A stadium fills for a weekend tournament, a coastal resort books out solid for diving season, a city park turns into a race-day finish line. Sports and leisure tourism is what happens when destinations, event organisers, and hospitality teams turn moments like these into a coordinated, commercially sound offering rather than a one-off rush of visitors.

This training course, delivered by the Arab British Fellowship Training Academy, builds the practical management skills behind that coordination: designing tourism products around sporting and recreational activities, positioning destinations, planning events, marketing offerings, and managing revenue and resources responsibly. Participants also examine what drives travel decisions, how seasonal demand shifts, and what keeps visitors satisfied, so they can put together tourism services that are well-structured, commercially viable, and able to adapt as visitor preferences change.

Programme Objectives

• Explain the structure, characteristics, and commercial value of sports and leisure tourism.
• Identify visitor needs, market trends, and the factors that shape sports and leisure travel decisions.
• Develop tourism products that combine sports, recreation, hospitality, and destination resources.
• Apply marketing, event management, pricing, and revenue-planning approaches suited to the sector.
• Set performance measures that support visitor satisfaction and efficient operations.

Who Should Attend?

• Tourism managers, supervisors, and destination-service teams working with sports, leisure, or recreation offerings.
• Professionals in tourism agencies, hotels, resorts, and destination organisations, alongside marketing, business development, and hospitality staff in this space.
• Sports event and leisure activity coordinators managing tourism-related events and experiences.

Module 1: Why Sports and Leisure Tourism Matters

• Concepts, characteristics, and key segments of sports and leisure tourism.
• The economic, social, cultural, and commercial contributions the sector makes to destinations.
• Links between destinations, sporting activities, recreation, and visitor demand.

Module 2: Designing Competitive Tourism Products

• Building tourism products around sports and recreational experiences.
• Integrating accommodation, transport, attractions, activities, and visitor services into one offering.
• Positioning and differentiating products in a competitive tourism market.

Module 3: Reading the Market — Visitor Segments and Motivations

• Visitor segments and what motivates them to travel.
• Factors affecting destination choice and participation in leisure activities.
• Seasonal demand, emerging preferences, and shifting visitor behaviour.

Module 4: Managing the Destination

• Assessing destination resources, facilities, accessibility, and service capacity.
• Coordinating public and private stakeholders within the destination.
• Managing visitor flows, destination image, and the overall visitor experience.

Module 5: Marketing and Building Destination Identity

• Positioning destinations and tourism products for target visitors.
• Digital marketing, promotional channels, partnerships, and destination communication.
• Building a consistent destination identity and tourism messaging.

Module 6: Delivering Major Sporting Events

• Planning tourism services linked to sporting events.
• Venue requirements, visitor logistics, accommodation, transport, and support services.
• Managing event-driven demand and service standards during peak periods.

Module 7: Running Leisure and Recreational Experiences

• Managing recreational attractions and leisure tourism activities.
• Developing experiences tailored to different visitor groups.
• Safety, service quality, accessibility, and operational requirements.

Module 8: Revenue, Pricing, and Commercial Management

• Pricing considerations for sports and leisure tourism products.
• Revenue sources, package development, partnerships, and commercial opportunities.
• Managing costs, capacity, demand changes, and overall financial performance.

Module 9: Service Quality and Sustainable Growth

• Understanding visitor expectations across the tourism journey, and maintaining consistent service standards, satisfaction, and feedback handling.
• Managing the environmental, social, and economic aspects of tourism development responsibly.
• Protecting local communities and destination resources while measuring performance to support long-term growth.