Major international hallmark events, especially the Olympic Games, represent a significant opportunity for marketing tourism to the host country. Due to the scale and importance of the event, the coordination between the Olympic organizing committee and the destination marketing organization of the host country becomes a knowledge-intensive and exceptionally complicated task. Analyzing on-site interview data collected from top executives of the two major organizations involved in the 2004 Summer Olympic Games (ATHOC and GNTO), this research achieved two objectives: (1) extracted and organized the tacit knowledge from both organizations to discover major issues concerning the Athens 2004 Olympic Games, and (2) identified the strategic alignment issues between the domains of Olympics planning and destination marketing and proposed a conceptual framework for the future Olympic host countries.
Large, internationally known events of world importance and high profile are considered as mega-events that have a major impact on the image of the host countries and cities (Bramwell (1997a) and Bramwell (1997b); Law, 1993). As a unique class of special events, these mega-events can be viewed further as large-scale tourism products and integral to tourism development and marketing plans (Getz, 1989). Mega-events not only directly attract participants and spectators to the host destinations but also raise the host country's profile through advertising and news coverage, indirectly generating tourism revenues from increased future visitations (Bramwell (1997a) and Bramwell (1997b); Chalip, Green, & Hill, 2003; Morse, 2001; Mules & Faulkner, 1996). They are viewed as complex projects requiring multiple activities, resources, and time (Henderson, 2005). Within the group of mega-events, the Olympic Games especially receive tremendous attention internationally and represent a significant tourist asset for marketing tourism of the host area (Ahn & Ahmed, 1994; Bramwell (1997a) and Bramwell (1997b)). The Olympic Games are unparalleled in their scale and the potential impact they can have on the economies of host cities, regions, and countries. The Games can provide an excellent opportunity for local businesses to leverage from networking, enhancing the economic benefits of sport events for host countries (Beriatos & Gospodini, 2004; Chalip & Leyns, 2002; O’Brien, 2006). The exposure and enormous interest of the Olympic Games can also provide an excellent opportunity for countries to market themselves to potential tourists. Therefore, mega-events such as Olympic Games offer the tourism industry of the host countries a unique opportunity to capitalize on their long-term market potential.
Before 1984, in which the Los Angles Olympic Games made a surplus of approximately $311 million, staging the Olympic events was considered a financial and administrative burden to the hosting country and city (Gratton, Dobson, & Shibli, 2000). Encouraged by the financial success of the 1984 Los Angles Olympic Games and driven by the national pride of staging such a prestigious sport event, most recent host countries (especially Australia's 2000 Sydney Games and the United States’ 1996 Atlanta Games) have realized that hosting Olympic Games can be not only a financial success but also an excellent opportunity to position or re-position both the host city and the host destination to a global audience. Olympic Games also help in fostering feelings of national pride and national identity among the host people in the host country (Karkatsoulis, Michalopoulos, & Moustakatou, 2005). The Games ignite feelings of patriotism, community spirit, and the desire to come together in the host communities (Waitt, 2003). In fact, some scholars have suggested that major sport events have become both an important contributor to the local economy (Gratton et al., 2000; Ritchie, 2000) and a vital component of the marketing mix for tourist destinations (Getz, 1998; Gibson, 1998). From the tourism perspective, most countries market their destinations through their destination marketing organizations (DMOs) that strive to differentiate their destinations from others (Buhalis, 2000). These organizations focus on promoting and marketing what the destinations have to offer to tourists and play an important role as a facilitator to achieve the strategic objectives of the destinations (Buhalis & Collins, 2003). The Olympic Games offer unique marketing opportunities and challenges to DMOs of host countries. This paper investigates these opportunities and challenges, especially the aspects that require coordination between the host country's DMO and the National Olympic Committee (NOC) for achieving strategic benefits from the Games.
