Why is gymnastics important to the Russian tourism industry?

Aliya Mustafina features on some recent soft publicity for the Sochi Olympics from a Russian social media site

I'm trying to write an abstract for submission to a conference about tourism.  Having studied both tourism and gymnastics for quite some years now, and being well practiced in writing short posts for this blog, one might imagine that this would come easily to me.  Far from it.  I seem to have a mental block about my academic writing at present, and writing to anyone else's prescription and timeframe than my own tends inevitably to send my brain into constipated mode. Never mind that I am tired and out of mental breath after a long term's teaching so far, and need a few free days to go to the gym, unwind and play Candy Crush.  In desperation, I have decided to write a blog post about writing an abstract, to try to get my brain cogs working and hopefully gather together some strands for the abstract.  Talking to you, reader, is far easier than writing a short abstract ever was.

Tourism and its importance to the Russian Federation are, tangentially, very much in the headlines at present.  Considering the huge investment made in facilities for the Winter Olympics, the building of new sports facilities here, there and everywhere for such mega events as the Football World Cup, and the status of St Petersburg as a candidate city for the 2028 Olympics, it is clear that Russia has plans to attract visitors for the purpose of attending sporting events that go beyond the next few weeks .  The construction of new training facilities such as those housed at the VTB Arena also underline the government's determination to ensure that Russia remains in the front line of sports excellence.

Let me say right away, that sports tourism is about more than merely attracting visitors to competitions, and so limiting the consideration of sports tourism to identifying the levels of visitation to these events is to sell sports short.  Definitions of sports tourism embrace a wide range of different features including those related to visitation by spectators, officials and competitors, and those which recognise sport as a primary or secondary motivation to visit a destination.  Different behaviours of sports tourists are described and analysed, from the rounds of visitation associated with regular Football League matches, to the curious spectator attending a one-off event for the sake of the experience.   Sports supporters are recognised for their habits, including collective chanting at football matches and the collection of event related souvenirs. Secondary tourism impacts are examined, from spending patterns to travel intentions and attraction choice. The importance of sports as heritage is also increasingly covered in the literature, identifying its relationship to national character and discussing issues surrounding visitation to sports museums and other kinds of history related experiences.

Russia's approach to developing sports tourism currently appears to be dependent upon the staging of mega events and the construction of associated infrastructure.  Tourism is dependent upon the existence of attractions and destinations, and on the level of awareness and trust that the consumer has in his mind of the destination brand, so building and staging attractions in the form of events, and raising Russia's profile as a destination both make sense. Beneficial mega event legacies stretch far and wide beyond the realms of tourism, into economic uplift, improved infrastructure and social and community benefit, so they have the potential to fulfill many of the wider needs of the Russian community.  Profile, national identity and national morale can also improve.  Mega events can be controversial and naturally there are also discussions of the community and economic costs.  The methods of calculating, or estimating these costs and benefits are very contested and almost always inaccurate.  Taking a significantly longer view than the duration of the event is necessary.

Elite artistic gymnastics is an Olympic sport, and its patterns of visitation are not comparable with those of team sports such as football, rugby and cricket.  The top elite gymnasts who everyone wants to see will compete only irregularly throughout the year (for example Japanese World Champion Kohei Uchimura performed at only one competition last year, the World Championships) with regular long breaks for training and injury recovery.  This makes the opportunities for competition attendance somewhat rare for the gymnastics supporter, but the experience is all the more intense for that.  Gymnastics is a sport where dedicated fans will spend their whole savings on the off chance of visiting training facilities in remote areas of Russia and Romania, where the ability to observe training sessions is considered top notch entertainment and where the internet ('gymternet') is constantly alive with news, chatter and livestreams of remote domestic competitions.  It is a young sport where many of those interested also participate, and a sport where heritage and history is also vital, with a strong internet presence of the 'Golden Years' of the sport, an era when the Soviet Union ruled.  The validity of results are regularly debated, and the very form of the sport itself is contested ground.  Home support exists, but skill and artistry levels are more to the point for the gymnastics fan, as well as a strong personality interest. Especially with so many generous fans around who post routines on Youtube and blog about their experiences, it is not vital to travel to an event to enjoy gymnastics in depth.

Queen Elizabeth enjoys some sports tourism in Moscow

Gymnastics is arguably a form of sporting cultural heritage, and heritage (both tangible and intangible) is the basis of much tourism.  While it carries within it the ideas of playfulness, competition and teamwork that are central to sport, and conforms to a set of rules in the same way as other sports, it is relatively unusual in that performance quality and technique are assessed alongside the outcome related aspects, such as how many somersaults are performed.  The sport is in a constant state of evolution, and this evolution is relative to external trends and influence, including in particular developments in the Code of Points, the system of marking regulated by the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG). 

Russian gymnastics in particular has a rich heritage that is inclusive of its wider influences of dance and music, and the sport as a whole is redolent, to a lesser extent recently, of the values and ethics of sportivnosti and physical culture held by the Soviet Union.  You do not have to be a strong follower of artistic gymnastics to associate the performances of elite artistic gymnastics with Soviet Russia, although recent developments in the sport, including changes to the Code of Points, have been to the detriment of the cultural heritage that underpins the traditional classical style of Russian gymnastics.  It has been seen recently (in the Sochi Olympics opening ceremony, for example) how Russia values its Communist past with a sense of nostalgia and humour and gymnastics could have the potential to add a further dimension to Russia's destination brand. 

As a vibrant, high profile, accessible form of cultural heritage, artistic gymnastics might be considered to provide a vehicle to promote unique characteristics of Russia's national identity to the wider world.  However, the question is, as the sport drifts away from the lyrical style of Soviet Russia and its classical past, and as competition results fade due to a lack of investment and hence participation in the sport during the Yeltsin years, can Russia find a way of leveraging gymnastics as cultural heritage, and as an autonomous means of sports tourism image building, or as motivation to visit its country?  What product development potential exists?