The Department’s research approach focuses on the sports industry, sports tournaments and sports tourism. In terms of the management of sport events, it assisted Taichung City Government in completing the “Planning of the 2019 Taichung East Asian Youth Games” in 2015, and completed the “Operation Plan for the 2019 Taichung East Asian Youth Games” in 2016. In the future, it will continue to carry out economic benefits assessment for the hosting of the East Asian Youth Games.

In terms of the management of sports facilities, it completed the “Study on Taiwan hosting international tournament and potential venue for professional baseball” for the Sports Administration in 2016. In addition, it has made an in-depth study on sportscape. Take the 2010 Intercontinental Cup baseball at Taichung Intercontinental Baseball Stadium as an example. The stadium’s physical environment had five major factorial dimensions. They were environmental tidiness or seat comfort, space or sign design, traffic convenience, architectural aesthetic, the cluster analysis was used to identify the characteristics of the audience’s perception into three groups, transportation accessibility and architectural aesthetic, total pursuit of quality, and stadium design and cleanliness. Results showed that all five dimensional factors have an obvious effect on satisfaction, and the ‘total pursuit of quality’ was the most important market segment and had the highest satisfaction( Segmenting the Perception of Physical Environment and Satisfaction for Baseball Spectators, 2016, Anthropologist, 24(3): 818-826, SSCI).

In terms of sports tourism, the scenic Sun Moon Lake, with the international swimming carnival, has become a feature of Taiwan’s sport tourism. As the sports tourism sector belongs to the service industry, sports tourists’ experiences are largely influenced by the services provided. A participant with a positive perception from a given service is likely to report a higher satisfaction level and to develop loyalty from the service received. Using Sun Moon Lake Swimming Carnival Event as an example, this study measures the perception of service quality for various participant groups and their associated recreational benefits from the demand model. Three service quality clusters, interaction and information, physical facility improving, and program and outcome, were extracted. Later, the contingent behavior method was used to measure the hypothetical benefits from service quality improvements. This study’s findings discover that the amenity of Sun Moon Lake and its surroundings at current status is not sufficient to make participants come back. Findings show that an improvement in the service quality of sports program and the outcome will result in an NT$85.78 million consumer surplus gain, with the facility improvement producing a gain of NT$72.90 million arising simply from the event in each year. Therefore, recreation managers may find it justifiable to improve an event’s service quality in this regard (Service quality improving effects and recreational benefits for sports tourism-a case study. Tourism Economics, 2016, 22(6), 1332-1337, SSCI).