Bidding for major international sporting events

Kamilla Swart, Urmilla Bob, Douglas Michele Turco

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapterpeer-review

Abstract

Overview Sport is a multi-billion-dollar industry worldwide. Countries and cities aggressively compete against each other for the rights to hold sport events including the Olympic Games, FIFA World Cup, America’s Cup and other such events primarily for economic development purposes. In some cases, the brand and image of a destination becomes inextricably linked to sport, e.g., Augusta, Georgia (Master’s Golf); Athens, Greece (Olympic Games); and Melbourne, Australia (Australian Open). This chapter identifies key aspects of securing sport events, including: the bidding process; operations management and sport event impacts (environmental, economic, social-cultural, etc.). Event strategies employed by sport governing bodies, tourism ministries, relevant government agencies and so forth are also critically analysed and discussed. This chapter and the subsequent analysis offered by Hassan in this compendium, dealing with the process of managing sport events, complement each other perfectly and reflect the importance of these major gatherings for our understanding of the Middle East as a global sport event destination. There have been a number of high profile sport events in the Middle East and North Africa over the past two decades including the 2006 Asian Games in Doha, Qatar; Bahrain F1 Grand Prix; Dubai Desert Golf Classic, and the Dubai World Cup (horseracing), but none bigger than the forthcoming 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar. Qatar in particular indicated that the country has focused on “three pillars in developing and diversifying its economy: education, health and sports - and within sports, the biggest areas of focus are football, golf, tennis, cycling, fencing and table tennis” (Doha’s 2020 Vision, 2008). It’s timely therefore to profile Qatar’s hosting of the 2006 Asian Games as an appropriate departure point in the context of a chapter examining the successful hosting of major sports events, including across the Middle East region.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationSport Management in the Middle East
Subtitle of host publicationA Case Study Analysis
PublisherTaylor and Francis
Pages20-39
Number of pages20
ISBN (Electronic)9781136476471
ISBN (Print)9780415677301
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2013
Externally publishedYes

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