Host Mega-events Research Articles

Assessing community spirit: The psychosocial impact of major sporting events - A case study of the Jakarta e-Prix

Nations that host mega-events such as the FIFA World Cup and the Summer Olympics reap numerous benefits. Key benefits include economic growth and development. Besides economic benefits, mega-events can benefit society. The Formula E racing series were founded in 2014 to advocate for sustainable practices and renewable energy. Jakarta hosts Formula E to demonstrate its green transformation. Despite increased scholarly interest in mega-events impact, there is little community-level research on mega-events’ social and physical capital impacts. It is crucial to capture and comprehend the enthusiasm and support of local communities to strategically enhance socio-economic systems and infrastructure. This study aimed to determine the psychosocial impact that hosting major sporting events have on the local populace. Data was collected using an online questionnaire that measured community pride and community attachment. This research found that mega sporting events appear to contribute to the development of community pride and community attachment. Furthermore, this study illuminated the benefits and constraints related to using panel surveys for the gathering of qualitative data.

The emergence and conceptualisation of community stadia in the UK

New professional sports stadia have been widely advanced as flagship developments that can generate jobs and wealth, support place branding and culture-led strategies, and host mega-events. Public funding for new stadia has been secured on these bases but also challenged as stadia costs are under-estimated and the benefits, particularly for lower income communities, exaggerated. Emerging in this context, community stadia are an intriguing phenomenon as they offer the potential for professional sports stadia to deliver on community aims alongside their sporting, commercial and economic development aims. Public funding has followed with a number of community stadia built or planned in the UK, yet with limited critical analysis of the stadium type and its impact. This paper helps to fill the literature gap by learning from two community stadia case studies: The Keepmoat Stadium, Doncaster and The Falkirk Stadium, Falkirk. It finds that community stadia have the potential to deliver across the four aims, with stadia’s association with the world of professional sport facilitating engagement with multiple, diverse and ‘hard to reach’ communities. However, they are also complex phenomena leading the paper to construct a 12-feature conceptualisation of community stadia that can advance practitioner and academic understanding of the phenomenon.

When the party’s over: what influences event peer-to-peer accommodation owners to re-enter the market?

ABSTRACT When cities host mega-events, lodging demand temporarily increases, however cities must balance this temporary demand to prevent oversupply. Peer-to-peer accommodations may be a lodging solution for mega-events. Based on the commitment–trust theory this study examined mediating effect of relationship commitment and trust on the impact of financial reward, social reward, sustainability, civic pride, communication and opportunistic behaviour on the intention to re-enter the market for future events. A survey of 300 peer-to-peer accommodation hosts was conducted. Financial reward, social reward, sustainability, civic pride and communication all had a positive, significant impact on hosts’ intention to re-enter the market for future events, however relationship commitment and trust did not significantly mediate the impact for most of the variables. Only sustainability was significantly mediated by relationship commitment.

Resident perceptions and support before and after the 2018 Taichung international Flora exposition

ABSTRACT The 2018 Taichung World Flora Exposition was the largest international tourism event hosted in Taiwan. Hosting governments aim to improve the well-being of residents and gain their support by hosting megaevents. However, few studies have examined the mediating role of subjective well-being by surveying the same group of residents before and after a megaevent. On the basis of social exchange and stakeholder theories, this study investigated the effect of residents’ perceived benefits and costs on subjective well-being and support for megaevents. Furthermore, changes in the perceptions and attitudes of residents before and after the event were assessed. Pre-event and postevent questionnaires were collected from 262 residents. The findings indicated that the effects of social benefits on subjective well-being were strengthened and the effect of social cost on subjective well-being was weakened as the event progressed. Moreover, subjective well-being mediated the relationship between perceived benefits and support for megaevents. This research extends current knowledge on event tourism and revealed changes in resident perceptions and attitudes before and after a megaevent. These findings could help governments and destination managers host megaevents and promote tourism development.

