Town Re-imaging using Sports Strategies - Report Example

Introduction: Today cities and towns are concerned about the image(s) they portray to potential visitors as well as to their own local communities. Therefore, many urban areas try to re-image themselves in order to attract investment, tourism and an increase in professionals living within them. This makes cities and towns very competitive against one another (Page and Hall, 2003: Smith, 2001). This re-imaging process takes place through place marketing. UK is one of the most favorite travel destinations for people across the world. Every year innumerable people come to visit different parts of this country. However, one thing has been noticed that all the places and all the cities do not have same kind of attraction power. In other words to say while some cities attracts more tourists, some others fail to do so. It is, however, not that the cities that do not attract many visitors towards it have nothing worth to visit. Frequently, poor image of these cities play a negative role. Actually, for many cities there is a notion that the places will not do justice to the expenses that will have to be incurred to visit those places. Poor images may be created for various reasons. For example, for some places people may think that there is nothing special about those places, for some other places they may think that the places are not so developed and so on. The old cities of UK have their own flavors. They have their own distinct characteristics with historical value. These cities attract visitors by their own charm. However, images about all the old cities of UK are not equally attractive. For example, Coventry is one such a old city of the UK which has been able to attract much tourists towards it compared to other UK cities. Actually, it has never been able to build an image of a popular tourists spot. However, some appropriate urban regeneration plan can make it an attractive place for the visitors. Here the reasons for which Coventry has built a poor image as a travel destination, some urban regeneration issues relating to this city, an appropriate plan of re-imaging the city with the help of sport tourism will be discussed. Need for re-imaging Coventry: Coventry is one of the oldest cities of the UK. However, its current image is not so attractive that it can attract huge tourists towards it. In fact, in terms of popularity among travelers of the UK as well as of the rest of the world it ranks much lower compared to other cities. There are a number of factors that have contributed to its poor image among the tourists. These are as follows: First, it is not as rich with natural beauties as other cities of the country. Coventry is further from the coast than any other cities of the country. Thus the city does not have any marvelous beach and beautiful coastal environment like many other cities. Second, it does not belong to the group of English core cities. The core cities automatically get higher attention from the tourists as they are more popular and more known. Since the city of Coventry is situated very close to Birmingham, it is not counted as one of the core cities of the country. Third, although it is a very old city of the country, it does not have a much interesting historical background like some other old cities of the country. It does not have any historical places of great importance that may attract tourists to come and explore. Urban regeneration issues relating to development of Coventry as a tourist destination: To attract more tourists to the city of Coventry, it is extremely necessary to build an improved image for this city. It is not that the city has not taken any urban regeneration policy for re-imaging the place. Urban regeneration implies implementation of effective policies and strategies to meet certain target. Here, the target is to get wider attention from the tourists. In order to make it a lovely tourists spot some efforts on regional basis have been undertaken. To improve its social, economic and physical image, a number of programs have been implemented. For example a number of innovations villages have been built, a Technology Park has been constructed and so on. However, all these efforts are not quite effective for making it an attractive place. All these efforts have not been directed to provide a unique character to the city. These efforts have not capitalized on the special advantages or special feature of the city. One of the very special things about the city of Coventry is its enriched sports culture. There are clubs of various sports like Rugby, Football, Golf, Tennis, etc. People living in Coventry have a passion for different types of sports. Various types of regional sports events are organized here. But they do not get wider attention, may be, due to lack of marketing. For Coventry, sports tourism could be an ideal option for re-imaging the city. Proposal sport tourism: Tourism is one of the largest industries in the world. In most of the countries it belongs to the top three industries. It has become one of the fastest growing sectors and one of the key drivers of the economies. It provides huge number of employment also. Tourism in any country is influenced by a number of factors like demographical conditions, several social issues, some political drivers like General Agreement on Trades and Tariffs (GATT), agreements on forming several trade blocks, globalization, redrawing of political