ABSTRACT
The earliest documented example of sports tourism is that of the Olympic Games which date from 776 BC. However, the pan-Hellenic games at Olympia were but the most prestigious of more than a hundred such festivals (Finley and Pleket, 1976). Athletic games were an essential part of Greek life and every self-respecting city had its own stadium (Davies, 1997). However, the touring element was an important part of the sport. The participants were professional sportsmen and toured in order to win prizes; as Davies (1997: 127) points out ‘athletes were not amateurs, being accustomed to arduous training and expecting handsome rewards’. In addition, thousands of spectators travelled to support their athletes and the prestige of their city, possibly in similar fashion to modern-day football supporters travelling to support their team. The games at Olympia may have attracted as many as 40 000 people from all parts of Greece (Van Dalen and Bennett, 1971) and ‘there was probably no other occasion in the ancient world when as many people were on the road (or on the sea) for the same destination at the same time’ (Finley and Pleket, 1976: 53). Unlike provision for modern-day tourists, there was little accommodation and visitors slept in tents or in the open air, although a hostel was established at Olympia in the fourth century 4(Baker, 1982, quoted in Standeven and De Knop, 1999). The tourism aspect of the games was further emphasized by its wider political aims. It is often advocated that both sport and tourism may help to bring different peoples and cultures closer together, and a key aim of the ancient games was to bring ‘a strong sense of cultural unity to a politically divided country’ (Davies, 1997: 127).
