The Relationship between Sports Clubs and Regional Development: Destination Management in Barcelos (Portugal)

Sport has a great and indisputable link with the tourism sector, which helps to boost local, regional, and national development. That said, sports tourism has been gaining an increasingly important place in the tourist offer. This is due to the fact that sport has a great capacity to attract tourists, either to practice it or even to attend sporting events as spectators. Since sports tourism can be considered a driving force behind the development of regional tourism, there may be a need for municipalities and local sports associations to work together. The aims of this project are to understand the importance of sports organizations for local tourism, with the main focus on the Gil Vicente FC and Óquei Clube de Barcelos clubs. Data were collected by interviewing the director of the Culture, Tourism, Youth and Sports department of Barcelos Municipality, with the aim of studying the municipality’s relationship with the main local sports entities. The results will make it possible to identify what joint work is being carried out between the aforementioned entities, as well as the importance of the two clubs for sports tourism in Barcelos. From an interdisciplinary perspective, this study seeks to present some preliminary insights into sports tourism and its contribution to territorial development in the context of Barcelos.