Football Stadiums as Alternative Tourists’ Entertainment Points of Interest: The Perceptions of Managers and Local Authorities in the City of Patras

Football stadiums, especially those located in urban areas, host games of local and international tournaments, attracting fans to attend and express their loyalty to the team. Nowadays, these venues are acting beyond the usual, providing an effective way of attracting visitors and travelers, as they offer a greater variety of services and products. Thus, a successful development of football stadiums depends, among others, significantly on the type of ownership and management policies. The objective of this paper aims to provide an in-depth insight of football stadiums’ contribution to the local and urban tourism development, in areas with low tourism intensity and potentials, revealing the aspects that can upgrade them to points of higher tourist interest. This work focuses, mostly, on studying the effects of ownership on the development processes of a modern stadium, which is profiled as a venue providing various services and products, and especially, on the national football stadium located in the city of Patras in the Western Greece. The results of the research showed that the ownership of these stadiums affect their development as tourism products and destinations, as well as their financial management and organizational structure and policy.