Elsevier

Tourism Management

Volume 74, October 2019, Pages 300-309
Tourism Management

Explaining the mixed outcomes from hosting major sporting events in promoting tourism

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2019.04.001Get rights and content

Highlights

  • There can be marked differences in how the same mega event influences individuals.

  • Media comment can explain changes to overall perceptions of the host, but may not explain differences in tourism intention.

  • Involvement in the global event better explains differences in outcomes than an involvement in the sport itself. .

  • Those with a high Openness to Experience personality tended to maintain any positive imagery they held pre-event.

  • Those with a relatively negative/positive country image pre- World Cup reported a more positive/negative image post-event.

Abstract

We report on a study of the longitudinal effects of the 2014 World Cup on the host Brazil's overall image and for tourism intentions in three other countries (total sample = 207). Brazil's image declined significantly 2013–2014 on some but not all measures and improved amongst a significant minority. The mixed outcomes are explained by the moderating effects of respondent personality, their involvement in the event (rather than in the sport being hosted) and their perception of the news they had been exposed to. Those who held a relatively negative attitude towards Brazil before the event tended to be positively influenced by positive media, watching the closing ceremony and by searching for news about Brazil. Those relatively high in Openness to Experience were less likely to report a reduction in attitude. The net effect was an improvement in tourism intentions, mainly among those less likely to visit pre-event and a decline among most others.

Introduction

Holding an international sports event such as the Olympic Games or the World Cup is generally expected to have a positive impact on a country's image and to promote tourism. Consequently countries often compete to host such an event (Heslop, Nadeau, & O'Reilly, 2010). In the case of Brazil, our context here, prior work on its relative appeal as a tourism destination (Pike, 2016) and in general (Guina & Giraldi, 2012; Mariutti & Tench, 2016) provides a mixed picture, emphasising the need for the country to improve its external image. On the one hand, the image of Brazil was often viewed positively because of features such as Carnival, natural beauty, football and music (Mariutti, Giraldi, & Crescitelli, 2013). On the other hand, Brazil's image has included negative connotations, such as crime, violence and poverty (Buarque, 2015).

In 2007 Brazil emerged as the only contender to host the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Hosting the event and the 2016 Olympic Games that followed were part of a wider strategy of sports diplomacy to enhance Brazil's reputation, symbolizing the country's rise on the international stage and its emerging role in world affairs (Soares e Castro, 2013). Expectations preceding the event were high. A study by Ernst & Young predicted an increase of 2.98 million tourists as a direct result of the World Cup. Embratur, the Brazilian Tourism Board, expected to see revenue from international tourism increase to US$ 18 billion by 2020 from US$ 5.9 billion in 2010 (Jainchill, 2013). However Brazil's image internationally fell between 2013 and 2015 both in absolute terms and when compared with the mean scores for the G8 nations (RI, 2017). International tourist numbers had been rising steadily between 2010 and 2014 but fell back between 2014 and 2015 (by 1.93%) and grew relatively slowly thereafter, 4.3% between 2015 and 2016 compared with South America in total at 6.6% (WTTC, 2017). This was despite Brazil's hosting the Olympic Games in 2016. Total revenues from tourism peaked in 2014 and fell back to $6.02 billion in 2016. Such disappointing results would be blamed on negative media influencing international public opinion (Buarque, 2015; Mitra, 2015). Our own work would show, however, that such effects were mixed, as attitudes among some individuals improved, even though, on average, they declined. Our aim here is to understand and explain why.

