Make Green Growth a Priority: Issues and Challenges in Organising Green Sports Tourism Events

Abstract

Despite many sports tourism events have been organized globally yet the understanding about the event greening practices is reasonably low. Hence, the impact of the sports event towards the environment and the communities are exceptionally high. For the purpose of this paper, some academic and consultancy-based literature on management and organization of sports tourism events in relation to green growth were reviewed. This conceptual paper focuses on the conceptualization and implementation of green sports events which covers the theory and principles of green practices, strategies and implementation of green practices in the case of selected Olympic Games, issues and challenges, and the roles of stakeholders. In addition, the critical insight from the literature also provides some “green” suggestions to be considered by sports tourism event organisers.

Sustainable Tourism through Green Event Perspectives in Danang City: Challenges and Solutions

“…its bidding. Moreover, green practices are also important to maintain effective business operations in the long term and develop an organization's green culture (Chiu, L. K., Ramely, A., and Abdul Wafi, A., 2020).…”

“…The implementation of green events brings many positive impacts to the environment and to the local community, aiming at the main sustainable goals in reducing the negative impacts on the community's natural habitat; pursuing global environmental sustainability goals; promoting programs that promote sustainable living; while ensuring economic efficiency, social justice and environmental integrity. This green practice relates to sustainable tourism and also gives a good brand image to the destination, for which it has been recognized as a "new tourism" (Chiu, L. K., Ramely, A., and Abdul Wafi, A., 2020). Communities can benefit economically, in terms of environmental health, reduced stress on public infrastructure, and long-term benefits of the facilities.…”

“…(2012) shows that the majority of event participants prefer to participate in green events, even though the event fees (non-green) are cheaper than green events. Choe, K. H. and Yap, S. (2017) emphasize that green event organizers and attendees should implement green practices to reduce environmental impact, through the steps of management strategy from planning, organizing, managing implementation and evaluation (Chiu, L. K., Ramely, A., and Abdul Wafi, A., 2020). This strategy utilizes event resources effectively (Ahmad, N. L., Rashid, W. E. W., Abd Razak, N., Yusof, A. N. M., and Shah, N. S. M., 2013; Chiu, L. K., Ramely, A., and Abdul Wafi, A., 2020) while ensuring the protection and management of environmental impacts (Jurowski, C., 2008), prescribing policies towards the environment, promoting ethical behavior towards nature, minimizing resource use and discharge, as well as maximizing results in terms of image promotion and visitor satisfaction.…”

Green Event Management Initiatives in Sri Lanka

“…Moreover, Liu (2018) mentioned that green practice would help to sustain the tenders and helping the host to earn more sponsors. Therefore, a balance needs to be found to protect and enhance the destination's resources for the future while managing the complex interaction of all the stakeholders (Chiu et al, 2020).…”

“…Further, many sports tourism events have been organized globally yet the understanding about the event greening practices is reasonably low. Therefore, the impact of the sports event on the environment and the communities are exceptionally high (Chiu et al, 2020).…”