Tourism is the number one industry in the world. It comprised nearly 700 million international travellers worldwide in the year 2000, and represented a total expenditure of more than US$
476 billion. Domestic travel represents a movement of people several times greater.
In essence, ‘people of a community’ partake, meet and participate in day-to-day living and lifestyles in terms of mutual interrelationships, sustenance and trust. This community symbiosis is reflected, in great part, in activity provision of political leadership, religion, education, health, social service, protection, work economy, ...and sports through artifacts.
Sport and tourism have common ground, they both strive to understand other cultures and ways of life, to be instrumental in the promotion and consolidation of peace, and to generate a closer relationship between peoples. This is done in several ways. Sport, through a competitive environment, where performance is the key but where friendship among competitors
is the common rule; and tourism, through the selling of experiences and sensations, where meeting people and sharing experiences is the key.
Worldwide community populations range from a few families to thousands of people. Their external boundaries, vague or precise, formal or informal, affect their levels of community interpersonal and intergroup relationships directly or indirectly. Tourism and culture covers many aspects of travel and travel motives. People learn about each other, their lifestyles and thoughts. In this sense, tourism is an important, and vital, ‘way and means’ of promulgating and promoting cultural knowledge and relationships.
In addition, cultural elements, of any society, are sound, and perhaps expediate resources to attract visitors. In many geographical areas of the world, culture and tourism are linked with distinctive governmental policies thus enhancing the promotion of knowledge, understanding and respective societal image. For this, countries market cultural factors such as: entertainment; food; drink; hospitality; architecture; craft products; performing arts; and other
aspects of their particular or peculiar way of life. Successful tourism and culture is based on presenting a societal national flavour in projecting favourable and positive images as well as benefits, offerings and enjoyment.
Both tourism and sport are complex activities, with a long value-added chain and many actors playing a role, moving billions of dollars each year. Integration and consolidation of many of the activities in each sector is taking place, and the mutual knowledge and deepening of interests and relations between the two sectors could bring further developments and partnerships
in the future.
Sport and tourism are the basis of the well-being of individuals, and culture is no doubt linked to them. Additional collaboration between the two sectors would bring new tourist products, new
possibilities to practise sports, and even new sports. Informal and leisure sports practice is expected to grow in the future, as is tourism travel, both nationally or internationally. In this scenario, new and imaginative ways of dealing with this demand will emerge in the coming years. Local communities must be involved and participate in those developments and, in all cases, well-prepared professionals in both fields will be needed in the future.
In this new millennium, where there is a dire need to encourage cultural diversity, improve relationships and peace, the following play an active role, a dominant role, particularly where sport is the underlying element or facet: libraries; museums; exhibitions; halls of fame; walls of fame; films; television; radio; musical performance; study tours; dramatics; dance; conferences; seminars, etc. Thus diversity of activity destinations provide opportunities and motivational aspiration for people of different countries and continents to travel to get to know one another, each other. Purposeful activities or destinations particularly those that cater to tourist interest and curiosity, are becoming readily acceptable and recognizable.
The scope and type of educational pursuits and endeavours related to sports can be prearranged or organized, or left to the traveller’s discretion. Examples of such touristic achievements are multiple, sports museums offer cultural exhibits relating to sports in paintings, sculpture, graphics, arts and facilities depicting sports as well as athletic achievements of past and present. Moreover memorabilia, souvenirs, and the like featuring displays attract travellers. Other forms of craftwork, music, dance, etc. may supplement such attraction features giving opportunities of enjoyment and entertainment leading to a better comprehension of respective societies. Above all, the philosophy of the Olympic Movement ideals touches upon: cultural heritage, international understanding, sport as education.
Travel study programmes related to sports can be particularly informative and valuable experiences. And the cultural heritage aspects is often expressed in historical resources. The preservation of sports history is found in museums, be it in specialized exhibits, special events or festivals or thematic expositions. Halls/Walls of Fame, also tell the history of sport significance focusing attention on sport peculiarities. Valued information on historical perspectives of sport are found worldwide Moscow, Lausanne, Rome, Mexico City, London, Paris, etc. The interrelationships of diverse and different cultural backgrounds, approaches, presentations, exhibitions, stimulates travelers to focus and better understand the lifestyles of people of the world.
