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REVving up for sports tourism

The emergence of sports tourism as a serious revenue stream for the travel industry has opened up new windows of opportunity for its subset - hospitality. Bhavika Jhaveri reports on trends, opportunities and challenges that this new segment holds for hospitality, symbolic of the industry's onward evolution

Sports has a universal appeal that traverses all geographical, cultural and class barriers, uniting humanity in palpable excitement. Sports and travel share a symbiotic relation, whereby people are attracted to a particular destination as a sport event participant (active), an event spectator, or to attend sport attractions of that place (passive). In fact, the concept started with British nationals travelling abroad for winter sports. The first such sports tourism package can possibly be traced back to 1898 when Sir Henry Lunn, a British travel agent, organised a 10-day skiing holiday in the Alps for a group of 10 for a princely sum of US $15. While the colonialists can stick another feather in their imperial cap, the fallout of the intrepid British intelligentsia swarming the globe in hunt of sport lead to the development of an indigenised hospitality industry in the land they chose to descend on, to cater to these enthusiasts, and that too, offering acceptable living standards, if not impeccable.

Sports tourism today is a worldwide phenomenon billed in several billions of dollars. According to Sports Tourism International Council (STIC), sports tourism could well account for 32 per cent of the total tourism and hospitality market in coming years. And sporting events impact inbound tourism positively also, apart from attracting FDI. This, albeit, is by establishing an indirect linkage from the investment country, due to a rise in perception of the host country's image, with urban regeneration and economic development going hand in hand. And all because of a single unifying factor, as seen in the case of the Olympic Games the world over.

In the context of the subcontinent, the impending Commonwealth Games to be held in Delhi in 2010 have created a flurry in the corridors of power in the capital city over a certain reason, and a pertinent one too - paucity of world-class accommodation. And within this also lies an opportunity for restaurants, going beyond merely displaying the game to offer an experience with special packages, sporting ambience, alluring discounts, revised menus, contests and so on.

Home turf, stirring

India has been put down as a unidimensional country with its interest in sports restricted to cricket over the years. That, to an extent, explains why it is a late inductee to this growing worldwide trend. Sports tourism is a small segment in India, but it ensures higher returns since a sports traveller is a high spender. Many hotels club the packages with adventure sports. For instance, Carlson Hotels Asia Pacific in select hotels, depending on demand, provides extra facilities such as sport activities like bowling alleys and sea sports.

Active sports tourism, where tourists indulge in activities like adventure sports or golf apart from sightseeing, is still a largely untapped segment in India.

But this segment has left a well-defined trail in its wake. And in the case of our country, the few notable events held were the Asian Games in '82, the ICC Cricket World Cup in '96, and the Afro Asian Games in '03. The first impact of events on such a scale is creation of infrastructure to meet the influx of visitors, especially around sport venues, and invariably, hotels sprout up in the vicinity of the stadia. For instance, in case of the Commonwealth Games, The Union Government has allocated Rs 5,500 crore to the Delhi Government to improve the infrastructure, including transportation, water supply, and construction of new stadiums, hotels and the beautification of River Yamuna before the beginning of the games. This, apart from sprucing up monuments, augmenting rail infrastructure, building new power plants, basically all measures to sustain the momentum, the indirect beneficiary being the hospitality industry.

Industry observers point out that while FDI by the private sector is concentrated on commercial projects on the periphery, such as hotels and malls, the onus of providing sporting facilities falls on the government. While such events create capacities, it is also the publicity incidental to the event, which attracts visitors long after the event is over, but not on the same scale. Thus for the event there will be a spurt in occupancies, followed by a trough. While India will not suffer the ignominy of such an occurrence, given that demand far outstrips supply, strict business sense dictates that the sites which are chosen for hotels aren't located in obscure regions, with restricted access, so that the property will generate revenues long after the event ends.

