Exploring strategic multi-leveraging of sport tourism events: An action-research study

Strategic planning of sport events should promote the maximisation of local communities' benefits. Among other dimensions of interest to the host destination's stakeholders, given the aim of sustainable development, sport events leveraging must integrate economic, social and environmental perspectives, justifying its multidimensional extensiveness. The general objective of this study was to stimulate and understand the process of planning and implementing strategic multi-leverage of international open water swimming events hosted in Portugal, in 2022, addressing the economic, social, environmental, partners and sport dimensions.

This study employed a case study approach within an action-research methodology. The research design covered three action-research stages: planning, implementation and analysis. The data collection combined nominal group sessions, field observation, document analysis and interviews. The qualitative analysis used the triangulation of the data collected, and the content analysis was performed using the NVivo software.

Actions were strategically planned targeting economic, social, environmental, partners, and sport dimensions, albeit with a prominent focus on economic and sport leverage. Excluding sport, the implementation of strategic actions ensured all dimensions' operationalisation. Six constraints (e.g. little adherence from local partners) and three drivers (e.g. commitment and authority of the leverage coordinating team) conditioned the strategic leverage implementation. The strategic planning of future sport events should outline actions that intensify the destination’s image, focusing the attention of stakeholders on valuing the natural attributes. This study strengthened knowledge about the multi-leverage approach applied to two sport events, reinforcing the need to implement cross-leveraging among the aforementioned dimensions to enhance the success of strategic leverage.