THE INFLUENCE OF MEDIUM SCALE HOST CITIES’ IMAGE ON MEGA SPORTING EVENTS: THE UEFA EURO 2016

Mega-sporting events have long been perceived as an exciting way to gather people to attend the performance of top athletes and as a chance for stakeholders to benefit from various kinds of impacts. However, sport events are now facing increasing criticism. The goal of this study is to examine how organizing committees can benefit from the destination image to positively influence sport events’ image and intention to recommend. Based on a comprehensive analysis of the literature the following variable have been measured: destination image, event image, event recommendation, tourist satisfaction. During the UEFA Euro 2016 held in France, 725 questionnaires were collected. A confirmatory factor analysis was conducted to test the construct validity, followed by a SEM to test the hypothesized relations. We found that destination image positively influences event image, and that event image positively influences event recommendation and tourist satisfaction. However, destination image did not have a significant influence on tourist satisfaction. This study points out the need for sport events’ right holders to pay attention to image factors in selecting the host territory since the latter can influence the perception of the event.