Promoting active sports tourism through technology and evaluating its economic impact: experiences from Cyprus

ABSTRACT

While the economic impact of major passive sport events is well documented, the contribution of active sports events is scarcely examined. This reflective practice paper contributes towards bridging the gap by examining, in a case study, the economic impact of one of the first big active sport events in Cyprus, organised using the state-of-the-art technology. The paper presents the first commercial web platform and recommender system dedicated to active sports events, which provide all necessary services to customers and thus simplify, and ultimately increase participation in the event. We find strong evidence in support of the idea that active sport events have a strong positive impact on the local and countrywide economy, while the technology can contribute and enable further promotion and better organisation of such events.

KEYWORDS:

• Active sports
• sports tourism
• economic impact
• web platform
• recommender systems

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Cyprus Tourism Portals: http://www.visitcyprus.com, http://www.heartcyprus.com/

2 Sports Tourism Website: www.runbis.com

3 Cyprus Events Website: https://www.cyprusevents.net/

4 Sports Traveler: https://www.sportstraveler.net/

5 Worlds Marathons: http://www.worldsmarathons.com/

6 Field Sports Travel: http://www.fieldsportstravel.com/

7 Active Network Software Solutions: https://www.activeendurance.com/

8 Joblib Python Library: https://joblib.readthedocs.io/

9 ST76_RS Questionnaire: https://forms.gle/d8Ah7VbeJLuQA3689 (EN version + 19 offline responses), https://forms.gle/6NTYjk8FXuDbBDxcA (GR version)

10 Survey – https://forms.gle/ef8vkyuSj91nPM7D7

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by research funding received from the European Regional Development Fund and Research and Innovation Foundation, Cyprus as part of the Research in Startups SportsTraveler76 project (START-UPS/0618/0049–RESTART 2016–2020).