CHAPTER ONE

INTRODUCTION

1. BACKGROUND OF STUDY

Tourism is believed to be the fastest growing industries across the world. Facts and figures have shown that it has an annual growth rate of 4% in countries like USA, Italy, France, Spain, UK, and Caribbean and of recent, African countries like Kenya. South Africa, Morocco, Tunisia, Gambia, Egypt, and so on, earned substantially from tourism as analyzed by Mani (2003). He further explained that both receipts and tourist arrivals have been on an increase, which implies the growth trend of the industry. In fact, according to ILO (2001), globally the World Tourist Organization (WTO) predicts that the number of international tourists will reach almost 1.6bn by the yea 2020 (as opposed to 565mn in 1995). Similarly, international tourism receipts will exceed US $2,000bn.

Thus, this development and indeed the mono-cultural nature of Nigerian economy leave no one in doubt as to the need to develop and sustain our tourism industry. Nigeria is a vast and fascinating country with varying geographical regions and ecological zones. It has diverse and amiable climatic variables rich in biological diversity. Cascading water systems, rolling links, pleasant and distinctive sceneries. Accordingly the Nigeria government has to diversify the economy to incorporate the tourism sector with the launching of Nigeria Tourist Association (NTA) in September, 1962.

The dwindling mono-cultural oil economy in 70’s though rising in resent time still require Nigeria to develop its tourism sector because oil is vulnerable to fluctuations in demand and price in the international market.

So, for the sector to contribute to the wealth of the nation and the well-being of Nigerians, the Nigerian Tourist Association (NTA) metamorphosed into Nigeria Tourist Board (NTB) which now changed to Nigeria Tourist Development Corporation (NTDC) by the virtue of degree 81 of 1992 under the supervision of Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

According to Omotosho (2000) the NTDC has the following responsibilities:

Encourages people living in Nigeria to take Holidays in the country and People abroad to Visit Nigeria; Encourage the provision and Improvement of tourism amenities and Facilities in Nigeria like development of Hotels and ancillary facilities; Development Of sites to assist tourist agents; offer Technical and information advice to state and Tourism entrepreneurs on tourism joint Ventures and promotion.

Tourism is a socio-cultural phenomenon and it is a quiet revolution that has gradually swept through the world, in both developed and undeveloped nations. As an outward sign, mankind is beginning to reshape its attitude towards the conservation of the natural environment, complete with animals, plants, stonework, vines, mist, sound and even man himself, which are all active components of the earth (Fred, 2007). Globally, tourism has become an important policy tool for community and regional development in many developed and developing countries. Tourism also has significant potential to influence and change the use of natural and cultural resources in a number of regions. It provides new opportunities, employment and economic benefits to local communities and promotes the growth of the hospitality industry. Presently, many countries see tourism as a means to promote a good and relatively inexpensive strategy that can be used to attract foreign direct investment (Theobald, 2007). In this sense the rationale for tourism development has evolved towards the idea of tourism as a tool for regional and sustainable development and recently to a relatively new kind of idea of tourism as an instrument of social and economic empowerment and poverty reduction (Ayodele, 2002). According to Kim (2006), the tourism industry can not strive without the existence of auxiliary industries such as hotels, communication and commerce which provide the necessary facilities and services to ensure tourist comfort at a destination. He pointed out that hotels today have grown beyond domestic markets and are playing a key role in the development and continuity of the international tourism industry. Lucas (2006) stresses that luxury is the new standard, and hotels around the globe are feverishly elevating room stock to match the needs of the new breed of discriminating guests. Yu and Pin (1994) point out that most of the hotels in Turkey have as many as 5,005 rooms with a hotel manpower strength of about 2,000 men and women employed to ensure guests‟ comfort.

They went further to state that this industry also provides leisure to all categories of business tourists with quests to stay somewhere. According to them tourists, while at different grades of hotels, are offered different grades of facilities or services to ensure their comfort. Today, the establishment of hotels such as Metropolitan, Channel View, Doris „O‟, Mirage among others in Calabar is no doubt an indicator of the growth of tourism (Larry, 2005). In view of this, Calabar is regarded as one of the cities in Nigeria with a high influx of tourists due to its numerous tourism attractions and other related enterprises such as hotels, which provide auxiliary services to tourists. It is however quite surprising that despite the enabling enviroment created by the government and the numerous tourism potentials the level of tourist influx in Calabar keeps declining. This has affected the level of patronage in the hotel industry and other existing tourism enterprises, hence leading to the rise and fall of most hotels and other tourism related outfits in the area. In this regard, it should be asked if tourism is the main catalyst for the growth of the hotel industry, what role the tourism industry plays in ensuring the sustainability of the hotel industry and the living condition of the people who solely depend on these laudable tourism potentials for sustenance. In the light of the above, a study was conducted that addresses tourism as a catalyst for hospitality (hotel) industry development with specific reference to the origin of tourists in the various hotels, annual patronage of tourists and major problems experienced by tourists in the hospitality (hotel) industry.