As Getz and Page (2016) note, our understanding of the effectiveness of events is far from adequate to enable us to predict the outcomes of any one planned event. Given the high cost of holding larger events and the potential risks to a country's image represented by Brazil's sponsorship of the World Cup we need to move closer to such a goal. Our paper focusses on the change in image and tourism intentions among potential tourists towards Brazil as a destination associated with its hosting the World Cup in 2014. First we discuss the background to the event and existing work on similar uses of such ‘soft power’ defined as the ability to affect others to obtain the outcomes one wants through attraction rather than coercion or payment (Nye, 1990). We then propose a number of hypotheses developed from existing work and theory predicting the effects of sports sponsorship on the host country's image and towards tourism intentions and, in particular, the moderating effects that can be expected. Our empirical work follows, two surveys among the same residents of three countries, Colombia, Austria and Peru, one either side of the event (n = 207). This approach, compared with cross sectional or pre and post sampling allows an investigation of the effects of a major event at the level of the individual. Our main objective is to contribute to the literature aimed at understanding the influence of hosting large scale sporting events on country image and tourism and specifically when and why such outcomes can be mixed. In particular we will show how a number of moderating factors specific to the individual, (including an Open to Experience Personality and involvement in the event) can create positive or negative effects on the individual's tourism intentions to a country hosting a major sporting event. Tourism intention refers to the willingness to travelling to a destination, in our case Brazil (see also Ahn, Ekinci, & Li, 2013; Baker & Crompton, 2000).

The Brazilian government estimated that it would cost US$ 13.35 billion to host the World Cup in 2014, with the majority of these funds devoted to improvements in public transportation (31.3%), stadia (31.2%) and airports (24.5%), with an estimated 85% coming from federal and state budgets. Additionally, Brazil would spend US$ 40 million on a global advertising campaign, with the objective of broadening Brazil's international image from that of “a country with soccer and samba” (Jainchill, 2013). Our focus is on changes in image and tourism intentions, but Brazil's image as an exporting country was also at issue (Bachion. & Zuca de Souza, 2016; Guina & Giraldi, 2015; Lopes, Giraldi, & Aguiar, 2014).

Buarque (2015) analysed media comment about Brazil associated with the country's hosting both the 1950 and 2014 World Cup competitions. He concluded that there was an increase in the visibility of Brazil as a result of both events, but that there was a change in the framing used to describe Brazil by the media, from the economy and culture following 1950 to politics following 2014, and a change in the tone of media comment, from positive to negative. Hosting a sporting event can indeed have negative, as well as positive, effects on public attitudes (Chalip, Green, & Hill, 2003). Brazil lost in the semi-finals in 2014 to Germany 7-1, the worst defeat in the country's sporting history, damaging its prestige as a football nation (Chari, 2015). But while football made headlines and dominated sports coverage, many of the 16,746 journalists accredited to the event took the opportunity to focus upon other, less positive, aspects of the host country. Examples of negative media both inside and outside of Brazil had emerged almost as soon as the country were awarded the event by FIFA in 2007. At issue was whether the decision to bid for the hosting rights for the 2014 FIFA World Cup was ethical and morally justifiable in light of the pressing need for extensive public investment of more direct benefit to the population (Mitra, 2015).

However, according to FIFA, the World cup in 2014 was a sporting success, and they labelled it as ‘the most seen and the most talked about sporting event in history’ (FIFA, 2015). The total attendance for the 64 matches was 3,429,873, the highest recorded at any World Cup since USA 1994. 5,154,386 people had attended FIFA Fan Fests, with Rio de Janeiro's spectacular Copacabana site attracting 937,330 - the highest number in any individual city. The average crowd at matches of 53,592 was also the highest in two decades. Tax revenues from the event totalled $ 7.2 billion (FIFA, 2015). The head of Brazil's tourism appeared pleased, as the event generated large numbers of foreign tourists and little disruption (Neto, 2014). Adidas, a major sponsor, similarly appeared to be satisfied with their investment and association with the event (Adidas, 2014).

Section snippets

The effects of hosting a major event

A major event can improve both awareness and image of the host country (Kim & Morrsion, 2005). There is a significant relationship between a country's image and intent to visit the country (Gibson, Qi, & Zhang, 2008) and to recommend to others to do the same (Choi, Tkachenko, & Sil, 2011; Stylidis, Shani, & Belhassen, 2017). Some major events such as the World Cup and the Olympic Games have been categorised as mega events, defined as occasions of a fixed duration that attract (1) a large number

Methods and measures

Most prior work on the effects of country brand imagery has adopted a cross-sectional methodology. More recently researchers have adopted a longitudinal approach, measuring location image either side of an event. However this ideally involves interviewing the same individuals at both time points (e.g. Herz and Arnegger, 2017a, Herz and Arnegger, 2017b; Sun & Paswan, 2012), a possible explanation for the lack of such studies (Lee, Kim, Lee, & Kim, 2014). Here the same citizens of Colombia (91),

