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The Sport Digest - ISSN: 1558-6448

2009 Deaflympics Sport Tourism

Introduction

2009 21st Summer Deaflympics was take place in Chinese Taipei and Deaflympics was originally known as World Games for the Deaf.  The first Deaflympics in 1924 in Paris France, was the first games ever on earth for athletes with disability. There were 145 athletes from 9 European countries taking part, the number of athletes in the Summer Deaflympics have been increasing since the Inaugural Games. 3,660 athletes and team officials from 97 countries participated in the Melbourne 20th Summer Deaflympics in 2005, and the results in men's 100m and 400m race in track event excelled that of the Chinese Taipei team's national records. Currently there are 20 sports on the 21st Summer Deaflympics Program: Athletics, Badminton, Basketball, Bowling, Cycling, Football, Handball, Orienteering, Shooting, Swimming, Table Tennis, Tennis, Volleyball, Beach Volleyball, Water Polo, Wrestling Freestyle, Wrestling Greco-Roman, Karate, Judo and Taekwondo. In fact, for large sport events like FIFA World cup, interest in the event and perceived constraints should derive from the level of fan motives, travel motivations, and the potential attendee’s background (Kim, Chalip,2004).

However, 2009 21st Summer Deaflympics events on the marketing depend on the media, sponsorship and participator. For increasing significant component of financial and tourism outcomes, destination marketers share with marketers of mega-events the need to stimulate international visitation (Barker, Page, & Meyer, 2002; Chalip, Green, & Vander Velden, 1998). International tourism will attract and attention to Olympic event an interest in travel to attend through media(Ritchie & Smith, 1991; Whitelegg, 2000;Kim, Chalip,2004). Mega-events are one-time events that usually generate long-term profound impacts, both positive and negative, on host communities (Mihalik & Cummings, 1995; Mihalik & Simonette, 1998; Ritchie & Aitken, 1985).However, they are one-time and short-term events, they have long-term positive consequences for the cities and communities that stage them (Roche, 1994) such as growth of tourism, opportunities for international publicity and recognition of the host community (Jeong & Faulkner, 1996), and improvement of the host community quality of life (Deccio & Baloglu, 2002; Goeldner & Long, 1987).

Ritchie (1984) discovered the positive and negative impacts of mega-events in the following six areas: economics, tourism/commercial, physical, sociocultural, psychological, and political. Thus, it’s important factors for tourism and fan to attract and attendance sport even to enjoy in the international sport even.

Positive Benefits of Mega-events

Kim, Gursoy, & Lee(2006) showed that the theory suggests that local residents are likely to form their perceptions based on the expected value of the exchange before the actual exchange occurs. Most of the researchers who examined the residents perceptions of tourism impacts utilized the social exchange theory as their theoretical base (Ap, 1990, 1992; Gursoy, Jurowski, & Uysal, 2002; Lindberg & Johnson, 1997). After hosting the event, residents who feel that hosting the event damaged the environment are likely to oppose hosting future mega-events while those who see hosting a mega-event as an incentive to preserve and protect the natural nt are likely to be more sportive of hosting future events (Liu & Var, 1986). With regard to the perceived costs of mega-events, the events are likely to cause price inflation and an increase in local tax to construct the facilities required to host the event, which burdens the locals financially (Deccio & Baloglu, 2002). Several studies have highlighted the economic benefits in the form of tax revenues, employments, and additional sources of income (Getz, 1997; Hall, 1989; Long, Perdue, & Allen, 1990; Murphy & Carmichael, 1991; Travis & Croize, 1987; Uysal & Gitelson, 1994; Deccio & Baloglu, 2002).

In addition to economic benefits of visitors expenditure, Ritchie (1984) points out that mega-events may enhance awareness of the region as a domestic and/or international travel and tourism destination and also offer/create new opportunities for potential investors, which result in an increase of commercial activity within the host community. Other critical impacts of mega-events involve improved quality of residents life (Deccio & Baloglu, 2002; Goeldner & Long, 1987) and the international image of the host community (Jeong & Faulkner, 1996; Ritchie & Yangzhou, 1987). In fact, several researchers suggest that residents of communities that have hosted sports mega-events such as Calgary (the 1988 Winter Olympics) and Georgia (the 1996 Summer Olympics) believe that positive social impacts of the sports mega-events (community pride and international recognition) are just as or more important than positive economic benefits of the events (Mihalik & Cummings, 1995; Mihalik & Simonette, 1998; Ritchie & Aitken, 1984, 1985).

Negative Costs of Mega-events

Mega-events are also likely to create some societal problems such as traffic congestion, law enforcement strain, and increased crime (Mihalik & Cummings, 1995). Other societal and cultural problems include, cultural commercialization (Cohen, 1988), and conflicts between the host community and visitors because of different standards of living, economic welfare, and purchasing power gaps (Tosun, 2002).
According to negative impacts, communities compete against each other to host these mega-events because of the expected benefits for the community and local businesses; mega-events are likely to attract a great deal of attention to the host community and generate positive economic benefits (Deccio & Baloglu, 2002; Getz, 1997; Hall, 1989).

Summary

For large sport events like 2009 21st Summer Deaflympics, interest in the event and perceived constraints should derive from the level of fan motives, travel motivations, and the potential attendee’s background. The consumer’s interest in an event and the consumer’s perception of constraints on attendance each have an effect. In fact, perceptions of costs and benefits of an event are complicated by concerns for distributive justice and varying value systems of different members of the community (Fredline & Faulkner, 2002a).The members of the community who are likely to receive the greatest benefits from hosting the event often favor and support hosting the event more than those who receive fewer or no benefits (Perdue, Long, & Allen 1990; Ritchie, 1988). After 2009 21st Summer Deaflympics, based on their direct experiences with the event, if they receive the expected benefits, they are likely to support Deaflympics and hosting mega-events in the future.

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