Towards Humanistic Management in professional sports: How to make mobility and fan-related tourism more sustainable?

Abstract

Abstract Ideas of (a more) humanistic management have taken hold in multiple tourism contexts. In particular, we can see this in specific niches of tourism such as sports-related mobility and adjacent forms of athlete and fan travel, it has become more commonplace to pay attention to questions of ecological integrity as well as sustainability. Rather than being mere rhetorical exercises to create the appearance of more responsible practices (a ‘CSR façade’), substantial changes seem to be underway, through which authentic transformation towards genuinely humanistic management practices may be possible. We take the case of the inclusion of sustainability considerations in the organisation of team and fan travel alongside professional football in Germany to highlight such incremental change. While far from constituting mass phenomena, any such reforms have the capacity to set a trend, and to re-orient business practices across larger industries. Based on a qualitative case study of five professional football teams in Germany and their recently adjusted mobility activities, we argue that sports-related tourism and mobility management has the capacity to create role models in steering societies towards more sustainable, and hence: more humanistic modes of action.