Tourism Business Sector Stance in Front of a Sport Tourism Development: Focusing on Crete

Crete has been one of the most favourable tourism destinations of the Mediterranean contributing largely on the local as well as the Greek national income for decades. In the current years of distinct product differentiation, Crete has been re-examining the strategic road to a fruitful future and a secured position in the international tourism market. Amongst proposals promising to redirect the local offer towards a more sustainable as well as competitive tourism product is that of sport tourism due to a diverse physical environment of infinite potential for sport holidays. The focus of the present study is placed on the response of the local tourism industry and its sensitivity towards sport-related tourism products. Local tourism businesses’ acceptability to thematic tourism products remains the most crucial factor for a successful sport tourism development. As early as 1982 sport tourism has been suggested as a strong and competitive alternative to the diminishing and unsustainable mass tourism model developed in the Mediterranean (Glyptis. Sport and tourism in Western Europe. London: British Travel Education Trust, 1982). However, limited attention has been placed on the businesses’ perspectives in embracing similar initiatives and overall the level of willingness the private tourism sector demonstrates in encompassing these products in the tourism offer (Vrondou et al. e-Review of Tourism Research (eRTR) 7(1):1–26, 2009). Examples of successful sport tourism projects have been recorded worldwide (Weed and Bull. Sports tourism: Participants, policy and providers. Oxford: Elsevier Butterworth Heinemann, 2009) but scarcely tourism businesses perspectives on accommodating sport tourism products have been analysed. Crete represents a typical mass tourism destination in the process of quality differentiation in order to face a stagnating environment. The study examines Crete as a traditional destination in its effort to disembark from the mass tourism model towards a more specialised and quality tourism offer. Government initiatives promise to support a more quality tourism product supporting local environment but how is this received by the sceptical tourism sector having already invested a vast amount of resources to previous tourism tactics?