Sport Tourism in French Polynesia and Its Dependence on Air Transport

In French Polynesia, tourism and sport represent two sets of social, economic, and cultural practices that overlap (or merge) very marginally. This is the case in particular in the more frequented islands where tourists tend to go hiking, canyoning, paragliding, and then mostly to marine activities such as diving, canoeing, paddling, sailing, fishing, and so on. These nature sports do not appear to be a significant vector of tourist attraction, but rather a niche product offered by the hotel complexes (resorts) to local and international tourists. On the contrary, the most popular sports are part of a more specific environment, that of the South Oceanic hemisphere, in terms of competition (the Pacific Games since 1963). Consequently, tourists are the athletes who travel to these events. There is therefore very little hybridisation between popular sports, which concerns as much the mā’ohi disciplines, as those imported by the tutelary powers, up to those introduced more recently in French Polynesia, from the United States, such as beach soccer, stretching, pole dancing, and so on and this with the exception of golf and diving. Concerning surfing, whose origin is Polynesian, some tourists travel to the islands to take part in competitions, such as those organised on the mythical Teahupo’o wave, selected as a venue for the 2024 Paris Olympic Games. The few connections between the two areas described, tourism and sport, are part of the fallout of the remoteness between the islands of French Polynesia and the rest of the world. This extreme isolation induces a total dependence on air transport, which invariably results in high costs of stay and questions for the long term on the viability and sustainability of the product.