Estimating the Perceived Socio-Economic Impacts of Hosting Large-Scale Sport Tourism Events

Abstract

Large-scale sport events help attract a wide range of attendees, resulting in various implications for the host community. This paper is concerned with understanding the legacy of the 13th EHF European Handball Championship, held in Croatia in January 2018, by assessing the event’s economic and social benefits and costs. Drawing on the Social Exchange Theory, it also examines if any significant differences exist between host city residents and non-host city residents regarding their perceived impacts of this event on the host cities. The number of impacts was reduced by Exploratory Factor Analysis. Differences between host city and non-host city residents were examined by an independent samples t-test. The results suggest that community development and pride, security risks, traffic problems, economic benefits, environmental concerns, and economic costs are the main impact dimensions. Non-host city residents expressed a higher level of agreement with most of the impacts, but significant differences exist primarily within the dimensions of community development and pride, economic benefits, traffic problems, and environmental concerns. These findings could benefit event planners and sport marketers when trying to acquire community-wide support and to better understand how residents perceive both the positive and negative impacts that events generate.

Keywords

• sport events
• tourism
• socio-economic impacts
• Croatia
• 2018 EHF European Handball Championship