The Impact of Sports Tourism on Territorial Development: The Case of Morocco

Abstract

This article examines the perceived contribution of sports tourism to territorial development in Morocco. It addresses a specific empirical gap: the limited number of quantitative studies dealing with sports tourism and territorial development in the Moroccan context, despite the country’s growing tourism and sport-related dynamics.

The study adopts an exploratory quantitative approach based on a questionnaire administered to 180 respondents from several categories of stakeholders. The analysis combines descriptive statistics, the KMO index, Bartlett’s test, Cronbach’s alpha, one-sample t-tests, Pearson correlations and multiple regression. The one-sample t-tests show perceptions significantly above the neutral point for overall territorial development (M = 4.094; t = 36.312; p < .001), territorial attractiveness (M = 4.108; t = 33.443; p < .001), local economic development (M = 3.997; t = 29.038; p < .001) and infrastructure/planning (M = 3.871; t = 28.393; p < .001).

The correlations with overall territorial development are positive but weak. The multiple regression model is significant (R² = .095; F = 6.190; p = .0005), while only infrastructure and territorial planning remain a significant predictor (B = .238; p = .0016). Given the low Cronbach’s alpha coefficients, the findings should be interpreted as exploratory perceptual trends rather than definitive causal evidence.

Classification JEL : Z32, R11, L83.

Paper type : Empirical Research