میزبانی رویدادهای بزرگ : مدلسازی پشتیبانی محلی

This study develops and tests a structural model to assess key factors on residents’ perceptions of the impacts of the 2002 Winter Olympics as a mega tourism event and how these perceptions affect their support. The model is based on previous literature and uses data collected during the event. Community backing for mega events is affected directly and/or indirectly by five determinants of support: the level of community concern, ecocentric values, community attachment, perceived benefits, and perceived costs. There are interactions between costs and benefit factors, and support relies heavily on perceived benefits rather than costs. Theoretical and managerial implications are discussed.

Traditionally, mega event planning involves a predominantly political planning approach, which allows little input from local residents apart from the initial election of political representatives (Roche 1994). Veal (1994) refers to this approach as hallmark decisionmaking, where the plan to proceed with a project is made first, and attempts are later made to justify it (Haxton 1999). Recently, a more democratic approach to such planning has emerged as an alternative, which combines both technical rationality and participatory democracy in the overall planning process (Getz 1991; Haxton 1999; Jafari 1990). As suggested by Haxton (1999), the more democratic approach to mega event planning is arguably more difficult to implement and as a result less frequently adopted, or adopted in name only. Successful implementation of the more democratic planning approaches, such as Toronto’s bid for the 1996 Summer Olympic Games and Calgary Olympics, suggests that community involvement and support may transform such occasions more into urban festivals likely to become significant urban experiences for hosts and guests (Hiller 1990). While active support is likely to transform a mega sporting event into an urban festival, it is also possible that active opposition to hosting it may lead to delays, legal action, and abandonment of projects. Therefore, it is important to assess the level of support/opposition and to understand the antecedents of support/opposition by locals for local governments, policymakers, and businesses (Haxton 1993; Hernandez, Cohen and Garcia 1996). Conceptually, this may even suggest some form of benchmarking or barometer approach for better estimation of when and if there are concerns with future planned proceedings. Since community involvement in planning is a relatively recent phenomenon, it is to be expected that research into locals’ support for hosting these venues is quite limited. In contrast, research into local residents’ support for these occasions generally is abundant. Indeed, its importance has been widely recognized by planners and businesses that have to take the views of the host community into account for the success and sustainability of their investments (Williams and Lawson 2001). This component of the “environmental” scanning and monitoring process has become relatively common for strategic destination management, although with little formal documentation. The studies reported tend to look at tourism as it relates to specific communities, some of which may rely heavily on these venues, while other research looks at communities that depend little on them. In the latter case, residents may be unaware of the magnitude of the contributions or of the negative aspects. The findings reported in these diverse studies suggest some inconsistencies in the relationships, and the sophistication of the modeling has been suspect, in fact, mostly descriptive. A more formally documented modeling approach may be more appropriate. The purpose of this study is to concentrate on a mega sporting event, an obtrusive tourism venue (Webb, Campbell, Schwartz and Sechrest 1971), which would be much more conspicuous to the residents’ life space, raising their awareness levels and probably making them more reactive. This would be an extreme case on a spectrum of “in your face” or obtrusive tourism, as opposed to “small inconspicuous events” that may not impinge on the locals’ life space in terms of awareness levels and may not cause emotional, social, or cognitive reactions. The latter type of venues and activities may be unobtrusive in a community (Gursoy and Rutherford 2004). Such specification would allow a better understanding of the actual perceived impacts and the support in a magnified, obtrusive setting. Specifically, the intent of this study is to build on existing knowledge by developing a model of the effects of key factors on residents’ perceptions of the impacts and how these affect their attitudes toward mega events. The research objectives are to develop a theoretical model to examine the direct and/or indirect effects of various factors on the host community’s support to test and refine the proposed model using structural equation modeling and to evaluate the strength and direction of these factors on support.

