E-sports as a niche tourist attraction : an international exploratory study

Abstract

This study serves as an international exploratory research on how the e-sports industry functions and the similarities it shares with the tourism industry whilst promoting the inclusion of e-sports events as a niche tourist attraction. The study gives an introduction to e-sports explaining what the term e-sports is, and the reasons why people (especially teenagers) are interested in such events, exploring the reasons for this unwavering interest with the use of past psychological and sociological studies. The study also includes a research study on the current popularity of e-sports events, providing an overview of how these events are organised whilst studying the sustainability of these events. Research was carried out through the use of interviews and questionnaires. From the interviews and the questionnaires certain findings were noted which are very crucial to the development of an e-sports niche attraction, suggesting that there is an increase of interest in the e-sports events, and it is likely that these events will continue to enjoy a rise in their number of visitors. The research results outline the large interest that the interviewed people have shown towards visiting other attractions in the country hosting an e-sports event. The results also show the number of nights that the visitors would be willing to spend at the hosting country and the visitor’s planned budget. The results from the research suggests that the concept of having e-sports as a niche tourism attraction is indeed viable, and with the large number of interest already shown in this sector it can become a very profitable sector for tourism industries. Finally the study is concluded by outlining the most important factors of e-sports events and gives suggestions towards future research.