While the idea of sports as a tourist attraction is not new (e.g Rooney, 1988), the theoretical basis of tourist attraction has only recently been considered in detail ( Hinch & Highman, 2001; Highman and Hinch, 2003). As a consequence, the management implications of consciously treating sport a tourist attraction have not been fully explored. Leiper’s (1990; 371) system approach to tourist attractions provides a useful means for doing this. He defined tourist attraction as a system comprising three elements; a tourists or human element, a nucleus or central element, a marker or informative element. A tourists attraction comes into the existence when the three elements are connected.

CHAPTER 3

Methods and Procedures

Research Design

The descriptive method is used in this study to document the evaluation of the respondents regarding the assessment of sport tourism in Lucena City. Descriptive research is often used as a pre-cursor to quantitative research designs, the general overview giving some valuable pointers as to what variables are worth testing quantitatively. ( Martin Shuttleworth, 2008)

Research Locale

The researcher conducted the study in Lucena City.

Research Population and Subject of the study

The research population of the study is the athletes around Lucena City and by this total of respondent, this study will prove the assessment of Sport tourism in Lucena City. The researcher has a repondents of 50.

Sampling Design and Procedures

The researcher will make use of purposive sampling as non-probability/ non-random sampling technique to the selected fifty (50) respondents to participate in the research.

This kind of sampling design which is the non-probability sampling represents a group of sampling techniques that help researchers to choose units from a population that they are interested in studying. A center characteristic of non-probability sampling techniques is that samples are selected based on the prejudiced judgment of the researcher, rather than random selection (i.e., probabilistic methods), which is the foundation stone of probability sampling techniques. 

The objective of this method is to make an explicit choice based on your own judgment about exactly whom to include in your sample. When random sampling is not possible, then you can choose this sampling method for studying how primary stakeholders are affected by a project intervention. (Source: Guijt, I. and J. Woodhill (2002). Managing for Impact in Rural Development : A guide for project M & E. Rome, Italy: International Fund for Agricultural Development)

Research Instrument

Questionnaire is the primary instrument of the study. The item of the questionnaire was made simple for easy understanding. This including questions regarding the demographic profile of the respondents, their opinion regarding the competencies of athletes in Lucena City and its effect in tourism industry. The researcher will give the 50 respondents the questionnaires and explain the things that need to be consider in answering the questions.

Data Gathering Procedures

Gathering procedures depend on the convenience and on the ease in gathering the required details that the researchers can use for the research results. After the researcher had determined the number of her final respondents, administration of questionnaire followed. The researcher started distributing the questionnaires December 2012. Foreseeing that the researcher would have difficulty in distributing the said instrument, sought the help of some of her friends in the different schools and places where the researcher conducted the study.

The researcher distributed the questionnaires during her off periods and after classes. Much patient is exerted by the researcher in gathering the instrument so as only to have the necessary data.

Statistical Treatment of Data

The data gathered was completed then this study will briefly reviewed, analyzed and the table that was aided by the statistical treatment. Weighed mean was be used in computing the result of the responses in the prepared questionnaires. The formula for weighed mean was:

WM= f(5) + f(4) + f(3) + f(2) + f(1)

N

Where:

WM = weighted mean

Æ‘= frequency

N = Total number of respondent

In order to arrive at definite interpretation of result for each item, mean range was assigned on each scale thus:

Scale Range Descriptive Analysis

5 4.21 - 5.00 Strongly Agree (SA)

4 3.41 – 4.20 Agree (A)

3 3.61 – 3.40 Uncertain (U)

2 1.81 – 2.60 Disagree (D)

1 1.00 – 1.80 Strongly Disagree (SD)

Percentage Formula

The percentage was used to determine the quantitative relation to the whole response.

P = f / n x 100

Where:

P = percentage

f = frequency

n = total number of respondent