Change in attitudes either side of the world cup

The average of our cognitive measure (calculated as the mean for all respondents) fell post event and significantly so: Overall Attitude (Mean1 = 3.30 Mean2 = 3.16, p < .001). The pre and post event measures for individual respondents correlated significantly (Overall Attitude CC = 0.78, p < .001) but not perfectly. The mean scores for the three dimensions of NBP also declined but only in one case significantly so: Warmth1 = 3.05, Warmth2 = 3.04 (p = .83), Competence1 = 3.76 Competence2 = 3.61

Discussion

When we began our research we did not expect the World Cup would have an associated negative effect on attitudes towards the host nation. But even before we had analysed our data, it was clear that media comment not directly associated with the event or a greater understanding of social issues might have reduced or countered any positive impact from the event itself. Our first finding, that the event is associated with a fall in overall imagery and tourism intentions could not have been

Implications

The imagery from holding the 2014 World Cup probably benefited Brazil because of the association with a world event but the main problem was the concomitant exposure to damaging media commentary (Buarque, 2015) which then produced a larger, negative effect. One implication for practitioners is then to use such major events to promote a country only when the internal realities of that country are compatible with the desired external image. Those promoting major global sporting events need also

Contributions of each author

The research was designed and led by José I. Rojas-Méndez who also organised the data collection in Peru and Colombia. The questionnaire design was done by José I. Rojas-Méndez and Jutatip Jamsawang. The latter also organised data collection in Austria. Data collection in Colombia and Peru was done by Jose Luis Sandoval and Gina Pipoli, respectively. The review of literature was begun by José I. Rojas-Méndez and extended by Gary Davies, who wrote the first draft of the paper. They also shared

Funding

No author has any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence this work.

José I. Rojas-Méndez, is Professor of International Business and Marketing at Sprott School of Business, Carleton University, Canada. His research interests include nation branding, international consumer behavior, cross-cultural issues in business and international marketing. He has published more than 50 academic papers and his work has previously appeared in journals like The Journal of Business Research, Marketing Intelligence and Planning, The Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of

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    José I. Rojas-Méndez, is Professor of International Business and Marketing at Sprott School of Business, Carleton University, Canada. His research interests include nation branding, international consumer behavior, cross-cultural issues in business and international marketing. He has published more than 50 academic papers and his work has previously appeared in journals like The Journal of Business Research, Marketing Intelligence and Planning, The Journal of Advertising Research, Journal of Vacation Marketing, and The Journal of Product and Brand Management. In 2017 he was awarded the Research Achievement Award granted by Carleton University.

    Gary Davies is Professor of Business Strategy at the University of Chester within the Business Research Institute. He is also Emeritus Professor of Strategy at Manchester Business School. His main areas of research are in the influence of image and reputation on business success. His current research includes modelling the factors that explain performance in international markets, personal branding and corporate branding. His work has been published in the Strategic Management Journal, Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science, Journal of International Business, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of Business Research, British Journal of Management and the Harvard Business Review

    Jutatip Jamsawang is a doctoral student in the department of business administration at University of Vienna, Austria. Her research interests consist of consumer perceptions, consumer behavior, retailing, and cross-cultural issues in business and marketing. She has published some academic papers and made several contributions to edited volumes. She has gained several awards, including a prize from the Economic Chamber of Vienna.

    José L. Sandoval Duque is Professor of Strategic Management at different universities in Colombia. Simultaneously, he is the National Dean of the School of Management at Universidad Cooperativa de Colombia and an experienced consultant in the organizational development field. His research interests include strategic management, organizational alignment, management skills development and human resource development.

    Gina M. Pipoli is professor in the Academic Department of Marketing and International Business and a researcher at Universidad del Pacífico, Peru. She is the author of several books and articles in her field. She has extensive teaching experience in her areas of expertise: Marketing, Marketing Strategies, Brand Management, Relationship Marketing and CRM, Customer Loyalty, International Marketing, New Product Development, Market Research and Product Strategy, among others.

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