ABSTRACT
Events are one of the attractions a destination can develop to increase tourist flows, together with other offers. Visitors tend to consume different types of services, for instance, event goers tend to be involved in activities that are not just eventrelated, such as visiting museums, shopping, etc. (Chalip and McGuirty, 2004; Marzano and Scott, 2006). Although it is clear that there is a relationship between events and tourism destinations, this has been rather neglected in research. In this area, researchers have primarily focused on the analysis of the economic impacts of events on a destination (Mair and Whitford, 2013). One aspect in particular has received little attention, i.e. the contribution of events to the development of the destination brand and the factors that allow a positive link between an event brand and the destination brand. There are few studies on this topic, but of those that do exist, most have focused on sport events (Chalip and Costa, 2005; Jago et al., 2003; Lee and Arcodia, 2011; Xing and Chalip, 2006). There is also lack of attention to this topic on the part of practitioners – event organizers and destination managers – who fail to work together and do not cross-leverage events with other attractions of destinations (Chalip and McGuirty, 2004).
