Event Stakeholders Research Articles

Applying event leveraging using OGI data: a case study of Vancouver 2010

Although the topic of strategically leveraging the hosting of sport mega-events to achieve socioeconomic outcomes has received some academic attention, research has not systematically applied the theoretical model of event leveraging. The challenge of this paper is to review some of the assumptions of the current theoretical model while using secondary data from the Olympic Games Impact (OGI) study that has been conducted on the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic and Paralympic Games. These data illustrate that, from the perspective of the host, the costs associated with leveraging far exceed the costs associated with hosting the Olympic Games. However, event leverage proves to be a complex process, in which it is nearly impossible to differentiate between impacts and outcomes, even when only government investments into infrastructure are illuminated. Therefore, a conceptual framework that links the sport mega-event with the context of the host is proposed and it is aimed at inviting and guiding future research by clearly assigning the responsibility of leveraging to host governments, with the involvement of other event stakeholders throughout the process.

Comparative Analysis about the Formation Factors of Tourism Governance: According to the Mega Event Hold: A Comparison of Mega Event Stakeholders

Comparative Analysis about the Formation Factors of Tourism Governance: According to the Mega Event Hold: A Comparison of Mega Event Stakeholders

Understanding Television Viewership of a Mega Event: The Case of the 2010 Winter Olympics

Media coverage and related viewership can be critical to the financial success of many sport and tourism events. It is not surprising, then, that many event organizers seek to improve the appeal and television viewership ratings associated with their respective properties. Moreover, insights into the nature of people’s decisions to watch the Olympics on television might be relevant to marketers hoping to simulate postevent tourism. This study focuses on understanding viewership decisions surrounding the Olympic Games using the theory of planned behavior as a conceptual framework. Consistent with the theory, it was hypothesized that attitude toward the behavior, subjective norm, and perceived behavioral control would explain respondents’ intention to watch the Vancouver 2010 Winter Games on television. Results suggest that watching the Games on television was associated with: (a) a belief that important others would perform the behavior (i.e., descriptive norms); (b) previous viewing of the Games’ televised coverage (i.e., past behavior); (c) a favorable evaluation of performing the behavior (i.e., attitude toward the behavior); and (d) a perceived ease of performing the behavior (i.e., perceived behavioral control). Respondents did not appear to perceive their viewership in ways that might be desirable to hospitality or tourism organizations. Implications for event stakeholders and hospitality/destination marketers are discussed.

Tracking the Dollars: How Economic Impact Studies Can Actually Benefit Managerial Decision Making

Understanding how event tourists behave, and targeting customized offers to them based on their sunk cost of travel to the event, can therefore provide additional opportunities to increase the economic impact of an event. For event stakeholders tracking this economic impact, categorizing attendees according to their distance traveled may also provide a more comprehensive and nuanced analysis of the impact.

Harnessing the power of football: safety-risk perceptions of sport tourists at the 2013 FIFA Confederations CupTM in Brazil

Commissioned to host the 2014 FIFA (Fédération Internationale de Football Association) World CupTM tournament, Brazil was given access to a global platform which holds the power to stimulate considerable levels of tourism value. However, tourist anxiety surrounding safety and security raised questions as to whether the event could successfully achieve the host nation's diverse set of underpinned socioeconomic objectives. As a benchmark of success in this regard, Brazil was first set to host the 2013 FIFA Confederations CupTM, a prelude to the 2014 FIFA World CupTM tournament. This article investigates the constructs found to manage sport tourists' safety-risk perceptions; and examines how the interrelationships amongst these constructs can positively influence sport tourists' repeat visitation intentions as a practice that drives tourism growth. First, a mediation model regarding the interrelationships between safety-risk perception, satisfaction, and repeat visitation was synthesised from sport tourism literature. Following this, a self-administered questionnaire was distributed to 187 domestic and international sport tourists attending the 2013 FIFA Confederations CupTM in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. The results provided support for the mediation model, whereby tourists' decreased safety-risk perceptions directly and indirectly improved tourists' propensity to return to the host destination, with event satisfaction occupying a mediating role. Managerial implications propose that it is the responsibility of the event stakeholders to shift any short-term speculative investment in the safety and security improvements of the host destination, to investment that is more long term and sustainable in nature. In response, tourists are expected to demonstrate a greater propensity to return to the host destination, serving as a core stimulant of future tourism value.

