Pre-event competitiveness: exploring residents’ perceptions of place management and local impacts

Abstract

Purpose There is a need to rethink destination competitiveness research, which tends to overlook local impacts of events and new developments. Conducting pre-event research challenges researchers to move beyond analyzing competitiveness as an end (concerning strategy, tangible outcomes, economic deliverables and value for visitors) to assessing competitiveness as a beginning (through perceptions of place management and local impacts). Design/methodology/approach Survey research with local residents explores competitiveness pertinent to perceptions of place management and local impacts. Participation, enthusiasm and information availability are independent variables to assess whether statistically significant differences exist among residents’ perceptions. In total, 454 surveys were collected; the analysis involved exploratory factor analysis and t-test. Findings Factor analysis revealed two factors for place management (organizational competencies; managing awareness) and local impacts (awareness of social benefits; local interest and support). Enthusiasm and information availability have stronger influences on residents’ perceptions than participation in pre-event activities. Practical implications More emphasis needs put on ensuring information availability promotes enthusiasm, to help encourage participation. These three variables are a necessary basis for exploring residents’ pre-event perceptions – a key starting point to guide decision-making through later stages of an event life-cycle. Originality/value Events and competitiveness studies focusing specifically on information availability and enthusiasm of residents is little-explored. By exploring these variables and extending insight on participation, this paper contributes to the literature by assessing pre-event resident perceptions of place management and local impacts (with data collected as event developments were being realized).

Exploring implicit and explicit cultural policy dimensions through major-event and neoliberal rhetoric

“…The research strategy adopted is framed within current cultural and urban policy debates. This paper focuses in on a local cultural policy development context, and builds on recently published research on the ECoC by Ganga (2021) and Wise et al, (2021aWise et al, ( , 2021b). An ex-ante qualitative case study of the Rijeka2020 Programme uses a kaleidoscopic approach to interpret explicit and implicit cultural policy dimensions of the programme as intended and with this impact of COVID-19.…”

“…Campbell et al (2017) voice concern that a continuation of (apparently) problematic practices make it difficult to demonstrate accolated regenerative outcomes-which again underline neoliberal city rhetoric. Boland, Murtagh, and Shirlow (2020) take these insights further and argue that culturephilia drives creative and cultural policy decisions, which increasingly emphasises competitiveness (see also Wise et al, 2021b). In fact, Rijeka2020 embraced similar evaluative strategies to evidence the event's impact; however, the COVID-19 pandemic forced a shift in priorities and the perceived value and legacy of the mega-event, with the CEO of Rijeka2020 says, we 'won't be measuring the impacts of Rijeka2020, but the impacts of COVID-19'.…”

Disneyland in Hong Kong: American image, glocally renowned

“…As a Western attraction and entertainment enterprise operating in a foreign location, many were skeptical of how this would work given different perspectives when it comes to operating a business and satisfying consumer appeal in the local market (Matusitz, 2009). What needs to be considered when we think about entertainment and event attractions is the impact this has on local residents, as this will play an integral role in the competitiveness of the site or attraction (Wise et al, 2021) Another challenge of course came in 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic established itself as a menace to the entire world—especially the tourism, hospitality, leisure, and attraction industries. But companies and attraction organizers found effective ways to bring consumers back so that people were comfortable and felt safe in large gatherings once again (Perić et al, 2021).…”

Book Review: Handbook on Tourism Planning

“…I related with Chapter 13 by José Cadima Ribeiro et al because they argue for research that takes a resident focus. My own work and tourism planning class always comes back to the community residents (see Wise et al, 2021). The attention to consideration of benefits among residents is not skipping over this stakeholder who are most impacted by developments.…”