Problem of Mineralogical Tourism Development in the Urals

The subject of mineralogical tourism development is particularly relevant for the Urals region whose rich natural resources make it possible to create an attractive tourism product. Mineralogical tourism in the Sverdlovsk Oblast is developing within the car tourism cluster, uniting locations of environmental, active and cultural & educational tourism. The goal of this research is studying the process of developing mineralogical tourism in the Sverdlovsk Oblast and the Urals as a whole. The paper focuses on analyzing the process of regional program implementation. The research applies comparative analysis and content analysis of legislation and regulatory documents of the Russian Federation. Problems of cluster approach implementation in the mineralogical tourism are analyzed; the experience of developing the regional tourism cluster is studied. Mineralogical tourism is not properly developing in the Urals due to the effective legislative restrictions. Private initiative on creating attractive mineralogical tours and parks is hindered by a ban on the right for independent search for precious minerals. Programs of developing domestic and inbound tourism provide for creation of the required infrastructure (communications, service) in the region but do not develop the actual places of interest for mineralogical tours due to restrictions on their effective application. Yekaterinburg is the federal center of the Ural region aspiring to host mega-events (EXPO 2025, etc.); it needs to present and use region’s recreational resources to the full extent in the open investment format.

Marketing urbain et sport : comment mesurer de l’image des métropoles françaises à travers leur stade et aréna?

This article focuses on methodology, specifically on understanding how we measure the image of a city, in order to examine the contribution made by major sports venues (stadiums and arenas) in the metropolitanisation of France’s large towns and cities. That is to say, the symbolic scope which allows a city to be a ‘metropolis.’ The main facilities in each town can be assessed according to several factors, grouped under three main headings: the inclusion of sports venues in an urban project, their ability to host mega-events, and their potential for media coverage. The author presents this method first by showing the main reasons why major sports venues are perceived as part of a city’s potential reputation. He then describes each factor included in his analysis grid and the reasons for their inclusion, in order to identify, if not measure, the potential to become a metropolis.

Public trust in mega event planning institutions: The role of knowledge, transparency and corruption

The political ramifications of hosting mega-events are huge. In this article, we investigate the relationships among corruption, transparency, knowledge, and public trust using data collected from 3786 Brazilians in the context of the 2014 FIFA World Cup Games. Findings from the structural equation modeling indicate that public trust in government is determined by the respondents' perceptions of corruption and transparency and their level of knowledge about the roles of government and the local organizing committee in the mega-event. The respondents’ level of trust in the local organizing committee also exerts an influence on their trust in the government. The implications of the findings for governments planning to host mega-events in the future are discussed. This research makes an important contribution to the literature, being the first study to test a theoretical model that analyses the relationships between corruption, transparency, knowledge, and public trust in the context of a mega-sport event.

Journal of Tourism & Hospitality

Mega-events play an accelerating role in the transformation of host cities with renewed image, pride, and the construction of infrastructure to sustain economic development. Given the high investment costs and risks associated with mega-events for the host city, local authorities try to catalyze their efforts for improved infrastructure and durable legacies. Contrary to the assumption, tourism doesn’t necessarily grow during the event and even shows disappointing results in the post-event years. Evaluating the tangible and intangible benefits of mega-events in the long run remains a challenge for a destination. Events are considered to have a short lifecycle and melt like ice cream, hence the term “ice cream economy”. The purpose of this conceptual paper is to analyze the relationship between host city planning, mega-events and tourism sustainability. It discusses internal and external changes that affect host destinations and how tourism makes uses of the legacies of mega-events. The paper reviews the current literature and then takes a case study approach to compare mega-events and their impacts in selected cities with significant tourism planning outcomes. Findings show that mega-events bring specific magnifying elements to urban economies. Cities that have allowed tourism strategies and policies a more central role in the mega-event planning have shown more successful results over time. They have connected the strong infrastructure development of mega-events with enhanced tourism products and uses. This paper concludes with recommendations for tourism management and ice cream economy, integration in planning by destinations that host mega-events. This includes strategies to integrate these innovative tourism policies to city management.

