The City Assessed by Residents and Tourists a Year after a Religious Mega-Event (Study Case: World Youth Day in Cracow, Poland)

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to recognize the assessment of Cracow from the perspective of the residents and tourists a year after a religious event, the 2016 World Youth Day (2016WYD). Bearing in mind that the image of a city is created by an individual and their socio-demographic features, ones that differentiate the assessment of the city were identified and their direction and strength were highlighted. It was also checked whether the assessment of the city declared by tourists (the experimental group) was different from the assessment of the residents (the control group). Analogically, significant differences were recognized between the tourists and residents who took part in 2016WYD; tourists who participated and did not participate in 2016WYD, and also the residents who participated and did not participate in 2016WYD. Theoretical considerations relating to the city, its recipients and mega-events were conducted on the basis of subject literature review. In the statistical part non-parametric tests and Spearman’s rank correlation coefficient were used in order to achieve the assumed objectives. The results allowed us to observe how the improvement of the city image a year after the mega-event is more often declared by the inhabitants than by tourists and out of socio-demographic features of an individual, gender (both in the case of inhabitants and tourists) determines the assessment of the city image to the greatest extent.