Specialist v/s allrounder

But hospitality needs a little help from its friends, in the guise of sports tourism specialists. Worldwide, the trend for the latter is a given. But in India, that profile is still an exception. These industry specialists do the research for those enthusiasts who have a desire and the means to travel the distance, but not a clue of executing it, which is where the specialists step in. Right down from detailed itineraries to the selection of the hotel closest to the venue, dependent on the facilities it offers, tourism specialists reach out to a section of audience so fragmented, that a hotel on its own is unable to tap.

While some Indian travel agents have dabbled in sports tourism, it is only now that the market is witnessing an emergence of specialists and agents who are shaping it as a niche generating significant levels of revenue. Besides, the increasing sports viewership in India, be it cricket or Formula 1 racing, has conceived a trend that has several restaurants, bars and lounges airing live sports events on big screens.

Sports Abroad, a Special Interest Tours division of SOTC-Kuoni Travel created three years ago, is driven by the conviction that there is a growing interest in new destinations. With several corporations sponsoring sporting events, the company too is showing keen interest in opting for sports holiday packages for its employees and clients.

Bangalore-based Sports Services is rated as one of the few truly sports tourism focused outfits which is into club holidays, top sports events and counseling on how to create specialised packages. Shankar Vishwanathan, its director, explains, "We have ventured into sports travel because we are convinced that it will constitute a major part of the Indian travel trade. We have collaborated with south India-based Travel Tours and have the wherewithal to take Indians to any country to witness any sports event." According to Vishwanathan, sports travel in India started to pick up after the Cricket World Cup in South Africa in 2003, with cricket constituting nearly 70 per cent of its total business.

Sporting ties

While not all types of sporting events create increased footfalls, a lot depends on the timing of an event, and also the promotional campaign to lure in fans, be it lucrative stay packages for live events, or deals for events that are screened.

Apart from this, industry consensus points to the fact that leaving aside hosting guests who have come to attend sports events, displaying them in restaurants and other public spaces in the hotel creates higher footfalls. Carmo Barretto, GM at Starters and More, says, "Sports does help increase revenue but they work best at places which has a bar attached to it; if you do it at a restaurant it doesn't help that much. Large screens help build the excitement." The usual suspects - cricket and football garner the most interest. Generally people throng any place that has a large screen. Most of the restaurants generally show cricket tournaments since that is the most popular sport in India. For instance the India-England series earlier this year, pushed sales of most restaurants by almost 30 to 50 per cent.

Noel D'Mello, resident manager, Marine Plaza, adds another dimension. He says that airing sports events to attract more customers is only a segment business. "Once the event is over, interest fades away. For one-off tournaments, we might get people over for lunch but it doesn't generate too much revenue. Besides, a lot depends on the venue and its clientele. At Geoffrey's, we get a lot of expats from Australia and England who are interested in rugby. Revenues shoot up only when there is sustained interest for a long period."

In an attempt to increase sales during major sports events, many resto-bars carry out promotional activities like flyers, special packages or tie-up with liquor companies, cell phone service provider or sports magazines. Giving further insight on marketing strategies, Jayendra Kulkarni, GM (Sales and Marketing) at Mars Restaurant and Hotels in Mumbai, says, "Depending on the activities lined up for the year, we allocate a budget for promotions. There is no fixed cost incurred. For instance if it's cricket then we tie up with say Airtel or Samsung - brands which will help boost our promotion." To avoid a scenario where tables are occupied for a longer time, many places like Tendulkar's or Score sports bar in Mumbai levy a cover charge combined with a special offer, to prevent lingering freeloaders from overstaying.

Game on

Tourism, like any other business, is vulnerable to the hazards of stagnation and the only way to pre-empt this danger is innovation. Tour operators and hotels in India have been doing their bit to make sports tourism the next reliable bet to create a captive market.

Besides, sports tourism, both active and passive, is essentially a high-end tourism phenomenon. Moreover, the segment of institutional sports travel, wherein students and domestic clubs travel to play sports at club level, has not even been tapped. Innumerable avenues await the hotel industry, as it attempts to cash in on the sports frenzy. But how effectively they convert these events into veritable cash cows and sustain this performance is yet to be seen. Whether they are game or not hinges purely on how foresighted they are in hunting down the next sporting activity and using it to their advantage.