The Beijing Winter Olympics is different! Or is it?: integration and revalidation of residents’ mega-event perceptions and support models

Abstract

PurposeThis study aims to integrate and revalidate previously proposed various structural models in understanding residents’ attitudes and behaviors in relation to mega-events before the events.Design/methodology/approachThis study focussed on the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics and used a questionnaire-based quantitative survey prior these events. A PLS-SEM analysis was run on a sample of 473 residents, in testing relationships between residents’ trust, perceived impacts, support for hosting and subjective well-being.FindingsResults revalidate propositions from previous research, but suggest key contextual differences in light of biosecurity risks. Residents’ perceived positive (cultural) and negative (environmental) impacts affect their support for mega-events, and their perceived positive (economic and cultural) and negative (social) impacts affect their subjective well-being. Variances in the relationships were found for those who perceive a high biosecurity risk.Research limitations/implicationsThe data were collected from one mega-event, and thus the findings of this study are highly contextualized.Practical implicationsThis research suggest that mega-event organizers should put effort into promoting the benefits of hosting mega-events and work collaboratively with stakeholders to reduce potential negative costs and risks as well as increase resident well-being via bringing in economic and cultural benefits.Social implicationsThis research focusses on social well-being during and post COVID in relation to the hosting of a mega-event.Originality/valueThe data were collected from the 2022 Beijing Winter Olympics, a mega-event that, because of COVID-19 and restricted spectator flows, potentially had characteristics quite different from that of other Winter Olympics or sporting mega-events.