Planning mega-event legacies: uncomfortable knowledge for host cities

The rhetoric employed when cities bid for the right to host mega-events like the Olympic Games suggests that benefits will include improved infrastructure, investment in city infrastructure, and regeneration of neglected urban areas. However, the legacy of mega-events has historically been mixed; while some cities have been recognized for their development efforts, many others have been vilified for their subsequent actions, or lack thereof. The term legacy itself is, however, problematic; it presents a one-sided view of positive effects, without adequate consideration of downside risk in bidding. This research draws on interviews from people involved in six different mega-events and illustrates the challenges of addressing legacy with a variety of examples, including a detailed look at the London 2012 Olympic Games’ legacy negotiations regarding the use of the Olympic Stadium to gain insight into how legacy opportunities are developed. Drawing on the concept of uncomfortable knowledge, the dispute over the legacy use of the Olympic Stadium is used to examine the mixed perspectives of the different parties involved in decisions over mega-event legacies. We conclude by suggesting that unacknowledged interests, which remain constructively ambiguous during the bidding phase, create the opportunity for uncomfortable knowledge to arise in the planning process. The use of uncomfortable knowledge as a theoretical lens provides a useful construct to focus on the boundaries and limitations of knowledge in planning mega-events.

Competition through Interurban Policy Making: Bidding to Host Megaevents as Entrepreneurial Networking

Recent scholarship on policy mobility, globally active municipal governments, and transnational city-to-city policy making suggest a new dynamic in entrepreneurial cities: entrepreneurialism based not only on place competition, but also based on practices of interurban networking. This paper argues that cross-city initiatives to share planning expertise can function both as policy-making networks and as markets for policy knowledge, as urban governance stakeholders strategically leverage intercity initiatives for sharing urban planning knowledge. Bidding to host sporting ‘megaevents’ highlights these networked entrepreneurial strategies. A comparative study of bids to host the Olympic Games over a twenty-year period shows that policy-making knowledge (templates, models, and best practices) shared between cities is both necessary for competing to host events, and represents ‘policy commodities’ that planning coalitions can use as part of their entrepreneurial portfolios. While much commentary on interurban policy making focuses on how policy practices are received by cities or mobilized by international businesses or policy makers, this paper signals to a multidirectional entrepreneurial strategy: although megaevents federations and sponsors developed megaevents knowledge networks to leverage urban planning for profit, many local development coalitions have incorporated these same networks into their competitive strategies.

Coping with a Self-Induced Shock: The Heterarchic Organization of the London Olympic Games 2012

This paper starts from the assumption of a structural analogy between mega-events and large-scale disasters. Both imply forceful interruptions of everyday routines, and both involve imperatives for imminent action. Similar to the immovable deadline of an opening ceremony, a looming natural disaster triggers a complex set of precautions and preparations to cope with the inescapable forthcoming shock. In the case of mega-events, of course, this shock is self-induced. In fact, cities fiercely compete to host mega-events. In the face of the daunting challenges of hosting a mega-event—the immovable timeframe, the rigorous standards set by regulatory bodies, and the exceptional public visibility—the authorities and organizations in charge traditionally have resorted to strategies of a strict adaptation to the conditions imposed on them. Aligning all available resources and capabilities to match the foreseeable demands, however, undermines the adaptability to cope with unpredictable perturbations. This paper seeks to explore the strategies and practices to attain adaptability during the preparation, staging and implementation of legacy plans of a mega-event with an evidentially noteworthy record: the London Olympic Games 2012. The paper seeks to demonstrate that the project ecology in charge managed to enhance adaptability by implementing three key features of heterarchy: ambiguity, redundancy and loose coupling. By leveraging the principles of heterarchy, the project ecology was able to draw lessons from previous mega-events and both to anticipate and respond to unforeseen challenges.

Mega-Events as a Catalyst for Place-Marketing: Exploring Izmir EXPO 2015 Candidacy and Istanbul ECoC 2010

Since the early-1990’s, mega-events have been considered as a platform for creating landmarks, generating significant media interest, encouraging tourism and improving the image of the host cities. Increasingly, developing countries have bid for hosting mega-events, believing that hosting them presents a powerful opportunity for promoting versions of citizenship, social cohesion and cultural inclusion along with international marketing and image promotion. In order to deliver these events along with different social, economic and physical agendas, cities have to constitute complex organisational structures involving national, regional and local stakeholders. Turkey is one of the countries which has been eager to host mega-events, and different Turkish cities have bid several times to host the Summer Olympic Games, International Exposition (EXPO) and European Capital of Culture (ECoC) festivals. Istanbul tried but failed to win the rights to host the Olympic Games five times (2000, 2004, 2008, 2012 and 2020), but the city was successful in securing the 2010 ECoC, as the first non-European city to do so. Another Turkish city, Izmir, bid to host EXPO 2015 and 2020, but failed on both occasions. Both Izmir and Istanbul sought to create networks and new levels of international public culture through these event regimes.

