A process model of small and medium enterprise sponsorship of regional sport tourism events

Small-scale sport tourism events have been adopted by many regional communities as an economic diversification strategy in response to global pressures such as industrialization and urbanization. In many instances, sponsorship provided by small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) is the financial lifeblood of such events. Few studies to date have paid attention to the processes underpinning sponsorship agreements between SMEs and regional sport tourism events. This paper proposes a conceptual model depicting the processes and interactions in sponsorship agreements between SMEs and regional sport tourism events. The proposed model draws upon existing literature and the outcomes of an exploratory study informed by five case studies. The results indicated that SMEs sponsored regional sport tourism events primarily for community involvement purposes, while leveraging and sponsorship effectiveness evaluation techniques tended to be unsophisticated and inexpensive to execute. It is intended that the proposed conceptual model will serve as a platform for future inquiry into this emerging field of event sponsorship.