The increase in event sport tourism demand. economical repercussions. the case of Portugal

Sports events assume a major importance in tourism, mainly because of the numerous disciplines that can be practiced. According to Getz (2008) “sports event tourism became firmly established in the 1990s and has been expanding explosively, establishing targets”. It becomes important as well to study the types of involvement tourists may have in this process.

Portugal is a country holding excellent natural conditions for Tourism and for the practice of a considerable number of different sporting activities, many of them possible to be held all year round.

With this study it is intended to define a framework model which will allow the understanding of the main touristic motivations for tourists participation in sports events activities.

Considering Gammon & Robinson’s (1997) classification, tourists motivations may be divided into “hard” and “soft”, depending on whether they are competitive or recreational sports (within the sport tourism in general), thus contributing to describe motivations and experiences of sports tourists.

Taking into account the different kind of classification areas for motivations, Weed & Bull (2004) propose that they may be distributed as follows: activity, people and place.

In terms of methodology, a mixed approach will be used by collecting in-depth interviews of responsible managers of sport event companies in different areas, Land, Sea and Air (Urban events, Harfung Spirit, Federação Portuguesa de Voo Livre). A questionnaire will then be applied to participant tourists in terms of all the following sports events: Urban Trail – Lisboa (4^th edition), Regata à Vela - subida e descida Rio Guadiana (Up and Down the Guadiana River Sail Regatta) – Vila Real de Santo António (30^th edition) and Festival Nacional de Parapente (National Parasailing Festival) – Linhares da Beira (11^th edition).

The sample selection methods were of convenience, since surveys are made through a questionnaire sent via e-mail by companies which organize these events. The object of this analysis results from a work carried out in the year 2015, with a total of 8300 participants. The results will then be statistically treated through the SPSS software program.