What SA sport tourism can learn from the Paris Olympics

BRENDON KNOT

If you followed the Paris 2024 Olympics broadcast, you would have noticed the breathtaking city backdrop to events, the festive atmosphere and active support of spectators. Touted as marking a new era, the games introduced several innovations in its planning and delivery, starting with an opening ceremony outside a stadium for the first time.

I was fortunate to be among the Paris crowd as a researcher and a sport fan. I research and teach sport tourism and international events. I’ve studied event impacts, especially on city branding, and the legacies of sport mega-events, most notably the 2010 men’s football World Cup in South Africa.

Sport tourism in South Africa is $3.6 billion (R65bn) industry and forecast to grow. The country has a track record of hosting big sport events, like the annual Cape Town Rugby 7s tournament, the Nedbank Golf Challenge and the Comrades Marathon. It’s an appealing year-round golf destination with a developed sport and active leisure industry. There’s every reason to view this as a high-growth potential, niche economic sector for the country.

Although the last sport mega-event hosted by South Africa was in 2010, there have been a few standout major events since then – the Africa Cup of Nations men’s football in 2013, the 2023 Netball World Cup and the 2023 T20 Women’s World Cup cricket among them.

What lessons can South Africa learn from France – a nation that is dominating innovations and development in the sport tourism industry?

1. Keep the pipeline flowing

France has succeeded in hosting an impressive pipeline of events. The successive mega-events of the Rugby World Cup 2023 and the 2024 Olympic and Paralympic Games have been interspersed with regular major events that attract tourism and boost nation-branding, like the Tour de France cycling, the French Open tennis and the Le Mans motorsport event. Beyond these major events, France hosts multiple big sporting events year-round. The nation continues to top the UN tourism destinations list, with sport adding an extra reason for tourists to visit or extend their stay, as spectators or participants.

While South Africa boasts a healthy number of annual sport events, the major and mega-events on this list have not been sustained. South Africa’s next mega-event will be the men’s Cricket World Cup in 2027.

Global event research indicates that it’s a portfolio of regular events, interspersed with major and mega-events, that really captures global attention and drives tourism numbers. The US is following the pattern, supporting the hosting of a succession of mega-events in the coming decade to complement its array of annual events. The men’s football World Cup in 2026 is followed by the Olympics in 2028 and the men’s Rugby World Cup in 2032.

2. Sustain the economic effects

Paris 2024 will leave a lasting tangible impact on some lesser-developed urban areas. A few years ago, for example, the Vaires-sur-Marne region strategically invested in the infrastructure to host the canoe, kayak and rowing events. Entrepreneurs and businesses benefited from spectators passing by their stalls or establishments just outside the event perimeter. It’s crucial, in South Africa, to find ways to include local entrepreneurs and businesses as suppliers and benefactors in sport events.

The Seine-Saint-Denis municipality was targeted as an area for improvement. It’s now home to a new aquatics facility and the athletes’ village, which will become a residential and commercial development. The area is now served by a new public transport hub.

Admittedly, it’s too early to assess the longer-term sustainability and impact of the developments, which is now a focus of a collaborative research project. However, the planning of Paris 2024 indicates the development platform and transformational potential that mega-events of this nature hold for a city.

In South Africa, sport facilities are largely based within historically advantaged neighbourhoods. France took a strategic and intentional approach to spreading benefits to other cities across the country, even hosting the surfing event in the French territory of Tahiti. South African events should seek to spread benefits and opportunities associated with larger-scale events to smaller towns and outside traditional urban hubs.

3. Keep your costs down

Mega-events have notoriously been associated with massive investments in facility development, often leading to “white elephant” (unused) stadiums after an event.

Paris has set a new standard in reimagining venues in creative and innovative ways, and in creating temporary stadiums in iconic locations. It is also invested in sporting infrastructure over a long period not included in the Olympic budget. For example, the Roland Garros tennis centre was renovated to include roofs over the major courts, allowing the venue to become multipurpose. After the French Open in June, the centre was easily transformed to host Olympic tennis and the Olympic boxing competition in an indoor facility.

Paris is forecast to be the “cheapest” Olympics this century. Paris should inspire the creative use of town halls, museums, village squares and other public spaces for hosting events in South Africa.

4. Get people involved

The vision for Paris 2024 was to take the games to the people. It set out to bring events into the city centre and make many more events accessible to the public. This aligned with the International Olympic Committee’s vision to make the games younger, more urban and more accessible.

Organisers harnessed technology to personalise communication, ticketing and transport planning. While digital tickets have become common, Paris set new standards through its regular fan communications via email and apps to support spectator transport, ticketing and news.

Through innovative stadium entertainment activations (a combination of live deejays, stadium lighting and artificial intelligence broadcasts on large screens), organisers were able to create interactive and memorable sensory experiences.

South Africa would do well to embrace the trends to develop smart events of the future. The country has the foundations in terms of infrastructure and event hosting capability as well as a developed tourism sector. The example of Paris 2024 has provided insights on how mega-events can be hosted in a more economical and sustainable manner.

Brendon Knott is an associate professor at the Cape Peninsula University of Technology.

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