Strategic planning of sport tourism events on destination brands : examining the role of home-grown sport

Abstract

This paper discusses the home-grown sport with a regular occurrence as equal opportunities for strategic planning. This study employed a qualitative research design which featured in-depth, semi-structured interviews with key industry stakeholders involved in sport event and tourism and destination branding organisations. A thematic analysis of the results revealed the imperative of events of the home-grown nature to contribute to the continued benefits relating to tourism and destination branding. The results further revealed the importance of including other tourism and destination branding offerings as part of the strategic planning and implementation of destination branding which consequently lengthen visitor stays. Moreover, stakeholders emphasised the importance of strategic planning through leveraging activities that underpin authentic destination brand awareness. The results of this paper add significant contributions to destination branding theory by investigating the role of sport for destination brand development. This paper further contributes to stakeholder policy and practice through its empirical findings that outline stakeholder views and strategies of planning home-grown events for brand-related benefits.