The Irish Open Golf Championship: A Dual Impact Perspective

According to Gelan (2003, 406) ‘Major sporting events have become one of the fastest-growing segments of the tourism industry’. Most significant is the sport of golf, which provides a source of revenue that many tourist destinations have found difficult to resist (Readman, 2003; Palmer, 2004). Golf tourism has been valued at some ‘US$20 billion with over 50 million golf tourists travelling the world to play on some of the estimated 32,000 courses’ (Hudson & Hudson, 2010, 3). With Northern Ireland hosting the Irish Open Golf Championship in 2012 and the current high profile of the country's top golfers on the world stage the time is right to capitalise on golf tourism potential, especially for the retail sector. A review of the literature focusing on golf tourism and retail tourism is first presented here. Thereafter, the paper provides background to the research setting i.e. tourist events and retail offerings in the North Coast region of Northern Ireland. In order to guide future empirical research in this area, a number of research objectives are posed. In the closing section, the paper makes some final recommendations for academics and practitioners alike.