The first connections between sport and tourism emerged in the early mid – nineteenth century A.D. with English competitive sports as a central pillar of modern western sports (alongside German exercises and Swedish gymnastics). Standeven (1994) dated the first connections between sport and tourism to the year 1827. It is debatable, however, whether this connection can really be attached to a particular year. Pigeassou et al. (1998) located the connection between tourism and sport in the emergence of alpine winter – sports in the nineteenth century, but assumes the autonomy of the sport tourism domain to be only since the 1950s. Standeven and De Knop (1999) also provided that forms of sport tourism may be dated back to the times of the ancient Greeks. Weed and Bull (2009) defined sport tourism as a social, economic and cultural phenomenon developed from the unique interaction of people, place and activity. Sport tourism is one of the largest and fastest – growing segments of the travel and tourism industry and one that is receiving increased attention for its social, environmental, and economic development and opportunities (Standeven and De Knop 1999). It is widely understood that major sporting events contribute significantly to the economic development and tourist traffic in a city or region where the sporting takes place (Higham, 1999, Turco et al., 2003). Sport tourism is a vital component of the marketing mix for tourist destinations (Getz, 1997, Gibson, 1998). Gibson (1998) described sport tourism as leisure-based travel which takes person(s) outside their usual environment for the purpose of watching, participating (in physical activities) or adoring attractions associated with physical activities. History of Nigerian University Games Association (NUGA): The association was founded in 1965 and the first game was held in the following year (1966) at the University of Ibadan (the premier university in Nigeria). The game association was formed by Nigerian first generation universities which are five in number, these are; University of Lagos, Akoka, Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, University of Nigeria, Nsukka, University of Ibadan, and University of Ife (now Obafemi Awolowo University). NUGA has fifteen (15) approved sporting activities. These are; track and field, badminton, basketball, hockey, chess, cricket, judo, soccer, squash, table tennis, tae Kwando, lawn tennis, volley ball, swimming, and hand ball. NUGA has gone beyond bothers. In 1970, NUGA became a member of World Federation of Universities Games Association and has continuously taken part in the World University Games and other activities of the Federation since then. When all African Universities’ Games’ Association was founded in 1974, NUGA was a founding member. The major objectives of NUGA include; promotion of friendship through participation in sporting activities among University students in Nigeria, development of sports facilities in Nigerian Universities, and enhancing the development of sports in Nigeria through contribution of elite athletes from University sports competitions to the national teams. The main purpose of setting up NUGA was to create an atmosphere of friendly interaction among universities in Nigeria. This highly welcome goal is expected to unite all Nigerian universities for peaceful co – existence. Ojeme (2010) enumerated purpose of sports development in Nigeria as physical fitness for all, self-actualization, improvement of international relations, promotion of friendship, provision of employment, youth mobilization, promotion of recreation and competitive sports, promotion of women sports etc.

