Socio-Economic Impacts of Event Failure: The Case of a Cancelled International Cycling Race

Abstract

The organization of large-scale sporting events implies different benefits and costs for hosting communities. However, little effort has been devoted to studying the impacts of event failures or postponed or cancelled events from the perspective of local residents. This paper is therefore concerned with the range of local residents’ perceived impacts resulting from the cancellation of the 2019 edition of the international men’s cycling race Tour of Croatia. In addition, it also examines if any significant differences exist between local residents familiar with the race and cancelling and local residents not familiar with the race, regarding the perceived impacts of this cancelled event on the hosting community. The number of perceived impacts was reduced by Exploratory Factor Analysis. Differences between local residents familiar with and those not familiar with the race and its cancelation were examined using the two-independent-samples Mann-Whitney U test. The results suggest that local residents not familiar with the event and its cancelation, when compared with local residents familiar with the event and its cancellation, perceive the majority of negative impacts as being weaker and most of the positive impacts as being stronger.

Mega sporting events and their socio-economic impact: Case study of the 2022 FIFA World Cup

“…A city's intended natural expansion may coincide with certain investments; but the expenses associated with such expenditures may be much greater for taxpayers, taking into consideration that most cities that bid to host mega-events already have substantial infrastructure in place to make the event possible. It seems sense that host cities wouldn't take on many brand-new, significant projects (Chatzitheodoridis and Kontogeorgos, 2020;Department of Culture Media & Sport [DCMS], 2015; Matheson and Baade, 2004;Perić and Vitezić, 2019). Even so, careful planning is necessary to avoid funding infrastructure initiatives that won't add much value, won't be accessible to local communities, and won't offer taxpayers long-term economic benefits (Barajas et al, 2016;Kalogiannidis, Kontsas, et al, 2022a;Lin and Lu, 2018).…”

“…This research points out both the advantages and disadvantages of major athletic events, paying however more attention on the advantageous effects, such as the US$24.8 billion benefit to Japan from the 2002 World Cup (Hover et al, 2016). Perić and Vitezić (2019) noted that the advantages of hosting a FIFA World Cup, like as the World Cup in Russia, are said to be enhanced by the political advantages. Perić and Vitezić (2019) claim that the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia was the costliest World Cup ever, despite the fact that the government still decided to hold it.…”

“…Perić and Vitezić (2019) noted that the advantages of hosting a FIFA World Cup, like as the World Cup in Russia, are said to be enhanced by the political advantages. Perić and Vitezić (2019) claim that the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia was the costliest World Cup ever, despite the fact that the government still decided to hold it. The government provided a funding for the majority of the infrastructure enhancements, including advancements in stadiums and transportation.…”

Overtourism and Medium Scale Sporting Events Organisations—the Perception of Negative Externalities by Host Residents

“…They stimulate the dynamic development of tourism in cities. The phenomenon is very wide and many researchers are trying to carry out scientific analyses to check whether the positive or negative effects of organizing a sports event in a given tourist destination prevail [51][52][53]. According to Hall [19], the impact of sports tourism affects changes in the value systems of individuals, local communities or entire societies caused by sports travel, changes in types of behavior of tourists and the local population, their social structures, lifestyle and level of quality of life.…”

“…Sporting events could also produce excessive spending, increased taxes and higher costs of living for residents [25,78,79]. Even if social and cultural impacts are more difficult to measure and manage [53,80,81] cultural conflicts between residents and tourists are seen. Moreover, security risks, hooliganism or traffic problems seem to be among the most relevant negative impacts for residents [19,25,46,49,51,79].…”