Sports-Events, Tourism and Destination Marketing Strategies Case Study

This week I read an article titled, “Sports-Events, Tourism and Destination Marketing Strategies: an Australian Case Study of Athens 2004 and its Media Telecast.” The article focuses on the event marketing for mega-events. It also shows results from a telecast media marketing researching regarding the Olympics in 2004. I thought it was interesting article. It provided information that can be applicable to events other than the Olympics.

With mega-events there is an opportunities for different locations to ‘host’ the event. “Short-term sporting events of fixed duration, such as the Olympic and Commonwealth Games, provide opportunities for host destinations to showcase their attributes to their visitors … these mega-events can change how host destinations are perceived and that they provide the new ‘middle class tourist’ with the impetus to visit host destinations in the future” (pg. 188). There are many event-marketing strategies that can be used to highlight the host destination and bring people to the event. This article particularly focused on the marketing tool of telecasting. For global mega-events telecasting is great way to not only market the event but also a way to use visuals to draw participants to the destination. Global events, like the Olympics, usually require travel from attendees around the world so it is important to market the location and draw in the global crowd.

The event and destination are closely related, the article states, “There appears to be synergies between event marketing and destination, or place, marketing” (pg. 189). By using event marketing and destination marketing strategies together would be optimal. “One premise of event-related destination marketing strategies is that images and information communicated of, and about, host destinations through events, particularly mega-events, have the capacity to create positive perceptions [of a destination] which will likely be associated with positive behavioral intentions [to visit the destination] in the future” (pg. 189). The 2004 Olympics in Athens proved these theories to be true.

Overall I enjoyed this article and found the perspective interesting. While reading I was thinking that the article must be outdated and learned that it was written in 2005. I thought it might be outdated because telecasting has started to become outdated as well. I have also been hearing in the news that the Shanghai Olympics had the opposite results of the Athens Olympics. After the Shanghai Olympics ended and moved on, the economy took a hit plus many other consequences. As technology has developed I did not really agree with the telecasting strategies but the connections and ideas surrounding the combination of destination and event marketing were very valid.

Source:

Hede, Anne-Marie. "Sports-events, Tourism and Destination Marketing Strategies: An Australian Case Study of Athens 2004 and Its Media Telecast." Journal of Sport & Tourism 10.3 (2005): 187-200. Web. 16 Oct. 2016.