It is widely acknowledged that Sports Tourism is a fast-growing industry. South Africa has benefited from this trend by successfully hosting three major world cup events – the 1995 Rugby World Cup, the 2003 Cricket World Cup and the 2010 FIFA World Cup. It has also hosted a number of other major international sports events. In order for South Africa to be positioned within the global market as a top sports tourism destination, there is a critical need for a highly skilled workforce within the sports tourism industry. Therefore, education and training is important for the sport tourism industry, to ensure sporting bodies have the necessary business skills to manage successful events and to benefit from tourism opportunities arising from hosting such events. It was further pointed out that a range of accreditation possibilities needed to be developed to enhance professional development opportunities for employees, trainees and volunteers in the sports tourism industry.

The need was evident to undertake research on a Skills Development Strategy, outlining the needs and priorities of the sports tourism sector. The Strategy should identify the key interventions by government and the private sector, ensuring skills of employees and trainees within the sports tourism industry can continuously improve to maintain high levels of service excellence when hosting major international events in South Africa. It was imperative for a conceptual Skills Development Strategy to be presented at the 2013 SETE conference for adoption.

Based on the research, the team developed a set of guidelines based on what was learnt from best practice case studies that have been used to benchmark South Africa’s existing performance. The team consisted of Cathsseta, Thebe Projects and Exhibitions, Dr Feilicité Fairer-Wessels of the Tourism Management Division and Professor Anneliese Goslin of the Department of Biokinetics, Sport and Leisure Sciences.