Sports Tourism Witness 10-12 Percent Growth

As Indians are big fan of sports and travel, sports tourism industry in India sees 10-12 per cent growth says experts.

"Globally sports tourism is a multi-billion dollar industry. According to estimates, global sports tourism was worth USD 7 billion in 2017. While it is a mature industry overseas, in India it is in infancy (stage)," Cox and Kings Head, relationships, Karan Anand told here.

The first love for Indians is cricket and they travel to watch the game, whether in India or overseas, he added.  Sport events like the Soccer World Cup or the Olympics. We see large number of people travelling to the destination where the sport is going to be played. Over the last 10 years its reported that the interest to watch the olympics, the Soccer World Cup and Grand Prix Formula One motor events apart from cricket.

India Marketing Head, Brand, Manmeet Ahluwalia said India saw a change in travel patterns and rise in incidence of travelling for sports events ever since the launch of Indian Premier League in 2008.

“Indians always loved to adored the two games and travel, so occasions around donning occasions are the ideal mix to fulfill two desires immediately, he added.
Many people travel for watching these sports and hence these trips boost sport tourism and many tourism industry have began to realise the value of wooing these tourist -  many of them fall into the high-spending category, stay longer than other tourist categories, are high-calibre and often stimulate other tourism," he added.

Source: Economic Times.