Sport tourism is a relatively new and ever increasing industry in the tourism industry focusing on the target planning of developing countries. It is also believed that sport tourism shall restructure the rural and urban communities from social and economic perspectives. Seemingly, sport tourism shall improve the individuals’ life quality through tourist attraction and results in the economic welfare of the local communities (Swart and Bob, 2007). Sport tourism is defined as a temporary movement from a person’s settlement to pass their free time playing and watching games and so forth (Preuss etal., 2007). Today, sport and tourism are concerned with the important economic activities in the developed and developing nations (Swart and Bob, 2007). Based upon the world tourism organization estimates, 43% of the world jobs will be associated with the tourism industry by 2010. For example, from 1997 to 2005, sport tourism brought about an annual increase in gross domestic growth (1.3%), which resulted from economic activities with regard to holding big sport competitions, and unemployment declined by 1.9% on annual basis(Kasimati and Dawson, 2009). Thus, sport can considerably influence sport-based services and products in terms of functional and visual dimensions. Hence, it is considered as one of the effective factors highly influencing national growth and revenue in the 21stcentury (Brown and Nagel, 2002).The corresponding studies indicate that sport tourism is the most developed sector of the tourism industry (Chalipand Kim, 2004) such that it is regarded as a world multi-billion trading element, producing 4.5 trillion dollars for tourism industry and world tour (Tassiopoulosa and Haydamb, 2007).Tourists are a chief source of income and employment for the population of the hosting region (Batyk and Ski,2009); that is why the world metropolitans consider. Olympic games as a unique opportunity for local marketing, because a potential economic advantage of being the host of a big sport event is to attract many spectators and tourists to the hosting city and consequently, it shall bring positive economic consequences(Preuss et al., 2007). Most published papers, in terms of’ Olympic games’, have mainly focused on its longstanding benefits such as new infrastructures and facilities, the cities` reconstruction, international credibility, tourism growth, public welfare improvement, job creation and local employment opportunities. Thus, needless to say why, in recent years, countries have tended to host the upcoming competitions (Kasimati,2003). Then, sport tourism is considered as an effective tool to deal with poverty and unemployment and increase economic growth and social welfare of the communities, especially underdeveloped nations. There are two kinds of sport tourisms: the first one employs sport for the sake of its tourism development advantages, while the other one is the result of sport-based activities (Tassiopoulosa and Haydamb, 2007). So the communities should take both types into account (Daniels, 2007) so as to optimally take advantage of their positive results. Since there are various motives for involvement in sport activities, such as competition, recreation and traveling to watch preliminary or premier competitions or sport attractions (Tassiopoulosa and Haydamb, 2007), the natural resources of sport and tourism facilities play a significant role in attracting tourists to the host city, region or country. In this regard, Kozak studied the factors influencing sport tourists’ trip considering their destination and nationality. His results indicated that accommodation, facilities, climate, price rate, geographical location of the host region and access to sea seashore were the reasons as per why English tourists had traveled to Maltand Turkey. Mazandaran province is regarded as one of the leading tourism centers due to its favorable nature and geographical locations. No doubt, tourism is one of the important sectors in terms of economic development of Mazandaran. This condition applies for the communities, especially Mazandaran, in which individuals pursue various activities to make money. Since application of local resources to make and enhance income minimizes the dependency upon national resources, such com-munities shall persist in the long run depending on their local resources (Poudyala etal., 2008), given potential resources in Mazandaran, like Mazandaran sea, various floras and faunas, picturesque mountains, forests and seashore, Damavand summit(5670 m), caves, waterfalls, rivers, spas, springs, lagoons, especially Miankahe peninsular in Behshar, 800well-known monumental and historical spots like Amol,Chalous, Sari, rivers, lakes bank, spots, waterfalls, nation parks, protected areas and wild life, preserves and natural-national works, and mineral waters. 

However, it might be a best choice for tourists with various motives. The regions in which sport and athletic activities is a part of their culture can surely take advantage of domestic and international tourists, increase natives ‘income and at the same time, minimize the unemployment and inflation rate. Here, individuals pursue a wide range of various activities to make money (Tao andGeoffrey, 2008).

Tourism is an important sector for economic development in a country. People usually travel for many reasons. Sport is one of the important reasons for promoting tourist industry. With the development of the society and improvement of people living standard, sports tourism gradually becomes one of the faster growing industries. People travelling to participate and watch sports event dates back to the ancient Olympic Games (Higham J, 2010). The relationship between sports and tourism in the modern world is symbiotic. Sports tourism economic development was the debatable topic in world last two decades.

Tourism is travelling for predominantly recreational or leisure, business purposes or the provision of services to support this leisure travel. According to the World Tourism Organization, tourists define as people who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for more than twenty-four hours and not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited ”(World Tourism Organization).

Tourism is an important sector of economic development in a country, due to the income generated by the consumption of goods and services by tourists, the taxes levied on businesses in the tourism industry, and the opportunity for employment in the service industries associated with tourism. These service industries include transportation services such as aircraft, cruise ships, and taxis, accommodation, hotels, restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues, and other hospitality industry services such as spas and resorts.

Peoples usually travel for many reasons such as jobs, Business, leisure, Religion Activities, Medicine. Sport is another important reason for tourism. With the development of the society and the improvement of peoples' living standard, sports tourism gradually becomes one of the most important parts of the popular healthy lifestyle and also it is one of the fastest growing market segments in the tourism industry. World tourism arrivals are projected to grow at 4, 3 present per year and reach 1.6 billion by 2020 (Simon Hudson, 2003). One of the faster growing areas contributing to these staggering statistics is sports tourism. During the last two decades, Sports tourism development was the one of the main debatable topic in the world. International Olympic Committee and World Tourism organizations had given attention to develop the sports tourism.

