ABSTRACT
The purpose of the current study was to examine the impact of an international sport event from a public diplomacy perspective. A survey (N = 986) of event attendees at an international sport event (i.e. the ATP World Tour in Shanghai, China) was conducted using systematic random sampling. The key research findings include the strong, positive effects of sport fan engagement in the international sport event of study in the destination image of the event-hosting city and the reputation of the event-hosting country. This study extends the engagement literature by investigating the role of a specific type of engagement, sport fan engagement, in an international sport event context, which remains a relatively undiscovered area in public diplomacy research. The current study also suggests that the impact of hosting an international sport event is not confined to the event-hosting city but also occurs at the country level, which is a novel finding in sport event literature.