The 2010 World Cup in South Africa: A Millennial Capitalist Moment

South Africa's hosting of the 2010 World Cup resulted in billions of Rand being spent on event-related infrastructure. Politicians and event organisers justified the spending as a necessary investment in the future of the country. The hosting of the 2010 World Cup was presented as a turning-point in the country's fortunes that would bring economic prosperity with it whilst helping to unite a once-divided nation. However, protests from workers' unions, civil society movements and victims of forced evictions testified to a different measure of the event's impact. To these parties, cheap Chinese imports and FIFA trading restrictions threatened any potential benefit to the South African economy, while forced evictions and poor living conditions focused attention on the alternative causes to which those resources could have been applied. This article seeks to analyse the arguments of both the proponents and protestors of the event using as its framework the concept of ‘Millennial Capitalism’ developed by Jean and John Comaroff. From this perspective the 2010 World Cup represented a national sacrifice of resources on infrastructure, tickets and trinkets in exchange for a momentary feeling of national unity and the realisation of economic prosperity for a select few, most of them outside South Africa. This article contributes to critiques of neo-liberal capitalism by illustrating how decisions to host mega-events demand sacrifice by all in order to reinforce the power and interests of a select and privileged group.

Bread or Games?

Many countries compete fiercely for the right to host mega-events like the World Cup. Proponents of hosting mega-events claim that yields economic gains. Many available studies focus on partial effects of hosting or concern ex post analyses. The authors utilize the existing literature to perform a detailed cost–benefit analysis (CBA) of the Netherlands bidding jointly with Belgium for the 2018 World Cup. The authors show that national pride and pleasure come at a price and financial gains are unlikely. Based on this CBA, the authors predict that the costs of the 2018 World Cup in Russia will also exceed the financial benefits.

Olympic Proportions: The Expanding Scalar Politics of the London ‘Olympics Mega-Mosque’ Controversy

When cities host mega-events, such as the Olympic Games, these events change the context in which conventionally local political decisions are considered and made. This article follows Islamic movement Tablighi Jamaat’s proposed plans to build the large Abbey Mills Mosque in Newham, East London, and the controversy that followed. The analysis builds from media accounts, interviews with a leading mosque opponent, and ethnographic observation from religious gatherings at the Abbey Mills site. Taking a scalar politics approach, we investigate how the ‘mega’ scale of the mosque was framed and debated in media and opposition campaign accounts, and how Tablighi Jamaat belatedly responded with counterframes of its own. The ‘Olympics mega-mosque’ controversy would grow to encompass an increasingly broad public sphere and larger anxieties about national identity, government competence, and the integration of Muslims in Britain. We conclude with implications of the case for studying contentious politics, Islamophobia, and contemporary governance.

'It's Africa's turn!' The narratives and legitimations surrounding the Moroccan and South African bids for the 2006 and 2010 FIFA finals

African countries are increasingly engaging in bidding wars to host sport mega-events. To date, however, not much analysis has been done of African countries' involvement in the growing global mega-events enterprise. Little is also known of the broader political character and consequences of events and bid campaigns in the international system. This article investigates these aspects through a comparative analysis of the bid processes of South Africa and Morocco for the 2006 and 2010 Soccer World Cup. It explores the internal (domestic) and external (international) elements of their legitimating narratives and promotional rhetoric and how these played out in their international relations. Both countries made extensive use of an ideological and emotive posturing of 'Africa'. Against the background of the generally tenuous position the continent occupies in the wider international system, and of its overwhelmingly negative representation, the two countries' replication of neocolonial ties and use of postcolonial rhetoric both aided and hampered their bid campaigns. Overall, competitions to host mega-events occur on an unequal basis which, for African countries, is worsened by very unfavourable positioning in the international arena.