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The Economic Impact of the Olympic Games

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Abstract Since de Second World War , there has been a substantial increase in the range of events worldwide, varying from single day fetes and fairs to major sporting and cultural festivals.
Special events are seen to have the ability to produce a wide range of significant economic and social benefits for communities and regions. In seeking to understand the field of special events, I took as a case study the Olympic Games mega-event.

KEYWORDS: special events, Olympic games, mega-events, economic impact, investments

INTRODUCTION

The fundamental aim of this research is to measure the economic impact of the Olympics globally, regional and local. During the 1990s, there has been a growing number of people advocating a move …show more content…

As well as providing opportunities to increase direct expenditure at a destination, they can also contribute substantially to a destination’s range of tourist attractions, facilitate media coverage for the destination, promote awareness of the destination for future visitation and lead to the construction of new facilities and infrastructure. The prominence given to special events by governments and tourism marketing organisations has resulted in some destinations seeking to specialise in the creation and hosting of special events. There is also a trend towards the construction of ‘mega-venues’ catering for conventions, trade shows, art and sporting events.
The proliferation of events, and event-producing agencies, has resulted in the need for the performance of events to be evaluated more stringently. Event managers and planners are now being called upon more often to prepare comprehensive post-event evaluations with detailed accounts of the impacts of the event. As many special events require financial assistance from governments and businesses in order to be staged, post-event evaluations are required by such agencies that need to assess the value of their investments. Evaluation is also required by event organisers who need to justify their activities to a diverse set of stakeholders, which includes sponsors, funding agencies, economic and tourism development agencies, special interest groups, and the

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