Stakeholders' perspectives of leveraging tourism and business legacy outcomes from mega sports events.

Abstract

The aim of this research is to develop a critical understanding of the process by which stakeholders leverage tourism and business legacy outcomes from mega sports events. It is common now for many mega sport events stakeholders to look beyond short-term impacts towards achieving long-term legacy outcomes. This indicates that mega sport events have become a part of a broader process that must be invested in throughout the planning process, before, during and after the event. Within previous leveraging approaches, whilst mega sport events are temporally contained, the effect of leveraging is subject to the short term period of the event per se. A strategic approach is required in order to fully leverage legacy outcomes over the long term. This research is concerned with the stakeholders’ perspectives on how such long-term leveraging could be achieved. The methodological design is guided by an exploratory stance. The method adopted is key informant interviews undertaken with salient stakeholders of the London 2012 Olympic Games. A stakeholder is an individual or organisation who is affected by and/or affects the planning process associated with leveraging such legacy outcomes of mega sport events. Identifying key informants as stakeholders depended upon their saliency by evaluating their power, legitimacy and urgency. Snowballing techniques and careful planning assisted in accessing stakeholders for interviews. A total of 15 in-depth semi-structured interviews were undertaken in order to encourage stakeholders to explain their perspectives of optimal leveraging strategies and initiatives. An iterative thematic analysis process was adopted for the rich data, where the research discovered new concepts and categories. The analysis led to three main aspects of leveraging: tourism, business and the role of media in the leveraging process. The evaluation of stakeholders’ perspectives of the factors contributing to the leveraging process from the London 2012 Olympic Games allowed a framework for leveraging tourism and business legacies of mega sport events to be developed. The framework consists of leveraging initiatives that characterised by their proactivity throughout the event planning process, and by considering the event as a theme within this long-term planning process. The emerged leveraging approach is called mega-leverage of mega-events that is not led by the events per se. Thus, the new strategic approach provide a contribution to both knowledge and practice of leveraging tourism and business legacy outcomes of mega sport events, by advancing understanding of what is specifically required for the leveraging process. The thesis also offers holistic insights relevant for leveraging mega sport events by providing tangible recommendations that could lead to more favourable leveraging models of such events. This is especially important because this area of research has both a high potential impact as well as being an under-researched area.