‘The successes and challenges of hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup’: the case of Cape Town, South Africa

In 2010 the FIFA World Cup finals were held on the African Continent for the first time with South Africa chosen to host the month-long event. Crucially, the hosting of such a prestigious tournament was seen as a chance for South Africa to prove to the world that as a developing nation it could successfully host an event of this magnitude. Using contemporary reports and incorporating findings from in-depth interviews conducted with national and regional event and destination stakeholders, this paper explores the challenges and successes of hosting the 2010 World Cup in South Africa. Primarily, focusing on the experiences of the host City of Cape Town, this study investigates the branding opportunities and challenges associated with the 2010 tournament as well as actual impact and legacy of the event on social factors, such as nation building, social cohesion and racial integration.

Maximizing Positive Social Impacts: Strategies for Sustaining and Leveraging the Benefits of Intercommunity Sport Events in Divided Societies

Building on the evidence of social impacts generated by sport events, there is a need for research to identify strategies suitable for maximizing event benefits for disparate interest communities. This paper investigates the opportunities and strategic means for sustaining and leveraging social event benefits arising from intercommunity sport events in the ethnically divided Sri Lanka. Following an interpretive mode of inquiry, findings are derived from the analysis of two focus groups and 35 in-depth interviews with Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim and international event stakeholders. To maximize event benefits, findings suggest that event organizers and host communities focus strategically on children as catalysts for change; increase ethnically mixed team sport activities; provide event-related sociocultural opportunities; combine large-scale events with regular sport-for-development programs; and engage in social, cultural, political and educational event leverage. By implementing these strategies and tactics, intercommunity sport events are likely to contribute to local capacity building and inclusive social change, which can have flow-on effects to the wider community. These findings extend the academic literature on strategic event planning, management and leverage, as they provide a focus on community event leverage for social purposes in a developing world context—an area which has thus far received limited empirical research.

Risk management within the events industry in Cape Town, South Africa

The study is focused on effective management of the event industry with emphasis on the successful hosting of events within the city of Cape Town, in order to determine policies and legislation that govern the event industry and the nature of their application by event stakeholders in Cape Town. The statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) was used to analyze data. A total of 500 questionnaires were distributed to event practitioners, event organisations and event students within Cape Town. A response rate of 350 was achieved. Majority of event stakeholders believe that it is imperative to abide by legislation, as the event industry cannot function without policies and legislation. Policies required for proper functioning events include liability insurance, compliance with contractors and compliance with legislation. The research was limited to specified persons directly involved in the event industry. Local authorities and professional conference organisers should abide by policies and legislation established by the South African Government. Training and education is significant in terms of compliance and ethics in the tourism, events and hospitality industry. The city of Cape Town has been working hard to develop itself, as a major social development driver as well as a major contributor to experiencing events, sport, recreation, arts and culture in a special way. Therefore, the research intends to promote awareness of the importance of compliance management in the event industry. Key words: Compliance, corporate governance, legislation, events management body of knowledge (EMBOK), ethics, risk.

Intercommunity Sport Events: Vehicles and Catalysts for Social Capital in Divided Societies

Sport events are believed to promote dialogue, integration, and peaceful understanding among disparate groups, even when other forms of negotiation have not been successful. However, the social outcomes from sport events are largely anecdotal and there is a need to empirically examine the active engagement of groups with “others” in participatory sport event projects. This article investigates the potential of an intercommunity sport event in contributing to intergroup development and social capital building in the ethnically divided Sri Lanka. It follows an interpretive mode of inquiry where findings are derived from the analysis of 35 in-depth interviews with Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim, and international event stakeholders. By providing evidence of the varying sociocultural experiences at the event, this article discusses the event's impact on intergroup relations and its influence on the stock of social capital available to communities. Findings can assist governments, policy makers, and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in advancing policies and practical measures that build on events as vehicles and catalysts for enhanced intergroup relations and the creation of social capital.

Event stakeholder management: developing sustainable rural event practices

PurposeChanges to the economic and social fabric of rural communities in Australia have resulted in an outmigration of residents, shifting economies and disenfranchisement with rural life styles. As a result, events provide important social and recreational opportunities for residents. However, rural communities are constrained by limited resources, such as the number of individuals who are willing and able to participate in event organizations; therefore, it is essential for the sustainable organization of events that stakeholders are attracted and retained. This paper aims to apply a stakeholder theoretical approach to the organizing and planning of rural events to identify event stakeholders, monitor satisfaction and ensure stakeholder retention within rural events.Design/methodology/approachA qualitative research design using a multiple case study approach examined event stakeholders in three rural communities of Southwest Queensland, Australia. In total, 54 in‐depth interviews were undertaken with event stakeholders and analyzed using an iterative thematic content analysis.FindingsThe findings reveal that rural‐event stakeholders fulfill multiple roles, differentiated by risk, and fraught with competing or conflicting agendas. The paper identifies strategies that event organizers utilize to manage relationships, and that facilitate stakeholder satisfaction and continued involvement.Originality/valueThere is limited understanding of event stakeholders, particularly in rural communities. Involving rural residents in organizing and planning events develops individual skills, knowledge and capacity. Rural communities benefit from an ability to deal with adverse conditions based on improvements in capacity of individuals and the community.

