Why sport is paving roads gold
THE Gold Coast sports industry is raking in $500 million a year for the economy, almost double what it was five years ago.
And it is forecast to explode further on the back of major coups such as the signing yesterday of Spanish golfing champion Sergio Garcia at this year’s Australian PGA at Royal Pines and Athletics Australia’s decision to hold its Commonwealth Games trials at Carrara next February.
New figures reveal sport is a growth market on the Gold Coast, worth $494 million annually.
According to the Gold Coast Sports Plan report, released last month, it will be $675 million by 2023. Five years ago it was $277 million.
City and tourism leaders say sport has the potential to become a major pillar of the city’s economy, led by tourism ($5.1 billion), development ($13 billion), surfing ($4 billion) and education ($1.4 billion).
City economic development boss Cr Hermann Vorster said the Gold Coast would continue to market itself as a place for elite athletes to train and compete.
“Our research shows when athletes and their entourages come here they stay longer and spend more and this is precisely the type of visitor we want more of here,” he said.
“What we are starting to see is the Gold Coast becoming a destination of choice and clearly the growth is accelerating.
“Best of all this gives us the opportunity to take ratepayer investment in the Commonwealth Games infrastructure and watch it pay off real dividends for decades to come.”
The Gold Coast Sports Plan report revealed sport is also becoming a major employment industry, growing from 7240 in 2013 to 11,189 this financial year.
By 2023, sport and recreation jobs will have doubled in a decade to 14,479.
Gold Coast-based Trade and Tourism Minister Steven Ciobo said the vast growth in the sporting industry on the Coast was largely due to investment in infrastructure by all levels of government.
Mr Ciobo said the industry was increasingly important for sporting tourism.
“The Gold Coast has always been a very attractive destination for sporting teams,” he said.
“We now genuinely are continuing to see world-class development of sporting infrastructure.”
One of the major growth areas is high-performance training camps which, along with second and third-tier sports and exhibition games, are worth around $26 million annually.
The Gold Coast’s sporting facilities will stay busy in the lead-up to April’s Commonwealth Games, with the Australia Volleyball Championships, Tennis Australia’s Seniors Championships and Futsal Craig Foster International Cup already locked in.
Major national sporting associations such as Triathlon Australia have also relocated to the Gold Coast. They will be joined in May 2018 by Squash Australia.
Gold Coast Mayor Tom Tate said the growth of the sports industry would be one of the biggest legacies of the Games through visiting teams and research.
“Sports science research is also a boom industry and our health and knowledge precinct is about to be boosted with world-best high-speed fibre optic cabling,” he said.
“This will give scientists the ability to undertake live research, host international conferences over the web and conduct trials and report back findings to researchers around the globe.”