Showing posts with label Lausanne. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lausanne. Show all posts
Sport and Tourism
On 25 October 1999 in Lausanne, President Juan Antonio Samaranch and Fancesco Frangialli signed a cooperation agreement between the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and the World Tourism Organization (WTO). In spite of its limited scope and the modest size of the two signatory institutions, this agreement is hugely significant. It reflects the relation between and, to a large extent, the convergence of two of the most powerful driving forces of global society at the beginning of the 21st century: sport and tourism. Two forces that bring people together; two forces that typify all that is good in the globalization process underway.
Sport, and in particular the Olympic Games, as the generator of events that now enjoy a blaze of publicity in the world media, events that form a bond of common fervour between peoples that all else may divide. When Cathy Freeman - what a prophetic name! -wins medals, it is not only Australia that feels proud and more united; all the planet’s forgotten communities have the impression that they too have won in respect and esteem. But tourism too, which not only moves people in enormous numbers from one country to another - 700 million in 2000 and an estimated 1.5 billion in twenty years’ time, but also brings them into contact with inhabitants of far-off countries with diverse cultures.
The cooperation initiated between the WTO and IOC - the World Conference on Sport and Tourism, held in Barcelona in February, being one of its first visible manifestations - reflects the realization that sport is one of the most rewarding ways of filling leisure time, of maintaining physical fitness and of relaxing and learning; and that it has become one of the basic motivations of tourist travel, both domestic and international. Our two institutions share the conviction that, like tourist travel, the practice of sports and international competitions help to foster a culture of tolerance, pluralism, respect for others and, hence, of peace, a culture at once embodied in and conveyed by the Olympic Ideal and Charter and the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism.
Our two organizations are also convinced that, if properly directed and practised, sport and tourism can, and should, follow the logical path to sustainable development, which was set in 1992 by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development-the Earth Summit of Rio de Janeiro - and which is the stated aim of the International Year of Ecotourism to be observed in 2002. There has been much to encourage sport and tourism to draw closer together.
The major sporting events incite people to travel in ever-greater numbers; they generate considerable income for the host country, the actual impact of which has not yet been properly assessed and is therefore undervalued. Large travel companies specialize in their organization or, like Club Med, which promote new holiday forms based on the culture of sport. These same great sporting events help in the long run to consolidate the position of leading international tourist destinations and to transform the image of the host countries. The spectacular success of the Games of the XXVII Olympiad in Sydney bore this out yet again in no uncertain terms. Barcelona is living proof that Olympic cities and sites have become world tourist attractions in their own right; the great sports arenas are visited by more and more people, a case in point being the Stade de France near Paris, witnessed the host country’s victory in the last World Cup football tournament; they are now part of the cultural heritage of the countries that built them.
It would be desirable to allow better use to be made of those facilities, created to stage international sporting events, for the benefit of both resident populations, schoolchildren and students in particular, and national or foreign visitors. I hope consideration will be given to the idea of subsequently using the sports and accommodation facilities, originally built for the Olympic Games, for tourism and leisure purposes and that in future it will be one of the elements taken into account in selecting the cities that are candidates for their organization. Last, but by no means least, the competitive spirit and the practice of sports to such high standards play an increasingly prominent role in developing leisure sports for ordinary people. They contribute to the democratization and diversification of sport and, in doing so, are a major factor of cultural fulfilment, individual and collective alike. Tennis, golf, hiking, horse-riding and water sports and activities have therefore lost the elitist label that may have been attached to them in their early stages. They encourage tourists to travel on an increasingly massive scale for the pleasure of practising them. The same applies to skiing and other winter sports, whose progress WTO gauges through the important technical conferences it holds at regular intervals in the Principality of Andorra.
