Sports tourism participation at the World Gymnaestrada

: an expression and experience of community and identity

Abstract

This PhD thesis is concerned with sports tourism as a way of experiencing a sense of self, belonging and location in the social world. It is about how identity is developed, expressed and experienced when gymnasts interact within their specific sports community while travelling to take part in a non-competitive, international group gymnastics event. In particular, the research aim is to identify and make sense of the meaning participants attach to their involvement in sports event tourism in the context of the 2011 World Gymnaestrada in Lausanne/Switzerland, the purely non-competitive, official world event of the International Gymnastics Federation (FIG).

Date of Award	Aug 2014
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Brighton
Supervisor	Udo Merkel (Supervisor) & Nigel Jarvis (Supervisor)