Sustainable International Sporting Events

The aim of the two-year development project is to increase skills in sports economics and event tourism and to produce and issue guidelines for creating models that calculate the organising of sustainable international sporting events.

Organising major international sporting events has a positive impact on Sweden’s economy. These events generate revenue for both private businesses – above all hotels, restaurants and shops – and the public purse. Sporting events at international level are becoming more common: they are growing in terms of both scale and significance at the same time that they are becoming more complex. In order for Sweden to succeed in attracting more international events and at the same time achieve sustainable event tourism, skills in sports economics and event tourism need to be developed.

The project is a collaboration between BFUF and the Swedish Sports Confederation. These parties are jointly investing SEK 1 million over a two-year period. Attached to this project is one of the world’s most prominent researchers in tourism and event studies, Donald Getz, who is Professor Emeritus at the University of Calgary in Canada. Representatives for the Sports Confederation, Swedish destinations and researchers from higher education institutes in Sweden are invited to take part.

The project will run from August 2014 to September 2016.

Read the Strategy_international_sporting_events in 2013 which was produced by the Swedish sports and hospitality sectors.

Contacts: Stina Algotson, BFUF, stina@bfuf.se, +46 70 342 72 90
Björn Eriksson, Board Member of the Swedish Sports Confederation, +46 70 626 46 06
Leif Johansson, Centre for Sporting Events, leif.johansson@rf.se