map, aspects of safety, security, risk factors, climatic conditions, efficiency of human resource elements of the tourism industry, new forms of tourisms, changing pattern of tourism products and so on. (Page and Hall, 2003) Sport tourism is a kind of special interest tourism. World Tourism Organization has defined special interest tourism as “specialized tourism involving group or individual tours by people who wish to develop certain interest and visit sites and places connected with a specific subject. Generally speaking, the people concerned exercise the same profession or have common hobby” (Ritchie et al, pp 28). In case of special interest tourism, very often the special interest itself plays the major role in making the plan for travel as well as tourism development for a particular destination. Tourism by itself is a leisure product which people consume at the time of their leisure. Since in case of special interest tourism, the act traveling is guided by the special interest only, special interest tourism is very often known to as serious leisure. (Hall and Weiler, 1992; Ritchie, 2004) For the re-imaging of Coventry the strategy of symbolic holistic image enhancement will be a very good option. This strategy has been chosen as it is able to create great impact in the minds of people through a symbolic value. Instead of overall development of a city through some operational image rebuilding, focusing on one particular aspect of the city and making it a holistic symbol for the city will add to the uniqueness about the city. Through symbolic holistic image enhancement people will become more interested about the city and will feel more enthusiastic to visit the city to find out whether the true structure resembles the symbol. For the present purpose sport will be used as an imaging tool for the city given the sporty environment of the city. Since the people living in Coventry show huge interest in sports, symbolic image enhancement through sport tourism will be the ideal one. When sport is used an imaging tool, people will not view the imagery element from an operational sense, but through an abstract point of view. Sports actually offer a kind of packaging and an image, rather than some kind of function or characteristic of the city. This proposed image enhancement strategy is not actually explicit in nature as it does not directly refer to the city’s operational/functional dimension. This strategy mainly refers to arrangements of sport events and various kinds of facilities that are important to build to organize those events. (Smith, 2001) Under this kind of proposed symbolic holistic image enhancement, the slogan for Coventry can be “Come and live some sporty moments”. Sport tourism has become a very prevalent global phenomenon. Different people define sport tourism differently. According to one definition, “sport tourism falls into two categories, travel to participate in sport and travel to observe sport. Therefore, sport tourism may be defined as travel for non commercial reasons to participate or observe sporting activities away from the home range” (Standeven, pp 12). However, presently tourism with business or any other commercial motives are also being included in the category of sport tourism. Hence, in a more generalized way sport tourism can be defined as all types of involvement, be it active or passive, in activities related to sports. The participation in these activities may be in casual way or in an organized way with some non-commercial motives or some business or other commercial motives. An important aspect about the sport tourism is that an active or passive involvement with commercial or non commercial motive will be regarded as sport tourism only if the activity takes place far away from home or work place. (Standeven and Knop, 1999; Hinch and Higham, 2004) The importance of sports in tourism is becoming so large that most of the in travels magazines, in holiday resorts, and in other sorts of advertisement also travel organizations are placing their emphasis on the availability of various attractive sport events. (Bull and Weed, 2004; Kretchmarr, 1994) Coventry can utilize these strategies to build its tourism industry. The government should make some efforts to arrange several sports events at an international level. The regeneration plan should also involve construction of some travel agencies that can use various marketing tools to provide various holiday packages based on sports events and advertise different sorts of sports events. In modern day, the connection between sport and tourism has become quite symbolic. The relationship between sport and tourism not only implies that sports have helped the industry of tourism in its expansion, tourism is also aiding sports. In fact in today’s world, sport has become a very special part of the industry of tourism. The relationship between sports and tourism has become so interactive that tourism significantly influences participation in sports as well as sports infrastructure. (Bull and Weed, 2004) In today’s international travel market, holidays with adventurous sports and activities are increasing recognized as a very important segment. (Standeven and Knop, 1999; Bull and Weed, 2004) Coventry can surely capitalize on the\is advantage of globalization to improve its tourism industry. In the field of business hospitality, the place of sports is very big. Not only that, organizing sport events are also becoming