Our industry has been particularly devastated by the impact of COVID-19. Recently the CSTA conducted two surveys to create a snapshot of the impact of this pandemic on the sport tourism industry. We appreciate the time that close to 100 of our members took to provide their input through completion of the surveys.
The results of the Destination Marketing Organizations and Sport Rights Holders surveys have been valuable in our continuing efforts to advocate on behalf of the industry in our ongoing government relations work.
The feedback was also used to create our current COVID-19 Recovery webinar series, which has now been extended into June. We have presented a variety of topics, providing industry updates, as well as practical tools and professional development material. It has also been a valuable forum to gather the sport tourism industry each week as more than 400 different people have participated in the sessions.
A brief summary of the findings from the two surveys conducted in late March and mid-April is provided below with a more detailed summary available as well as a presentation format with graphs included.
SURVEY SUMMARY FINDINGS
TOURISM
• Hundreds of thousands of room nights lost in Canada
• Equal split among provincial, national and international events
SPORT TOURISM LEADERSHIP
• Workforce adjustments ranging from work from home (90%) to closed office permanently (~10%)
• Approximately 1/3 of sport tourism professionals laid off in Canada
RETURN TIMELINE TO BE EVENT-READY
• 2/3 of sport tourism can be event-ready in three months
• 1/3 will take longer than three months
HOSTING CAPACITY
• 6% of host cities and 2% of sport organizations have ceased operations
BARRIERS TO FUTURE SPORT HOSTING
• Financial – corporate and government support
• Tourism – air access and hotel capacity
• Venue – venue readiness and commitment to hosting vs. resident usage
PARTNERSHIP
• Sport and tourism will need to work together to ensure the recovery of the industry.
TRIPLE BOTTOM LINE
• Economic
+500 Provincial, National, International Events cancelled (as of May 2020)
+/- 140,000 hotel rooms cancelled (as of May 2020)
• Social/Cultural
• Sustainability