More Sports Cities Needed

Sport tourism has become the most relevant segment in the tourism industry in the US, Australia, large parts of Europe, the UAE, Qatar, Japan, China and South Korea.

The US recorded a $103.3 billion business chunk in sports tourism events in 2019 with event organizers, sports bodies and venues spending $45.1 billion to host events. A staggering 180 million visitors crisscrossed the country to participate, officiate or witness the various sports that year before the COVID19 pandemic devastated its growth in 2020. No my dear, turning election results or scaling the newly built Mexican wall cannot be considered a sports event.

2019 was also a super bumper year for Philippine sports and tourism. We registered a record breaking 8.2 million visitors and our athletes did us proud by being crowned the SEA Games overall champions. Nearly 11,000 athletes and officials participated in the 2-week ASEAN event held in Manila, Clark, Subic, New Clark City and other southern Luzon clusters.

Assuming each participant conservatively spent P4,000 a day for accommodation and meals for 14 days, a staggering P616 million would have flowed into the local economy not taking into account transportation costs, souvenir buying and sightseeing. The social and cultural impact can only be proven to be on a positive note. Pardon the pun as social distancing and cultural activities were never discouraged then. Takes a lot of guts to say “stay positive” nowadays.

Amidst all this, the vision of a Clark Sports Hub was hatched during the 4th Philippine Sports Tourism Awards in Clark in December 2020. The complimentary streak should work as Subic is ideal for watersports; Clark for all the proven SEA Games sports they hosted and New Clark City for track and field and swimming events including water polo and underwater hockey.

For a country of our size, the Philippines should have more than one sports hub. Iloilo and Region 6 should seriously look at building new and improving present sports facilities. The glory days of football in the Philippines evolved in the vicinity of Barotoc Nuevo and the Panay region and yet there is no playing field of strict classified FIFA standards we can be proud of, except crossing the straits and laying claim on Panaad.

It is common fact that lack of proper facilities for training and competition have led to the deterioration of standards and interest of any sport, sadly especially from the grassroot levels.

However, it is interesting to note that the Iloilo River Esplanade can be turned into a top class sports venue for dragon boat races, rowing competition (ala Cambridge versus Oxford), beach volleyball, frisbee and other regattas with proper organization and investments to accommodate thousands of spectators.

Guimaras Island holds the key to successful triathlons. For starters it has a huge cycling community. With further encouragement we would like to see them take to water and running and we might see the first edition of the Ironman 70.3 or Xterra being held there.

Local government units through its sports commission should work closely with the private sectors to improve on sports facilities. There are various concepts to make this happen – long or short term sponsorship; naming rights of venues and events; sports development programs, branding, etc.

It will be foolhardy too to construct iconic indoor stadiums in a city to cater to just popular basketball and volleyball. The socio, cultural and economic benefits of sports tourism events must be felt in the streets. Sports, unfortunately, is not a priority for most local governments.  Calling: SM, Smart PLDT, Megaworld, Aboitiz, Allianz, Gokongweis, Ayalas, Double Dragon and Injap, etc. We need you.