IU Health & Wellness
Research and insights from Indiana University
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 23, 2010
IU Health and Wellness for June discusses the following topics:
Sports tourism: When a trip's got game
Burns: a Fourth of July spoiler
Meaningful summer leisure time for kids
The trip's got game. Sports tourism continues to be a growing market despite the economic recession. "The sports tourism niche market is expected to grow annually at around 6 percent during the next five years," said Sotiris Hji-Avgoustis, professor and chair of the Department of Tourism, Conventions, & Event Management at Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis. The term 'sports tourism' may be relatively new, but the concept is not. "The beginning of sports tourism traces back to the first Olympics when they competed in Greece," Hji-Avgoustis said. One definition of sports tourism is a specific event that brings large masses of people to a certain location. For example, international events such as the World Cup in South Africa, national events such as the Super Bowl and small-scale events such as regular season sporting competitions. Another sector of sports tourism is an organization tailored specifically to a certain physical activity. For instance, Hji-Avgoustis along with two other faculty members and four students from IUPUI are working on a class project focused on promoting the High Altitude Training Center in Eldoret, Kenya, as a sports tourist destination geared toward people interested in long-distance running, biking and physical training. The group will be in Eldoret for 22 days in July to get the project under way. "Eldoret will be promoted as a place where top Kenyan long-distance runners were born and those professional runners are using the same track at the HATC that the tourists are exercising on," Hji-Avgoustis said. The HATC has a head start on this goal -- it was founded in 1999 by Lorna Kiplagat, a four-time World Champion runner. "Our goal is to promote HATC as a destination for people interested in either participating themselves in long distance running or watching elite athletes in training," Hji-Avgoustis said. IUPUI got involved in this project so that Eldoret can gain a reputation as the long-distance running capital of the world just as Indianapolis has become known as the amateur sports capital of the world, Hji-Avgoustis said. With so many ways for people to participate in sports tourism, athletic enthusiasts are not going to stop dishing out their cash anytime soon. "This is not unexpected since specific segments to tourism are very resilient since they offer psychological and emotional benefits to the visitors that are more valuable than the traditional benefits of mass tourism," Hji-Avgoustis said.
Planning a trip? Hji-Avgoustis offers these suggestions:
- Work with a reputable travel agency that specializes in your area of interest.
- Talk to past customers.
- Look up the business's reputation and check its accreditation(s).
- Do your own research. "I always encourage people to research the destination on their own rather than relying only on a travel agent," Hji-Avgoustis said.
More about sports tourism:
- Potential local economic benefits. Hji-Avgoustis wants the success of HATC to help the whole community. "We are focused on the long term and we want to empower local farmers and generate money for them," Hji-Avgoustis said. "We want local farmers to sell their merchandise to local businesses." Faculty and students from Eldoret's university, Moi, are also overseeing the project. "We need to get locals invested in this," Hji-Avgoustis said. "There is no doing this long-distance."
- Events such as the World Cup takes a lot of investment from a country's government. Infrastructure is a key element to holding an international sporting event and Hji-Avgoustis said it takes several years to get everything settled. According to www.SouthAfrica.info, roughly $5.3 billion was spent to ensure that the public transport infrastructure could handle the World Cup traffic safely and efficiently.
- Team effort. Hji-Avgoustis also said that "all players" must be ready for the event including taxi companies, restaurants and government officials so that everyone can work collectively as a team. At the national and international level, the low cost of flying helps increase traffic to sports tourism events. "Low-cost regional airlines and more affordable long haul flights are also driving demand for sporting events as flights become more convenient, more regular and, of course, more affordable," Hji-Avgoustis said.
- Cultural enlightenment. Another benefit of international sporting events is that the public learns more about other countries' cultures and traditions, Hji-Avgoustis said.
Although the government spends a lot of money to host international sports events, it also gains a profit because of the large amount of tourism their country receives. "More and more, the government is using tourism as a means to improve their economy," Hji-Avgoustis said.
Hji-Avgoustis can be reached at 317-278-1647 and savgoust@iupui.edu. Top
Burns: a Fourth of July spoiler. For many, the Fourth of July holiday wouldn't be the same without fireworks. Still, nearly 10,000 firework-related injuries are treated each year in U.S. hospital emergency departments, according to the Consumer Product Safety Commission. Statistics also show that most firework-related injuries are burns. These burns often result from improper use of sparklers and other legal and illegal fireworks, and they usually involve the hands, face, eyes, arms and legs. "Burn prevention is an integral part of the education services our burn center provides for the community. Almost 30 to 40 percent of the burns we see are preventable with the appropriate education," said Dr. Rajiv Sood, medical director of the Richard M. Fairbanks Burn Center at Wishard and associate professor of plastic surgery at the Indiana University School of Medicine. "Injuries caused by fireworks are the most preventable kinds of burns." Bottle rockets can fly into peoples' faces and cause eye injuries; sparklers can ignite clothing; and firecrackers can injure the hands or face if they explode at close range. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, novelty fireworks such as sparklers burn at around 1,800 degrees Fahrenheit, which can result in significant burns, according to physicians at the Richard M. Fairbanks Burn Center.
