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Introduction
Tourism is a multi-trillion dollar industry and a dominant force in the lives of millions of people globally (Kurtzman, 2005, p. 47), accounting for over 230 million jobs and over 10 percent of the gross domestic product worldwide (IES, 2014). Tourism has grown 7 percent per year since 1990, and the number of tourists who traveled abroad grew by 6 percent. In 2020, the international tourism market is forecast to reach about 1.6 billion international arrivals (UNWTO, 2014). Sports tourism also offers a significant potential for revenue generation on a global scale (Klayman, 2012). As a result, tourism has also become a major economic force for several developing and developed countries alike, and has drawn attention of both scholars and managers.
Previous studies relating to tourism concentrated on individual traits (Fennell, 1999), consumer behavior (Khan, 2003; Ryan et al. , 2000), demographics and ecotourism products (Wearing and Neil, 1999), and ecotourists' quality expectations (Khan, 2003), among others; however, recently, scholars have paid attention to the sustainability of tourism - ecotourism - defined as responsible travel that conserves the natural environment and improves the well-being of local people (Ghosh et al. , 2003), and have suggested that governments should regulate the ecotourism industry. Regulating tourism through certification schemes is a strategy for few countries for encouraging the sustainable production of goods and services (Medina, 2005). The certifications are particularly important because some opportunistic tourism operators capitalize on ecotourism's appeal to promote eco or sport activities with little or no true attention to environmental and social responsibility (Boo, 1990; Wight, 1994). Ratten and Babiak (2010) have gone extra mile to define the role of social responsibility, philanthropy and entrepreneurship in the context of sports industry. Corporate social responsibility is integral in the global business environment but it has only recently been discussed in the context of sports tourism (Walters and Chadwick, 2009).
Sports tourism - one of the largest and fastest-growing segments of travel and tourism industry - defined as all forms of active and passive involvement in sporting activity, participated casually or in an organized way for non-commercial or business/commercial reasons that necessitate travel away from home and work locality (Standevan and Deknop, 1999, p. 12) is found to contribute significantly to the economic development...