The Impacts of Sport Tourism Events: The Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series Case in the Azores Islands

Governments sponsor sports events as a way of developing, promoting, and combating the seasonality of a tourist destination, in order to enhance the image of a tourism destination. This study analyzes the impacts stemming from the realization of sport tourism events, focusing on the case of the world famous and spectacular Red Bull Cliff Diving World Series event in the Azores. The primary objective of this research is to assess the main economic impacts of this event, its importance for regional development, the perceptions of respondents, and the levels of satisfaction with it – both in a global sense and for several dimensions of the event – using a novel primary dataset, with individual survey data. The results support the idea that this event has important economic impacts and suggest that most participants are generally satisfied, although some aspects that could be improved have been identified. Most respondents consider this event to be important for tourism and economic development, and a large proportion consider it important for the social development and cultural development of the region in which it takes place.