Sports Tourism and 'Harvesting the Afterglow' of the Olympics

You don’t hear about Central Florida very often, and when you do, chances are it has something to do with Walt Disney World. But just over an hour north of the famed resort complex is the mid-sized city of Ocala, a destination bursting with superlatives, including “America’s largest spring” and “horse capital of the world.”

Paris est une fête! Especially during the Olympics. The French title of Hemingway’s legendary memoir A Moveable Feast is an apt encapsulation of what can only be called a dramatic vibe shift in the French capital in the last few weeks. Indeed, Paris is a party. The opening ceremony elated even the most hardened of local skeptics of the Olympic Games—locally: les Jeux Olympiques, the JO. Since then, the city has been suspended in a Disney-esque euphoria; the JO is now a multi-week carnival of good cheer.

The Turkish Minister of Culture and Tourism, Mehment Nuri Ersoy, has announced the tourism figures for the first half of 2024. Nearly 1.8 million UK tourists visited Türkiye in the first six months of 2024, marking an impressive 19% increase from the first six months of 2023.

An anti-cruise rebellion is afoot in popular tourism destinations in Greece.

This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Charissa Enget, a content creator and cybersecurity architect who gained her graduate degree in Thailand. It has been edited for length and clarity.

UN Tourism and TUI Care Foundation have solidified their ongoing partnership by signing an agreement at the UN Tourism headquarters in Madrid. The agreement focuses on empowering artists and artisans, particularly women and youth, in rural tourism destinations in Africa. With this new agreement, TUI Care Foundation becomes the first partner to support the pilot phase of the Tourism for Rural Development Small Grants Programme by UN Tourism.

France knocked out world and pan-American football champions Argentina after winning 1-0 in Bordeaux on Friday, in a heated game that ended with a massive brawl that followed more than ten minutes of stoppage time.

The 2024 Olympic opening ceremony was different compared to years past. At the Paris Olympics, viewers watched as athletes sailed down the Seine in a fleet of boats, while the streets were filled with performers.

Major sports events attract not only fans but also tourists interested in experiencing the atmosphere and culture of the host city. For example, the Olympic Games or the UEFA Champions League offer the perfect occasion for tourists to explore the host cities while enjoying the sporting excitement. Civitatis, the leading curated online marketplace for guided tours and activities for Spanish and Portuguese-speaking consumers, recommends that tour and activity companies make the most of this growing segment and suggests a few strategies to leverage the rise of sports tourism:

Good morning from Skift. It’s Tuesday, July 30, and here’s what you need to know about the business of travel today. 

It can be an expensive and potentially damaging undertaking for a country to host the Olympics. This year's games in Paris are costing just $10 billion, according to CNBC. While that's nothing to scoff at, it's a mere fraction of the $55 billion Brazil reportedly spent in 2016.

In Tuscany, the Val d’Orcia, with its rolling fields and untouched landscape beneath the dormant volcano of Monte Amiata, seems created for photo ops. Within it, the town of Pienza is one of the finest examples of Renaissance architecture, designed by the famed Bernardo Gambarelli, better known as Bernardo Rossellino, in white travertine marble and surrounded by palazzi which he also built.