Doctors at the Richard M. Fairbanks Burn Center at Wishard recommend that people leave fireworks to the professionals, but if they choose to use fireworks at their homes, precautions should be taken:
- Never re-light a "dud" firework (wait 15 to 20 minutes and then soak it in a bucket of water)
- Never build or experiment with homemade fireworks
- Make sure only adults handle fireworks
- Give children glow-in-the-dark wands and noise makers instead of sparklers
- Read and follow all instructions
- Always have water on hand
- Never take fireworks apart or modify them in anyway
- Check with local police and fire departments to determine which fireworks can legally be discharged in your area
Burns and injuries should be addressed immediated. If clothing catches on fire, the best way to put out the fire is to "stop, drop and roll," Sood said. Once the fire is extinguished, the clothes from the area of the burn should be removed, and any burned skin should be cooled for 5 to 10 minutes with lukewarm water (not cold water or ice). He said the burned area should then be wrapped in a clean, dry dressing or warm blanket. Serious burns will be washed at the hospital if anything was applied to them so avoid using medications initially. As with any medical emergency, call 911 immediately. The Richard M. Fairbanks Burn Center at Wishard treats more than 350 inpatients and 1,500 outpatients each year. Since 1993, the burn center has seen an increase of approximately 15 percent per year in the number of patients treated. For more information about firework safety, please call the Richard M. Fairbanks Burn Center at Wishard's burn prevention hotline at 1-866-339-BURN.
Requests for interviews with physicians at the Richard M. Fairbanks Burn Center at Wishard may be made by contacting Todd Harper at 317-630-7808 or todd.harper@wishard.edu. Top
Summer fun without breaking the bank. When the final school bell rings, some children gear up for expensive summer camps and rush home to enjoy the long hot days of summer filled with friends, fun and freedom; but is it possible for the summer time to be fun, fruitful -- and frugal? "Summer is the time for exploration, to recover from the rigor of school and its demands," said David Compton, chair of the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Studies in Indiana University's School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation. "It is an opportunity for children to explore options they may be curious about." According to Compton, summer is the ideal time for them to "fill that time with things that will begin a long journey of discovery, capacity building (whether it be physical, emotional, spiritual or intellectual) and to find out 'what makes their belt buckles rattle.'" It can be challenging to raise a child and navigate all the summer options, especially if you don't have the means to purchase them, Compton said. However, monetary obstacles can be overcome when it comes to children's summer leisure time, whether it is through reading books, writing stories, playing in the park, collecting special items, creating a photo collage or even having a family night where you play board games and spend time with each other. "Most of these things can be done within any home, in any community, culture and any type of family," he said, reminding readers of the popular saying, "a family that plays together, stays together."
Compton provides the following tips to help parents enhance their children's summer leisure time:
- Allow kids to help plan outings. Family outing planning should be a participatory process with parents as well as with kids. Allowing kids to help with the planning gives them a greater opportunity for choice making. It also helps kids to understand that not everything in life is serendipitous, or just happens; rather memorable events and activities are thought out and planned. Becoming an active participant in designing their free time will lead to a greater sense of ownership of the experiences they choose. The point is to have children intrinsically motivated versus yielding to the wishes of others, Compton said.
- Prep kids about responsibility for discretionary time. It is important for kids to understand that there are requirements in regards to enjoying discretionary time, like saving money, taking care of business before you can have the engagement or experience, completing household chores before rewards can be given, all of which instill a sense of duty and responsibility in the child.
- Compare consequential and non-consequential options in discretionary time. Parents and children should examine their options. These are typically either consequential or non-consequential. Consequential activities involve a "win/lose" scenario. They often require acts such as being selected for the "team" or not selected. Most competitive sports are an excellent example. Non-consequential activities are more prone to be judgment free. Examples are going to historical or cultural sites, camping with parents, or going to the movies with friends. According to Compton, "the greatest challenge parents have is the balance between consequential and non-consequential activities." Activities should be engaged in to afford the child a balance of experiences that will shape their character and worldly views.
Compton said "the measure of a person may not be defined by their work, but what they do during their discretionary time." The very best thing parents can do is help their children become physically, socially and cognitively active -- the sedentary lifestyle is a clear pathway to obesity, boredom and many other challenges. "What we do with our free time matters," he said. "It is critical that we begin early in childhood to create patterns during free or discretionary time that yield positive outcomes."
To speak with Compton, contact Tracy James at 812-855-0084 and traljame@indiana.edu. Top
For additional assistance with these tips, contact Tracy James at 812-855-0084 or traljame@indiana.edu. For more health news from IU, visit http://newsinfo.iu.edu/cat/page/normal/120.html.
