Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
S. Tarmudi, I.S. Bahar, M.F.S. Bakhtiar, S.A. Jamal, N. Othman & I.R. Razak
Faculty of Hotel and Tourism Management, Universiti Teknologi MARA, Shah Alam, Malaysia
ABSTRACT: The involvement of corporate bodies in sponsoring sports events in Malaysia plays an
important part in the success of sports events in attracting a large number of audiences and achieving
their event objectives. This paper aims to determine the objectives of corporate sponsorship, the most
important classification of corporate sponsorship as well as clarification about the relationship between
corporate sponsorship objectives and intention to sponsor. Using self-administered questionnaire adapted
from previous studies, several sports events in Malaysia sponsored by several corporate bodies in Kuala
Lumpur will be selected as samples to accomplish the objectives of this study. This study will contribute to
respective parties since there are very limited studies on corporate sponsorship and its intention to spon-
sor sports events in Malaysia particularly. Apart from that, corporate bodies sponsorship contribution in
any level of sports events in Malaysia will help to increase the country's economic growth through tourism
industry as well as to promote Malaysia as a tourist destination and to boost international audience.
Keywords
:
Corporate sponsorships, intention to sponsor, sports events, Malaysia
1 INTRODUCTION
In conjunction with Visit Malaysia 2014, the
Ministry of Tourism and Culture has geared up
high—impact programs to increase Malaysia's eco-
nomic growth through tourism industry. Hosting
international and major events is one of the strate-
gies to promote Malaysia as a tourist destination
in order to boost international audience such as
the Malaysian Grand Prix series, various existing
homegrown events were repackaged and clustered.
Tourist expenditure of 916 million was received
from 19 events in 2012. To ensure the successful of
Visit Malaysia Year 2014, each and every Malay-
sian plays an important role which includes the
role played by corporate bodies or private sectors.
Sport sponsorship is an exchange relationship
involving sport organizers, corporations and oth-
ers that play in between which is a basic form of
sponsorship. These interdependent relationships
are predicated on the understanding that all parties
involved will benefit from the exercise with mini-
mum risk According Thwaites (1995) it includes
sponsoring major sporting events which have an
advantage of being attended and watched by large
amount of people that makes it easier to commu-
nicate with the target group in the market as well as
use the opportunity of significant media coverage.
A number of corporations in Malaysia have
been involved in sports sponsorship for quite a long
time. They are Government Linked Companies
(GLCs) such as Khazanah Nasional, Government
Malaysia's tourism industry is the second largest
foreign exchange earner after manufactured goods.
It is also the seventh largest contributor to the
Malaysian economy. The total of tourist arrival to
Malaysia for the first half of 2013 was 12, 552,731;
an increase of 7.9 percent from year 2012 with a
total RM60.6 billion receipt (Tourism Malaysia,
2013) Major Events has contributed RM0.4 billion
incremental Gross National Income (GNI) provid-
ing 8,000 jobs in sports, arts, cultural and lifestyle
events, homegrown and home-hosted events.
In Malaysia, the importance of sports devel-
opment and sports event tourism were empha-
sized during Budget 2013. As such, an allocation
RM738 million was provided for youth and sports
development. RM239 million were allocated for
sports development in Budget 2014 while RM150
million to the Sports Trust Fund for the develop-
ment of elite sports, medical treatment and dedi-
cated government agency with the purpose of
managing various events including sports events
to generate Malaysia's tourism revenue especially
in international events under Malaysia Convention
and Exhibition Bureau (MyCEB). MyCEB is an
agency under Malaysia's Ministry of Tourism and
Culture. Major sports events in Malaysia include
Formula Grand Prix, Le Tour de Langkawi and
MotoGP to name a few.
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