The Involvement Of Government In Community Sports Tourism Essay

Introduction:

In this modern society, the development of sports has become one of the most significance aim for nations, especially for developing the professional sports and promoting participation of the mass sport. Governments establish the policies for promoting the development of sports in communities is good for the people health benefits and economic development. Therefore, the intervention of government into the community sports plays a critical role for the success of community sports.

Background:

Until late 1950s or early 1960s, numbers of countries have the purpose of government intervention in sport is to specific problems such as poor standards of health in urban areas (Houlihan, 1997). Nowadays, the purposes of the government intervention in sports have broadened, which is not just for providing people physical or psychological need, but also for the business purpose. Governments establish the public sport facilities in communities and urban in order to give more opportunities to participate in sports and develop the atmosphere of sports, in addition, the image of communities or urban will be improved apparently like small city Wimbledon as famous as tennis holding , and the international winter competitions in Innsbruck. In terms of economy, it can provide a lot of profits for nation, such as big events Olympic Games and World Cup, in addition to them, community sports can be a potential way to stimulate the development of economy as well, particular in the sport subculture, attract more people who come from foreign countries.

Arguments for the reasons of government involvement:

Having a famous community sport events, which enhance other industries development and such as tourism, hospitality, etc. In addition, the volunteer works play a critical role in the community sports competition, because they can help the operation of organization sports successfully. The development of elite sports can be connected to the community sports because it can cultivate ergastic talents from the community sport , which is good for the development of elite sports. Although communities ‘sports have a promising prospect through the ways of government involvement, the negative aspects should not be ignored such as market fail, negative externalities and Tragedy of the Commons. In the social problems, the rates of crime might be increased. Hence, all of the negative aspects in the development of community sports that the governments have to overcome it.

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Benefits effects:

Social benefits from community sports:

People can get benefits from Participating in the community sports, which are the physical activity improving and health care reduction. In Australia, according to the data shows that people doing sports in communities can get “health costs reduce $1.49 billion per year; and productivity gains by making the workforce healthier through increased physical activity could be as much as 1% of GDP (or $12 billion) per year.” (Frontier Economics report, 2010). It can be seen that doing sports in communities that it is not only can get physical health, but also increasing the GDP. On the other hand, people can socialize with others during the competitions of community sports, in the meanwhile, the voluntary works can be enhanced by the opportunities of sports competition in the communities, which can develop the elite sports significantly. In Australia, government inputs the volunteers as value as almost $4 billion (Frontier Economics report, 2010). This is a worthwhile intervention by the Australian government, because they can enhance the development of the elite sports and also reduce government spending. Therefore, governments play an important role to encourage people to engage in community sports, and increase the volunteer works.

Positive externalities

With the involvement of governments in community sport events, community sports have been strengthen, the holding of sport events can get benefits for host community, because the community sport is not just for the purposes of recreation and physical health, it has become common tool for local and regional economic development (Brien, 2007). There are several industries could be enhanced such as sport tourism industry, restaurants, hotels, nightspots and transportation facilities (Peter & Tarlow, 2010). Sport tourism is most important industry, “in Australia sport tourism might represent about 5% of the overall tourism market, equating to tourism expenditure of about $3 billion per annum” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2000). government control the community sports development as the sport subculture is very important, because people to participate in the community sports is more likely to know the subculture of sports, and it is more attractive for foreigners. “In Australia, sport occupies a central place within culture and identity, based on a long history of achievement across a wide range of sports” (Commonwealth of Australia, 2000). Moreover, establish more infrastructures in community will enhance the development of tourism, because it is very important to retain tourists. In Australia, the Prime Minister, the Hon Kevin Rudd MP announced that 220 million funding for the Regional and Local Community Infrastructure Program (RLCIP) would be made available to build and modernize community facilities, including town halls, libraries, community centres, sports grounds and environmental infrastructure (Australian government, 2010). . Government involves in the community sport events and infrastructures have more changelings for the governments, because it decides other industries whether it develops rapidly or not.

