The Vuelta goes glocal: Changes in the Vuelta a España’s communication strategy and media relations under the new Amaury Sport Organization’s management

Abstract

KeywordsVuelta Ciclista a España professional cycling public relations media relations local press ASO Helle Kettner-Høeberg and bernat lópez Universitat Rovira i Virgili the race (by means of expanding its global TV viewership) and its relations with the Spanish regional and local press. This move has meant that Unipublic has aligned with the Tour de France model of relations with the local media, aimed at increasing the visibility of the race throughout the year and not just during the event's celebration, and at increasing the crowds attending live on the roadsides.

Expanding the legal common good via sustainable urban mobility

“…However, it is important to realize the difficulty in providing reliable estimates of crowds attending this sort of events, given the lack of turnstiles and tickets to control admissions (Figure 4). It is important to emphasize that fans stretch across long various segments of the races, and they also leave and come back (Kettner-Høeberg and L opez, 2015). Financial debts remaining to be paid, a quite common occurrence in large giga-events (Müller, 2015b), were not mentioned by the media in Richmond.…”

“…Examples of road cycling competitions include periodical (annual) country-wide cycling championships also called “grand tours,” such as the Tour de France , the Giro d’Italia and the Spanish La Vuelta (Bull and Lovell, 2007; Balduck et al , 2011; Berridge, 2012; Kettner-Høeberg and López, 2015). Contrarily to the UCI RWCC, which takes place over a matter of days, these tours last several weeks, take place in various regions of a country and provide outstanding opportunities for country marketing by featuring not only regional assets, natural and built heritage but also a country’s many local cultures.…”

“…These competitions also provide opportunities to bolster their host cities’ tourism assets and regional heritage; however, the scope of such promotional activities is relatively more confined than that of national competitions. Kettner-Høeberg and López (2015, p. 184) have stated that until the late 1980s, “cycling was an essentially Western European affair, hardly spreading beyond its historical cradle of four countries: France; Belgium; Italy, and Spain.” …”