Sports tourism is the Travel undertaken for the purpose of engaging in particular sports events such as Cricket World cup, Olympic Games, SAARC games, Foot ball competitions. According to Canadian Tourism Commission, who travel more than 80km or stay overnight to attend, complete or otherwise be involved in a sporting events its call that Sports tourism (Canadian Tourism Commission). The British Tourism Authority claims that 20% of the tourist trips are for the prime purpose of sports participation, and 50% of the tourist trips include among other purposes sports participation. Increasing media exposure of sports events over the last decades has raised the profile of many sports, and although the television coverage is better than at any time in the past a number of sports fans want to experience live events thereby generating great demand, as fans want to see their sporting idol in the fresh. While big events will attract large numbers of spectators, mass participation events can have a sizeable economic effect. And, in the longer term, creating a tourism package that includes sports among a range of attractions may well deliver more sustained benefits.

Understanding how hotel business interacts with their esteem customers and deliver value services in a unique physical setting is of decisive importance in the hospitality industry (Peterson and Zinkhan, 2011). Hotel business’ use of physical settings devices as a marketing strategy is increasing rapidly in the hospitality domain. As organizations continue to make widespread use of physical instruments to attract customers in the hotel industry, the actual concern service organizations revolves around the idea of successful existence of hotel industry and proffer efficient marketing of its services thus, for any firm to be successful and operate profitably in a dynamic business environment, it must derive strategies that will appeal to customers patronage (Kuti and Harrison, 2012). These strategies must be clearly outlined by the firm. Physical settings plays a critical role in shaping expectations; differentiating service firms; facilitating customer and employee-customer goals and influence the nature of customer experience (Bitnes, 1992). It is therefore important for service firms such as those in the hotel industry to manipulate their physical environment efficiently infusing aesthetic elements such as architecture and design in the overall layout to appeal to customers, enhancing satisfaction and increasing repeat patronage (Amoabi and Caleb, 2009). In a fast and dynamic environment such as ours, with regards to hotel business, people tend to respond to their environment holistically. That is, the totality of their perceptions of stimuli is that which constitutes and determines their responses to a given environment. Although, serenity and solitude way constitute a contributing factor to effective physical setting and influence internal responses and customers behavior, hotels atmospherics, such as humid temperature a good luminous density and lighting, colors, music and sent may lure customers as well as travelers and visitors away from home to spend time in those hotels. These customers who travel away from homes seek evidence of the eventual quality of the intangible service from observing the tangible elements that is the physical setting (Berry and Parasuraman, 1991). Within the hospitality industry, studies pertaining to physical settings have been conducted and there are evidence that physical setting influence the satisfaction of the customer and the employee motivation thereby enhancing productivity (Benard Silas, 2012). The key element of physical setting as created in hotels is in form of tangible organizational resources. Physical setting is viewed as an important phenomenon in shaping not only customer’s physiological, cognitive and emotional states but also their behaviors. A good physical setting of a hotel evokes service experience and long lasting memories in the mind of the customers even after the consumption of such products and services. Physical setting in hotels can therefore be used as a competitive edge over various other strategies adopted to keep the service industry as a going concern. In this article, we study how physical settings influence customer patronage; the purpose of this article is twofold. The first purpose is to develop a model that explains why customers’ patronize a particular hotel service. Second, we want to investigate the efforts of the moderating variable – employee dynamics on the influence of physical setting on patronage of customers. These relationships are examined seeking to add to the limited body of knowledge in the hotel industry in Nigeria. From the above, there is thus an apparent need to examine physical setting and customer patronage of three star hotels in Nigeria’s’ federal capital territory Abuja. There is no doubt, and evidence that extensive research have been undertaken by scholars on physical settings and customer patronage as found in previous studies, but empirical studies which analysis physical setting and customer patronage of three star hotels in Nigeria, is very limited. Therefore to close this gap in the existing body of knowledge, this study focuses at establishing if any relationships exist between physical setting and customer patronage.

1.2 STATEMENT OF THE PROBLEM

Various studies have been carried out by different researchers in the area of impact of sport tourism event on the hotel patronage. These studies have identified and classified economic impact of sport tourism to include: provision of temporary and permanent jobs, increasing cash flow in the community within and sometimes beyond the period of the event, improving standard of living, attracting new investments to host community and encouraging local entrepreneurship. Social benefits of sport tourism event documented in the literatures includes: sense of pride, entertainment, family and community cohesion, self – actualization and provision/improvement in infrastructural facilities. Environmental benefits pointed out in earlier studies include: the provision of incentives for the conservation of natural resources and provision/maintenance of infrastructures such as recreational parks, sporting facilities, car parks, road etc.