Event portfolio and multi-purpose development: Establishing the conceptual grounds

While sport events usually hold a prominent position within a host community's event portfolio, little is known about how they can be synergised with other event genres to maximise their overall contribution. As event portfolios remain a neglected area of study, there is a gap in the sport and event management literatures regarding the nature and implementation of event portfolios and their implications for the management of sport events. The potential of an event portfolio is that it may function as a system assembling different event stakeholders in a network and serving multiple purposes through the employment of joint strategies pursuant to the attainment and magnification of specific ends. This requires that the different events be cross-leveraged within the portfolio for multi-purpose development. Consequently, this paper conceptualises event portfolios as multi-purpose developmental tools for host communities and stresses the need for a holistic approach to be adopted in their study. With this in mind, literature on event leverage, sport event tourism as well as inter-organisational networks is reviewed and integrated. On this basis, a multi-disciplinary comprehensive framework for the study of event portfolios and a research agenda are proposed. Main directions for future research include exploring the nature and character of event portfolios, investigating event interrelationships, explicating inter-organisational relationships of events networks and learning how to build community capacity in event portfolio management.

Inter‐organizational collaboration characteristics and outcomes: a case study of the Jeddah Festival

Past research has found that a number of the characteristics of stakeholder collaboration are important in achieving desired group and individual outcomes. While these studies have identified various relationships between individual characteristics and selected outcomes, there has been little research on the relative importance of, and interaction between, collaboration characteristics. This research addresses this gap and examines the perceptions of event stakeholders in the Jeddah Festival (JF) held annually in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, regarding the characteristics of collaboration and the collaborative outcomes perceived as important. The research uses content analysis of transcribed interviews conducted with JF stakeholders to identify the characteristics of stakeholder collaboration and collaborative outcomes. A correlation analysis between counts of the various characteristics and outcomes found in the transcripts was then conducted using a Spearman rank correlation. The results identified that governance and trust were the characteristics with the highest correlation with both individual and collective outcomes. This was interpreted as highlighting the perceived importance of these two collaboration characteristics for achieving festival outcomes. The research found that the nature of the collaborative environment is positive in part due to the initial legitimatization process and also due to survivor bias. Overall these findings provide evidence of the interaction between stakeholder collaboration characteristics and outcomes in the JF and provide guidance for how this collaboration may be improved. Keywords: collaboration; outcomes; stakeholders; events; Saudi Arabia Investigaciones anteriores ha encontrado que algunas características de la colaboración de las partes interesadas en un festival son importantes en el logro de los resultados individuales y colectivos deseados. Aunque estos estudios han identificado varias relaciones entre las características individuales y los resultados escogidos, ha habido poca investigación sobre la importancia relativa de las características de la colaboración así como de la relación entre ellas. Esta investigación se concentra en esta laguna y examina las percepciones de las partes interesadas en el evento anual Jeddah Festival, celebrado en Jeddah, Arabia Saudí, con respecto a las características de la colaboración y los resultados de la misma que son percibidos como importantes. La investigación utiliza el análisis de contenido de entrevistas transcritas realizadas a las partes interesadas en el Festival Jeddah para identificar las características de la colaboración y los resultados de la misma. Con estos datos se desarrolló a continaución un análisis de correlación utilizando el rango de correlación de Spearman. Los resultados muestran que la gobernanza y la confianza fueron las características con mayor correlación tanto con los resultados individuales como con los colectivos, lo que se interpreta como la constatación del papel destacado de la importancia percibida de estas dos características de la colaboración en el logro de los resultados del festival. La investigación también ha encontrado que la naturaleza colaborativa del entorno es positiva en parte debido al proceso de legitimación inicial y en parte debido al sesgo del superviviente. En conjunto estos resultados proporcionan evidencia de la interacción entre las características de colaboración de la partes interesadas y los resultados en el Festival Yeddah y proporciona una guía sobre cómo esta colaboración puede ser mejorada. Keywords: colaboración; resultados; stakeholders (partes interesadas); eventos; Arabia Saudí Résumé Les études passées ont montré que de nombreuses caractéristiques de la collaboration entre les parties prenantes sont importantes pour atteindre les résultats – de groupe et individuels – souhaités. Bien que ces études aient identifié des relations diverses entre les caractéristiques individuelles et les résultats choisis, on a effectué très peu de recherche sur l’importance relative des caractéristiques de collaboration et de leurs interactions. Cette étude s’attelle à cette lacune et examine les perceptions des parties prenantes de l’événement durant le Festival annuel de Jeddah, en Arabie Saoudite, sur le plan des caractéristiques de collaboration et les résultats communs perçus comme importants. Cette recherche utilise une analyse du contenu des transcriptions d’entretiens menés auprès des parties‐prenantes du festival de Jeddah, afin d’identifier les caractéristiques de la collaboration des parties prenantes et les résultats communs. On a ensuite mené, grâce à la corrélation de rangs de Spearman, une analyse de la corrélation entre le nombre de caractéristiques diverses et les résultats trouvés dans les transcriptions. Les résultats ont montré que l’autorité et la confiance étaient les caractéristiques avec la plus haute corrélation parmi les résultats à la fois individuels et collectifs. Cela a été interprété comme soulignant ce que certains considèrent comme l’importance de ces deux caractéristiques de collaboration. La recherche a montré que la nature de l’environnement commun est positive, ce qui est dû en partie au processus de légitimation initiale et aussi au parti pris du rescapé. Dans l’ensemble, ces découvertes apportent la preuve de l’interaction entre les caractéristiques de collaboration des parties prenantes et les résultats au cours du Festival de Jeddah, et proposent des conseils pour améliorer cette collaboration.

