The importance of cycling sports in regional tourism – the case of volta a Portugal em bicicleta, Mondim de Basto stage

Sports tourism is an economic and social activity that crosses sport and tourism, in which the economic tourist activity prevails over the sport experience. The main objective of the present work is to evaluate the importance of sport events for the tourism development of a region, in this case the cycling race tour Volta a Portugal, in the municipality of Mondim de Basto stage. For this purpose, information was collected from a sample of 412 respondents, through an online survey. Based on the results obtained, it can be said that the participants consider the event to be important for the tourism development of the region; are globally satisfied with the event and intend to return in future editions. Still, there is a direct and positive relationship between global satisfaction and the intention to participate in an upcoming edition of the event. As for the estimate of the total economic impact, a value of 1.35 M€ of direct impact, and between 3.7 and 4.4 M€ of total impact.