Structural modeling was used to test a new model to enable the researchers to evaluate how well the data support the model. It is unlike work by Deccio and Baloglu (2002), which used path analysis, which does not provide information on how well the data support the model with “fit” information. The model proposed in this study has demonstrated how every factor affects the perceptions of the costs and benefits and identifies the interactions among the variables. The model utilized clarified direct and/or indirect causal effects on a host community’s reaction to and support for mega events. The advantage is that this more precise modeling can be used for benchmarking or barometer-type applications. Although it is more difficult to implement, communities are more frequently adopting a more collaborative decision making approach to mega event planning which combines both technical rationality and participatory democracy in the overall planning process (Haxton 1999; Jafari 1990). Communities are slowly abandoning the hallmark decisionmaking (political planning) approach. The successful implementation of the democratic approaches, as in Toronto’s Bid for 1996 Summer Olympic Games and the Calgary Olympics, is fueling this new trend. Politicians and organizers are starting to understand the value of locals’ involvement and support for hosting mega events. Recently, residents’ involvement and support has become even more important for communities planning to bid for Olympic venues. The International Olympic Committee has stated that it will no longer endorse or allow a host city to fund future games solely from private resources. The committee’s need for more public funding is likely to require an increased of level local involvement and support to endorse an increase in taxation to fund the massive and expensive infrastructure projects that will be needed to host Olympic projects (Mihalik 2000). This should encourage political agents to collaborate more with other stakeholders and solicit inputs from community groups before the bidding to stimulate public debate and more community involvement (French and Disher 1997). The emerging collaborative decisionmaking trend makes hosting large venues a more complex phenomenon due to the number of stakeholders involved and affected by the process. While successful hosting depends on how well it is organized, the quality of the infrastructure and facilities, and attractions and services, it also requires increased support and hospitality from locals. Once a community decides to be a host, the quality of life of the locals is likely to be affected. Anger, apathy, or mistrust by the local population will ultimately be conveyed to the tourists and is likely to result in an unsatisfactory experience (Gursoy et al 2004). Support and involvement of the locals are necessary for three important reasons. First, they are often asked to vote for tax increases to support infrastructure and facilities. Second, a friendly and hospitable local population is critical in transforming a mega event into an urban festival to provide a significant experience for residents and guests alike (Hiller 1990). Three, local support and involvement are likely to increase the longevity of positive impacts on the local community. Knowledge of the factors affecting host community support and the interplay of those factors may enable communities to assess the level of support by the stakeholders as the collaboration proceeds. This will avoid committing large amounts of financial and other resources before community concerns are considered. Communities may utilize the modeling in this study as a prototype. In addition, findings could help develop communication strategies that deal with specific issues raised by various community groups and stakeholders. In order to assess the level of support, communities need a better understanding of what is important to the stakeholders. Once they identify what is significant, they may apply the principles of internal marketing to solicit support from the stakeholders. The results suggest communities should evaluate the level of concern stakeholders have about the community, their attitudes toward the environment, and their attachment to the community prior to proposing a plan to host a mega event. The greater the concern for the community, the more support a mega event-hosting proposal is likely to attain. Internal marketing techniques designed to inform locals of the benefits they are likely to receive may help win their support. This study indicates that residents who expressed a high level of attachment to their communities are more likely to view hosting a mega event as beneficial. This suggests that such residents can then be recruited as supporters of the event and thus increase local involvement and collaboration in the process. As suggested by previous studies, a strong ecocentric value within the community will not necessarily result in opposition. However, it is suggested here that residents with high ecocentric values are likely to pay more attention to costs. Therefore, communities need to recognize that it will be more difficult to promote the benefits of hosting to stakeholders if a large section of them affirm strong ecocentric values. Sensitivity to environmental concerns is crucial to win the support of locals with ecocentric attitudes. Collaboration with such groups and their involvement in the process may increase support, and proposals to develop conservation and preservation programs may help to ease the concerns of the more ecocentric residents. It is readily apparent from the results that in the case of obtrusive tourism venues, the perceived impact of costs does not have the same implications as it might from lesser venues. This mitigation may be explained by the fact that these events are world-class, unique events. As a consequence, residents may perceive that the benefits received outweigh the costs of being a host. Findings also suggest that raising funds for obtrusive venues may be more effective than for less obtrusive developments. Since these events are broadcast worldwide, locals may be more willing to spend money on them to make the community appear impressive. This certainly allows host locations more leeway in budgetary matters. Residents with increased pride and self-esteem, perhaps associated with the attention the community receives, tend to accommodate the higher costs of such developments. This would appear to be the case in this study, as the traditional measure of community concern effect was negated by other intervening variables. Previous studies suggest that a temporal effect may also be present. Communications, perceptions, and visual impacts may be quite different before, during, and after the mega event. For example, Mihalik (2000) reports that residents’ perceptions of the impacts of the 1996 Atlanta Olympics Games changed over time. While support remained strong, people became increasingly concerned about the negative impacts (perceived liabilities). Similar findings were reported by Kim et al (2006) that local residents’ perceptions of the impacts changed drastically after the event was held. Before it started, they had high expectations about the economic and cultural benefits their communities would receive, though they were aware that such advantages would not be cost free. However, they later realized that the benefits generated, especially economic, were lower than they had anticipated. This study did not examine the temporal effects, but the effect of time on the proposed construct and the hypothesized relationships is certainly a subject of future research. In addition, other constructs were not considered in this modeling process. In particular, participation in recreation and leisure pursuits of the residents could also have a direct positive effect on perceived costs and support for tourism development. A Winter Olympic venue may not provide as much recreation and leisure pursuit support as the more extensive Summer Olympics or Soccer World Cup venues. One final aspect not examined was the level of community involvement in the preliminary bidding and planning process of hosting the Salt Lake City Winter Olympics. In other words, what respondents actually knew about the Olympics, how they were informed, the debates that occurred in the community and the media, and their pre-formed opinions on hosting the Winter Olympic Games were not assessed. The inclusion of these factors as moderating variables might possibly have changed the estimated coefficients. Future studies should include questions about the level of community involvement and local knowledge about the mega event to assess the moderating affect of these factors on estimated coefficients and on support.