Sports tourism to be given a $500,000 boost
Spending on sports tourism is to be raised 20 percent as the Island aims to ramp up hotel numbers during the season’s traditionally quieter months.Reversing last year’s more than $500,000 cut to the budget for sports marketing, the Tourism Board yesterday pledged to hike spending from $2.5 million to $3 million.Former Sports Minister Randy Horton has been appointed chairman to the Sports Committee tasked with doubling the Island’s existing sports events.An additional 14 weeks of crowd-drawing sports festivals events is to be added to the Island over the next three to five years.Mr Horton vowed Sports Tourism would be “run like a business”. He said: “As in sports, we expect to be judged on results.”Announcing the appointment, Tourism Board Chairman Maxwell Burgess said: “This is our commitment to growing the soft season — shoulder months.”Sports has been identified as the Island’s best potential boost to these slower times on either side of the summer.Mr Horton said growth could be economically generated from the existing sports the Island is known for — and from existing events like the Rugby Classic or the Round the Sound Swim.“What our initial win hopefully will be, will be the doubling of these present events,” Mr Horton said. “If we can double these events, then we’re starting on building our success in sports tourism.”Mr Horton said his long experience in both sports and Government equipped him well for working with Bermuda’s sports associations to capitalise on their expertise, and provide them with extra support.Bermuda could generate more festivals in sports like lacrosse, football and hockey — the latter being a sport that once enjoyed its own local festival — one that could be revived relatively easily.He noted that sports enthusiasts tend to be highly-paid, citing a median annual income of $102,000 for US runners, and $120,000 for serious cyclists.“These are the kinds of people, with these levels of household income, that we’re interested in bringing to Bermuda,” he said.Although events like the recent PGA Grand Slam come with a sizeable price tag, Mr Horton said many others do not.“Many can be helped for under $100,000,” he said. “Some we many need to help a little bit more, but not in huge numbers. What we do have is another $500,000 there to help us enhance what we are doing.”Standing alongside Tourism Minister Wayne Furbert, the two cited a Sports Tourism Strategy that has identified “active lifestyle sports” as a growing US trend that the Island is suited to develop.Mr Burgess called Sports Tourism “a sustainable niche that, along with business tourism, will be the most profitable for Bermuda over the next ten years”.Marketing the Island as a destination for active lifestyles would complement the Country’s new tourism slogan of ‘So Much More’.
Government’s decision to raise sports marketing from $2.5 million to $3 million was an about-face from last year’s Budget.The same category was allocated $1.9 million for the 2011/12 fiscal year — a 22 percent cut.Giving the Budget Brief for Tourism before the House of Assembly in March 2011, then-Minister Patrice Minors noted that sports marketing was becoming “a niche for Bermuda” — but said some events would have to find alternative funding or face cancellation.Since then, however, the National Tourism Plan has identified sports tourism as a core component of the Island’s market.According to the Plan, sports tourists are reported to be bigger spenders and more likely to rate the Island as satisfactory.There are also more potential spenders in the US, according to a Tourism Board statement released yesterday.The number of runners in the US has risen 81 percent since 2000, to 48 million people.A similar number of Americans now take part in road cycling, up 31 percent over the last 12 years.And the triathlon population has more than tripled since 2000, rising to 1.9 million people.Useful website: bermudatourism.org.
