Current Issues in Tourism
Editor: C. Michael Hall (Department of Management, College of Business and Economics, University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand) and Chris Cooper (Foundation Professor of Tourism, University of Queensland, Australia) Michael and Chris are joint editor of the book series Aspects of Tourism. Reviews Editor John Jenkins (University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia)
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Volume: 2 Number: 1 Page: 82–90
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Commentary - Sport as an Avenue of Tourism Development: An Analysis of the Positive and Negative Impacts of Sport Tourism
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James Higham
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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.
© Channel View Publications 1998
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