The Conference held in Barcelona, an Olympic city whose urban structure was remodelled, whose society was transformed and whose economy was revived by the 1992 Games, is not merely a time of recognition and encounter for the two major economic, social and cultural activities of which we are the spokesmen. It is the point of departure of an ambitious undertaking which will encourage a great many people from all walks of life to gather and work together; it is a far-reaching venture to which the World Tourism Organization, for its part, is ready to commit itself. We are at the starting blocks impatiently waiting for the signal to start the race.
Sport, and in particular the Olympic Games, as the generator of events that now enjoy a blaze of publicity in the world media, events that form a bond of common fervour between peoples that all else may divide. When Cathy Freeman - what a prophetic name! -wins medals, it is not only Australia that feels proud and more united; all the planet’s forgotten communities have the impression that they too have won in respect and esteem. But tourism too, which not only moves people in enormous numbers from one country to another - 700 million in 2000 and an estimated 1.5 billion in twenty years’ time, but also brings them into contact with inhabitants of far-off countries with diverse cultures.
The cooperation initiated between the WTO and IOC - the World Conference on Sport and Tourism, held in Barcelona in February, being one of its first visible manifestations - reflects the realization that sport is one of the most rewarding ways of filling leisure time, of maintaining physical fitness and of relaxing and learning; and that it has become one of the basic motivations of tourist travel, both domestic and international. Our two institutions share the conviction that, like tourist travel, the practice of sports and international competitions help to foster a culture of tolerance, pluralism, respect for others and, hence, of peace, a culture at once embodied in and conveyed by the Olympic Ideal and Charter and the Global Code of Ethics for Tourism.
Our two organizations are also convinced that, if properly directed and practised, sport and tourism can, and should, follow the logical path to sustainable development, which was set in 1992 by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development-the Earth Summit of Rio de Janeiro - and which is the stated aim of the International Year of Ecotourism to be observed in 2002. There has been much to encourage sport and tourism to draw closer together.
The major sporting events incite people to travel in ever-greater numbers; they generate considerable income for the host country, the actual impact of which has not yet been properly assessed and is therefore undervalued. Large travel companies specialize in their organization or, like Club Med, which promote new holiday forms based on the culture of sport. These same great sporting events help in the long run to consolidate the position of leading international tourist destinations and to transform the image of the host countries. The spectacular success of the Games of the XXVII Olympiad in Sydney bore this out yet again in no uncertain terms. Barcelona is living proof that Olympic cities and sites have become world tourist attractions in their own right; the great sports arenas are visited by more and more people, a case in point being the Stade de France near Paris, witnessed the host country’s victory in the last World Cup football tournament; they are now part of the cultural heritage of the countries that built them.
It would be desirable to allow better use to be made of those facilities, created to stage international sporting events, for the benefit of both resident populations, schoolchildren and students in particular, and national or foreign visitors. I hope consideration will be given to the idea of subsequently using the sports and accommodation facilities, originally built for the Olympic Games, for tourism and leisure purposes and that in future it will be one of the elements taken into account in selecting the cities that are candidates for their organization. Last, but by no means least, the competitive spirit and the practice of sports to such high standards play an increasingly prominent role in developing leisure sports for ordinary people. They contribute to the democratization and diversification of sport and, in doing so, are a major factor of cultural fulfilment, individual and collective alike. Tennis, golf, hiking, horse-riding and water sports and activities have therefore lost the elitist label that may have been attached to them in their early stages. They encourage tourists to travel on an increasingly massive scale for the pleasure of practising them. The same applies to skiing and other winter sports, whose progress WTO gauges through the important technical conferences it holds at regular intervals in the Principality of Andorra.
The Conference held in Barcelona, an Olympic city whose urban structure was remodelled, whose society was transformed and whose economy was revived by the 1992 Games, is not merely a time of recognition and encounter for the two major economic, social and cultural activities of which we are the spokesmen. It is the point of departure of an ambitious undertaking which will encourage a great many people from all walks of life to gather and work together; it is a far-reaching venture to which the World Tourism Organization, for its part, is ready to commit itself. We are at the starting blocks impatiently waiting for the signal to start the race.
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