However, all these benefits have not come without their costs. From previous studies, negative effects such as forceful relocation of residents to accommodate tourists, crowding, hooliganism, crime, consumption of hard drugs, disruptions of the normal life of the local people, increased rents and tax rate were all identified as negative effects of sport tourism on host communities. A good example is Sydney 2000 Olympics where the cost of living soured immediately it was announced to host the 2000 Olympics. Also, the impact of sport tourism on the environment can be negative as a result of clearing of trees, building ski huts thereby increasing waste and carbon emission, traffic congestion, built-up construction areas, noise pollution, light pollution and overcrowding. However, these previous studies have used mega sport tourism events such as FIFA World Cup and Olympics to examine the impact of sport tourism event on the host community, hence the essence of this study, to ascertain the degree of conformity or otherwise of these previous research findings to what obtains when an event involving a segment of a population of a nation is involved such as the Nigeria University Games (NUGA). It is also significant to study the peculiarities of sport tourism event of this magnitude. A critical study on the findings of most researchers are basically on the effects of sport tourism on host communities, no researcher talked about the impact of sport tourism on hotel patronage. It is on this premise that this study is developed to examine the impact of sport tourism on hotel patronage.

1. AIMS AND OBJECTIVES

The main aim and objective of this research is to examine the impact of sport tourism on hotel patronage. Other objectives of this study include:

1. to determine the relationship between sport tourism and hotel patronage.
2. to examine the economic impact of sport tourism in Nigeria.
3. to identify the challenges of sport tourism and hotel patronage.
4. to determine the extent to which sport tourism has influenced hotel patronage.
5. to proffer solutions to the challenges of sport tourism on hotel patronage.
   1. RESEARCH QUESTIONS

1. What is the relationship between sport tourism and hotel patronage?
2. What is the economic impact of sport tourism in Nigeria?
3. What are the challenges of sport tourism on hotel patronage?
4. To what extent has sport tourism has influenced hotel patronage?
5. What are the possible solutions to the challenges of sport tourism on hotel patronage?
   1. STATEMENT OF RESEARCH HYPOTHESIS

H0: sport sport tourism has no significant impact on hotel patronage.

H1: sport tourism has significant impact on hotel patronage.

1. SIGNIFICANCE OF STUDY

This study will bring to the knowledge of many today that sport tourism is one of the basic world economic activities to achieve much revenue. Comparing to other economic sectors and with creation of new employment opportunities this industry is faced to more quick growth and this is pioneer industry.

Today, tourism is very important factor to country social and economic development and Nigeria will not be an exception which this study will unveil especially its impact to the hospitality industry. Therefore, this is named as non-visible export. Based on most important revenue research categorization of the world, petroleum exploration and exploitation industry is the richest industry. Then, automobile manufacturing and after that, tourist would be defined. Human paid attention to tourism industry from long time ago. Therefore, this industry has important role in world economy. This study will furthermore enlighten hotel management to create an effective room to cultural interaction, nation conversation and creating relation among nations. According to world tourism organization prediction more than 43% of world occupations would be related to tourism industry until 2011 one of the important sectors that could be developed would be sport in tourism industry. This study will enlighten many to invest in the tourist industry.

The study will also attract the attention of the government of the federal republic of Nigeria, to pay a close attention and invest in hotel management so as to attract sport tourism which will be of a great boost to the Nigerian economy. If all facilities are put in place with a secured environment, it will attract nations for sport competition and of course they will lodge in Hotels and money will be paid which is a plus to the host country.

1. SCOPE OF STUDY

The study covers the impact of sport tourism on hotel patronage.

1. LIMITATIONS OF STUDY

1. Financial constraint- Insufficient fund tends to impede the efficiency of the researcher in sourcing for the relevant materials, literature or information and in the process of data collection (internet, questionnaire and interview).

2. Time constraint- The researcher will simultaneously engage in this study with other academic work. This consequently will cut down on the time devoted for the research work.

1. DEFINITION OF TERMS

Impact: the action of one object coming forcibly into contact with another. The noun impact can refer to a physical force (like a collision), an influence (a bad role model or a hero)

Sport tourism: Sports tourism refers to travel which involves either observing or participating in a sporting event while staying apart from the tourists' usual environment.

Hotel: an establishment providing accommodation, meals, and other services for travelers and tourists.

Patronage: Patronage is the support, encouragement, privilege, or financial aid that an organization or individual bestows to another.