Sport policy in the community sports

The development of community sports is not only for improving the regional the levels of regional and nation, also there is more meaningful that the relationship between countries can be improved due to the exchange between culture and sports. For example, in the early 1970s, in order to have a good thawing between East and West, USA sent a table-tennis to China, which is the first step to traditional diplomatic relations (Houlihan, 1991). Table-tennis can be a national identity of China, USA used the way of exchange between sport and culture in order to have sport culture exchange and promote the friendship between these two countries. Therefore, government strength the national identity started from the community sports, because they have basic level, and in order to have advancement for the development of nation identity. In Australian, the most representative sports are rugby, cricket and surfing, etc. government has support these sports increasingly in the communities. In Australian community sport policy also focus on children participation, which develops the grass roots sport, and encouraging all students to get healthy and physically active, which means it helps students combat obesity and preventable diseases later in life through the Australian Sport Commission’s Active After-school Communities (Australia Sport Commission, 2010).

Negative effects

Negative externalities

Government involve in community sports level has achieved a lot of positive outcomes. However, the negative outcomes in the community sport that governments have to overcome its. Having a good community sport will attract a large numbers of people to participate in, but it leads to environmental pollution raised. The governments have to solve this problem, because it can lose interesting among the spectators and participants. In addition, the hooligans and vandalism in community sport facilities are serious problems which result in public property loss, according to the Coffs Harbor City Council report that they started to strengthen measures to reduce vandalism in community sport facilities, and almost spent to the city more than $100,000 each year (Coffs Harbour City Council report, 2004). Hence, governments play an important role to reduce the vandalisms and hooligans. Naturally, increasing numbers of participants will attend because of the safety guarantee.

With the development of community sports, increasing numbers of people participate in community sport because there are a lot of public sport facilities and services exist. As a result, the fitness industry will be threatened potentially, because fitness industry is beyond the budget for people who can get low incomes especially for the students, so have a good community sport facilities will give them more opportunities to do sports, even though the fitness industry has more professional guidance and facilities. Therefore, the government intervention in fitness industry is necessarily, and cultivates more talents for encouraging the development of fitness industry. In Canada, Fitness increased concern among physical educators and health lifestyle and the government supported $5million per annum to cultivate these kinds of talent (Houlihan, 1997).

Tragedy of the Commons

With the development of society, the use of land has become competitive because more and more companies and factories tend to use larger space to develop themselves, and also the land-ownership play an essential role for industry of real estate. It can be seen that increasing numbers of buildings have built for the business companies or government sectors. Therefore, establish more sport venues and sport infrastructures in public are not very easy, because the land area is limited. If establish in the country areas, it will lead to restrict the development of agriculture. Therefore, the development of community sports will be limited, because there is no much more space to do sports for people. Especially in China, the populations were increased rapidly during the last years, so the people who live in the city, the sport facilities in public is not enough due to the increasing of populations, naturally, the sport fields is not enough as well. Hence, the governments have to intervention in space of community sport areas, which means give rights to broaden the space in sport areas, and more chances for people engaging in sports.

Conclusion:

Anyway, the governments involved in community sports for couple of reasons which include social benefits, positive and negative externalities, community sport promotion and Tragedy of the Commons for the community sports. So no matter what reasons are, that the governments intervene to the community sports for three main purposes which are people physical healthy, the development of nation economy and the elite sports.

Specifically, the government’s involvement is for encouraging and assisting the development of community sports. First of all, People doing community sport is not only reducing the health costs, but also having more opportunities to socialize. Secondly, to develop the volunteer works and community level sports are very important for the elite sports, because community sports is being a basic level, and there are many people who are cultivatable and promising for the elite sports. Volunteer works can be a construction of underpin for the elite sport levels. In terms of children health, governments encourage them to participate in community sports in order to reduce the diseases and obesity for them. In addition, Sport policy is good for promoting the nationals relationship such as sport and culture exchange between USA and China. Moreover, enhancing the development other industries take advantage of the opportunities of holding of the community sport events, like tourism and hospitality, etc. However, there are a lot of negative aspects in the community sports such as hooligans and vandalisms, environment pollution and Tragedy of the Commons, all of the negative aspects that governments have to cope with it as quickly as possible.