ABSTRACT
Despite the increasing popularity among destination management organizations (DMOs) for bidding on and hosting sporting events, research related to the evaluation of their impacts on tourism remains inadequate. This exploratory study seeks to add to this limited body of knowledge by questioning the DMOs of three countries in respect to three key issues, with the ultimate goal of developing theory and methods for improving the value of events to destinations. The three key issues requiring further examination are as follows:
Goals for bidding on and hosting sporting events: Little is known about the specific goals for hosting and bidding on events. Goals for destinations in hosting events can be compared to those sought by sponsors of events. Getz (1997) listed a number of such goals, including heightened visibility, image enhancement, and direct sales. For a destination, goals may be to increase future visitation (Hall, 1992), to improve the image of the city or country (Brown, 2000), or to disperse tourism activities in a wider region (Morse, 2001).
Research conducted to measure the achievement of these goals: Even less is known about how (or if) destinations or tourism organizations measure the achievement of these goals. A limited amount of research exists regarding the impact of events on the awareness and image of the host destination (Ritchie and Smith, 1991; Nebenzahl and Jaffe, 1991; Kang and Perdue, 1994), and much debate has ensued over research methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of media coverage (Speed and Thompson 2000; Hudson, Getz, and Miller, 2001).
The extent of event leveraging: Event leveraging represents a subtle but significant advance on the study of event impacts (Chalip and Green, 2001) and is concerned with what is done or what can be done to obtain desired impacts from an event. There is much more to be learned about how events can be used to affect destination image, overall visitation, and visitor spending. The success of previous sporting events, such as the Barcelona Olympic Games, has drawn attention to the strategic value of events. For example, in the Bahamas, an events management company has been given the task of developing events that show the natural beauty of the islands to the world (Smith and Jenner, 1996). Both Chalip and Green (2001) and Morse (2001) have described how Australian tourism organizations implemented a series of strategies and tactics designed to enhance the tourism benefits to be obtained from the 2000 Olympic Games.
