This paper is a working paper that focuses on developing a conceptual framework to investigate the concept of congruence between city identity and sports event image and its impact on both city brand attitude and city brand equity. Very little is known about the impact of hosting mega-events on the attitude toward the hosting destination and needs further analysis (Lee et al., 2014). Furthermore, despite the importance of brand equity (Christodoulides & de Chernatony 2010), and the fame of events as a tourism marketing tool and helping marketers promote their destination’s brand equity, the relationship between events and brand equity has been largely ignored (Zarantonello & Schmitt, 2013). Finally, the paper suggests the methodology appropriate to empirically examine the suggested conceptual framework.

This paper is a working paper that focuses on developing a conceptual framework to investigate the concept of congruence between city identity and sports event image and its impact on both city brand attitude and city brand equity. Very little is known about the impact of hosting mega-events on the attitude toward the hosting destination and needs further analysis (Lee et al., 2014). Furthermore, despite the importance of brand equity (Christodoulides & de Chernatony 2010), and the fame of events as a tourism marketing tool and helping marketers promote their destination’s brand equity, the relationship between events and brand equity has been largely ignored (Zarantonello & Schmitt, 2013). Finally, the paper suggests the methodology appropriate to empirically examine the suggested conceptual framework.