very profitable as in this globalised world more and more customers are coming to spend their holidays by watching several kind of sports event. With several kind of business tours also, active sports are increasing being associated. (Standeven and Knop, 1999; Bull and Weed, 2004) Limitation of the proposal: At the time of re-imaging the city of Coventry using the strategy of symbolic holistic image enhancement through sport tourism, certain issues should be kept in mind for the purpose of correct implementation of the plan. The major limitation of this symbolic holistic approach of image enhancement is that most of the attention direct towards the making of an abstract image, rather than paying attention on actual physical development of the city. Thus, there exists a huge chance that the visitors who are attracted by the symbol and come to the city get hugely disappointed to experience the actual scene. Apart form this, sports tourism is a very complicated program for regenerating a city. Some inherent issues involved in sport tourism are correct selection of destinations, proper selection of tour timing and other management issues like human and financial resource management, efficient tour planning etc. All these issues are quite complex and they can create huge problem if they are not addressed in a proper way. Since sport tourism will be completely new for Coventry, all these issues may limit its success. In case of sport tourism, needs of the travelers are quite different than the usual travelers and hence, these needs are required to be addressed with due care. In this context, one important management issue in sport tourism should be considered. It is crisis management. As far as selection of destinations in sport tourism is concerned, it has been found that selection of destinations is not solely dependent on sporting events. There exists some external factors, like unforeseen man made or natural disasters, which significantly influence staging of particular sport events in particular places which in turn affect several important element of the sport tourism industry. Hence, appropriate crisis management is also very important in case of sport tourism. It is true that it is not always possible to predict occurrence of crisis during any sports, but with appropriate skills and resources it is possible to implement some effective strategies which can help in reducing the degree of negative impacts of these crisis on tourism businesses. (Standeven and Knop, 1999; Bull and Weed, 2004) If sport tourism operators in Coventry are not efficient enough to identify the special needs of their customers and designing their tour packages according to those needs, all efforts could fail drastically. (Bull, 1997; Bull and Weed, 2004; Hinch, 2004) Conclusion: On the basis of the entire discussion above, it can be concluded that sport tourism is the most ideal strategy for urban regeneration of one of the oldest cities of UK Coventry. Till now the city has not been able to attract major attention from the tourists doe to its location, its not-so interesting historical background etc. But, one of the factors that have long been ignored by the planner of urban regeneration of the city is its enriched culture of sports. In this age of globalization and increasing popularity of different kinds of Sports, sports tourism has become a well-recognized and profitable industry. The city of Coventry can utilize its sports culture and can build a huge sport tourism industry to change its image and attract huge tourists from different parts of the world. Proper planning and efforts can make this re0imaging program successful for Coventry. References: 1. Page, S. 2003. Tourism Management: Managing for Change. Butterworth-Heinemann. 2. Pender, L. and Sharpley, R. 2005. The management of tourism. London: Sage Publication. 3. Standeven, J. and Knop, P. 1999. Sport tourism. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. 4. Bull C. J. and Weed, M. E. 2004. Sports tourism: participants, policy and providers. Butterworth-Heinemann. 5. Bull C. J. and Weed, M. E. 1999. Niche Markets and small island tourism: the development of Sport tourism in Malta. Managing Leisure, 4(2):142-155 6. Bull, P. 1997. Mass tourism in the Balearic Islands: an example of concentrated dependence. In Lockwood D. G. and Drakakis-smith eds. Island Tourism: Trends and Prospects. London: Pinter. 7. Kretchmarr, A. S. 1994. Practical Philosophy of Sport. Champaign, IL: Human Kinetics. 8. Hinch, T. 2004. Sport Tourism Development. Channel View Publications. 9. Hall, C. M. and Weiler, B. 1992. Introduction. What’s special about special interest tourism? In B. Weiler and C.C. hall (eds) Special Interest Tourism. London: Behaven Press. 10. Morrison, A. 1998. Small firm co-operative marketing in a peripheral tourism region, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 10, 5, 191-197. 11. Ritchie, B. W. and Adair, D. 2004. Sport tourism: interrelationships, impacts and issues. Channel View Publications. 12. Hinch, T. and Higham, J. 2004. Sport Tourism Development, Clevedon: Channel View Publications. 13. Page, S.J. and Hall, M.C. 2003. Managing Urban Tourism, London: Prentice Hall. 14. Smith, A. 2001. ‘Sporting a New Image?’ in Gratton, C. and Henry, I. (eds) Sport in the City, London: Routledge Appendix: Proposed look of the city of Coventry (the city can look like as the picture below after implementation of the proposed plan) Read More