The roles and responsibilities of a change agent in sport event development projects

There is increasing evidence that NGOs and Government agencies are turning to sport events as a tool for reconciliation and inter-community development (Burnett, 2006; Gasser & Levinsen, 2004; Stidder & Haasner, 2007; Sugden, 2006), yet the different roles and responsibilities of the organising ‘change agent’ within development projects have not received much empirical investigation. To address this gap, this paper analyses the different roles and responsibilities of an international sport event change agent in the ethnically divided Sri Lanka. Following an interpretivist mode of inquiry, findings of this research are derived from the analysis of 2 focus groups and 35 in-depth interviews with Sinhalese, Tamil, Muslim and international event stakeholders. Findings suggest that the change agent holds nine key roles and responsibilities in the inter-community development process. These are being an agent for community participation; a trust builder; a networker; a leader; a socially responsible advocate; a resource developer; a proactive innovator; a financial supporter; and a strategic planner for the long-term sustainability of projects. This research suggests that it is important to fulfil these roles to secure active community participation, to achieve positive socio-cultural event impacts and outcomes, and to provide a strategic framework for sustainable inter-community development.

Olympic Games host and bid city marketing: exploring issue management in the relationships among event stakeholder groups

Based on the work of Parent (2008) on mega sports events, this paper explores the relationships among events stakeholders in Olympic Games host/bid city marketing. It outlines research questions, identifies a theoretical framework to better understand Olympic city marketing, presents four essays related to issues within this framework, and provides conclusions and suggestions for future research.

Identifying Social Consequences of Rural Events

Events have a range of consequences for host communities. While a number of researchers have focused upon impact assessment, there are some fundamental issues that require addressing. Firstly, most research investigating the social impacts of events use predefined quantitative assessment techniques or tools. These tools limit the ability of respondents to indicate the diversity of social consequences that they may experience. Secondly, the labeling of social consequences as positive or negative fails to acknowledge the "shades of gray" that may exist. Thirdly, there is a lack of research specifically investigating the social consequences of events within rural communities. Therefore, there is a need to identify a range of social consequences that occur as a result of hosting events, especially within rural communities. This is best achieved from the perspective of those experiencing the phenomena, thus qualitatively. This article aims to address these gaps by examining the social consequences of rural events from an event stakeholder perspective within three rural communities of Southwest Queensland, Australia. Specifically, this article reports on a number of social consequences identified that have been underutilized or discussed within the existing literature.

Mega Sporting Event Legacies: A Multifaceted Concept

The legacy of mega sporting events can be perceived in several ways. It can be seenas positive or negative, tangible or intangible, territorial or personal, intentional orunintentional, global or local, short- or long-term, sport- or non sport-related, and canalso be seen from the various event stakeholders’ perspectives. In fact, it is muchmore appropriate to talk about legacies in the plural than simply legacy. This papergives a broad overview of an often used but rarely defined concept, using examplesfrom the legacies of the Olympic and Commonwealth Games, arguably two of themost important mega sporting events. It concludes that legacy essentially is a dreamto be pursued rather than a certainty to be achieved.