Socio-economic value co-creation and sports tourism: evidence from Tasmania

Tasmania, the island state of Australia has been steadily escalating its appeal as a tourist destination. The state government’s ‘sports-tourism’ partnership with the Hawthorn Football Club plays a key role to promote the tourism industry, and to contribute to various socio-economic issues of Tasmania. This case study attempts to analyse the relationships and interactions of these two partners, as they both work interdependently towards their multifarious goals. The findings descriptively portray the influence of relationship marketing (RM) on the mutually beneficial relationship value of Tasmania and Hawthorn, where RM steers their initial mutual value alongside their interdependence and multifarious socio-economic goals, towards a win-win outcome and further socio-economic value co-creation for all associated stakeholders. The findings contribute to the contemporary understanding of interrelations and interdependence among the stakeholders from sports-tourism, destination marketing and socio-economic development perspectives and suggest its research and practical significance.