19 Jun 2018
ST76 was interviewed by "Marketing Week" in Greece
· Commercial / People ·
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Effie Zikouli and Maria Spararaki, co-founders of Sports Traveler 76, talked about the World Taekwondo Beach Championships, which premiered in Rhodes and was broadcast internationally by EBU's television network to Isabella Zampetaki, from the prestigious Marketing Week, the weekly magazine edition of Boussias Communications.
THE INTERVIEW
What are the main conclusions of the organization of the World Taekwondo Beach Championship in Rhodes during the month of April?
The Taekwondo Beach World Championship is an event that made its international debut last year in Greece. The World Taekwondo federation wanted to create a more extroverted version of the sport that would escape the limitations of its competition part and have a more freestyle, urban and festive form. With 20 years of experience in the Operations & Media Broadcasting field, we proposed to organize the Beach Taekwondo in Greece.
Our country has the ideal climate to host outdoor sports events - especially in autumn and spring. We therefore selected an excellent location, the Nautical Club of Rhodes, which is at the entrance of the old harbor, with an impressive view of the old town and the beach. Infrastructure was, of course, abandoned and we had to take to the task to improve them. In order to make use of the space and create a setting suitable for both sport and television broadcasting, we needed, inter alia, to turn the pool of the Club into a taekwondo court. For the Taekwondo Beach World Championship we fully committed ourselves to design and implementation, constantly supported by the European Federation. Out of a total of 209 member countries of WT, our first two events have already attracted 50, totaling 900 athletes.
What is your overall planning and what is the emphasis placed on the organization's communication level?
We attended to all organizational needs, from infrastructure, accommodation, board, training and medical treatment of the athletes to the hat and sunscreen given as gifts to the participants. We hired and trained staff. At the same time, we took the opportunity to test the www.sportstraveler76.com platform, which has been created to meet the wide range of needs of those who want to participate in a sports event, as well as the organizers themselves. Those belonging to the first category can single handedly register and organize their participation, trip and make the most of what is offered, while organizers benefit form saving staff and costs by taking advantage of important application provided automatically to them. We basically held our test event on a global organization and passed with flying colors. At the communication level, the most important for a new sport that breaks ground is its television broadcast. Last year's event was relayed by the Olympic Channel, the official Internet channel of the International Olympic Committee. This year, we broadcast live through EBU with sports commentary directly from the facility. In addition to this, we also created a television product specifically for the Greek audience with an eight-camera production, a technical staff of 30 people, an OB van, and Laura Narjes with Stephanos Avramidis presenting. For the broadcast, we chose SKAI and the first screening, which took place on the evening of May 13, had an average audience rating of 21%. At a technical level, and in cooperation with LG Europe, we tested a new image-making technology, HDR-HFR. It is a technology that is used for the first time in Greece and has striking clarity. Apart from television, we also communicated the event on social media. The publicity we have received so far includes publications in 20 different languages.
What dynamic do you see in sports tourism in Greece?
Greece has a major drawback: it has no state funding to attract global events any more. Beach Taekwondo is the only world championship that has come to Greece since 2000 and is based almost exclusively on private initiative. As a country, however, we have very attractive features to attract smaller competitions, which local government can support. There are important opportunities to exploit there. The challenge is to create and promote products that attract sponsors and manage the cost of the event properly.
#MarketingWeek
Issue 1540/ 04-17 June 2018
For more information visit: www.marketingweek.gr
photo credits: Nicos Karanikolas