Negative Impacts of Mega-Event Tourism - Case Study Example

 Negative Impacts of Mega-Event Tourism Writer Name Section Number of Course Instructor Name Date Negative Impacts of Mega-Event Tourism Mega-events, also referred to as “hallmark” or “landmark” events, are large-scale events intended to renew investment in host cities, usually in the tourism sector, by projecting a positive image of the city. Mega-events can be distinguished from smaller events—such as routine conferences, celebrations, or sporting events—by the tremendous amount of resources that go into their implementation and the physical legacies for host cities. (Greene, 2003: 164-165) Mega-event tourism refers to the tourism that is generated by such mega events. Mega events may vary in nature from sports and culture to politics and religion. The Olympic Games, United Nations conferences, cultural festivals that draw tourists from all over the world and international religious conferences are all examples of mega events. The high profile nature of the event, the involvement of a group of people with vested interests referred to as the key elites, the short duration of the event and the pressure of organizing and executing a large number of tasks on time, usually generate analysis of the cause-and-effects relationships based on economic benefits such as increase in tourism, development of infrastructure and other more intangible gains such as image building and boosting of national pride. Such economic and other benefits are more perceived and projected than based on any realistic assessment. In their haste to justify public expenditures for mega events, governments and organizers marshal evidence of economics and other benefits -- many of which it turns out are incalculable, or if calculable are best considered as estimates only (Mules & McDonald, 1994; Crompton and McKay 1994:33). In the introduction to his paper Assessing the Impact of Mega Events: A Linkage Model, Harry H Hiller makes the phenomenon very clear: ‘Indeed in many cases, the contribution to economic growth becomes the dominant rationale for hosting the event. The economic justification is so compelling to key elites that other impacts are considered minor. Negative impacts are either ignored or hidden under the table (Hall & Hodges, 1996). Opponents are considered unpatriotic, naysayers, or prisoners of unacceptable ideologies.’ According to Hiller, this over emphasis on the obvious and immediate economic impact of the mega event itself has more often than not resulted in overlooking of other dimensions which may be part of a broader process with three kinds of linkages: forward linkages, backward linkages and parallel linkages. Forward linkages refer to the effects caused by the event itself; backward linkages refer to the powerful background objectives which justify or rationalize the event; and parallel linkages are side effects which are residual to the event itself and not under the control of event organizers (Hiller, 1998). Assessment of mega-event tourism based on the linkages proposed by Hiller could throw light on many long and short-term negative impacts of such tourism endeavors. The objective of this paper is to take a more holistic look at the many process involved in mega-event tourism, and identify and establish negative impacts that have accrued or could accrue from such events. This would call for analyses of the effects of the mega event itself. The basic claim that mega events bring in large amounts of revenue for the cities or countries that are lucky enough to host them has itself been contested by many scholars and researchers. This is because leagues, team owners, and event organizers have a strong incentive to provide economic impact numbers that are as large as possible in order to justify heavy public subsidies. The NFL and MLB use the Super Bowl and baseball’s All-Star Game as carrots to prompt otherwise reluctant city officials and taxpayers to provide lavish funding for new stadiums to the great financial benefit of the existing owners (Matheson 2006). The tax payers’ money however usually do not figure in the final cost-profit analyses. As an example, thought the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake city showed a profit on paper, it did not take into consideration the millions of dollars invested by the US Department of Defence in providing security at no costs whatsoever to the local organizing committee. (Matheson 2006) Roche (1994) states that ‘mega events are short-term events with long-term consequences for the cities that stage them.’ In most cases the long-term consequences are negative rather than positive (Gibson, H.J. 1998). The Olympics can best illustrate the negative impacts that mega-event tourism can have on the host city. Hall’s (1993:583) analysis that ‘hallmark events may be used for personal political ambitions,’ holds true in the case of Olympic games. Jennings (1996) is of the view that the ‘why and for who?’ (Hall, 1993) is taken away from the hands of the host civic leaders during the bidding process. For Jennings, the International Olympic Committee (IOC) members are ‘serial freeloaders’ who gorge themselves on the bidding cities. Public money is transferred to private pockets. The scandals related to the Seoul Summer and Nagano and Salt Lake City Winter Olympic games confirm allegations of corruption in the bidding process (NZPA, 1999a). Cities which participate in the bidding process but fail in the endeavor sustain considerable losses to the public exchequer. The local residents have to ultimately bear these losses through various forms of taxations. Sydney’s bid for the 2000 Olympics cost A$ 24 million (Pedro 2006). Again, Dr Brown & Massey (2001) asserts a possible negative impact of bidding for and hosting a mega event could be the diversion of funds required for public sector investments such as hospitals, schools and extra welfare staff, to infrastructure development for the mega event. The investment required for hosting mega events could be astronomical. For example, FIFA requires that the host nation provide at least 8 and preferably 10 modern stadiums with seating capacities of 40,000 to 60,000 spectators. For the 2002 world Cup hosted jointly by Japan and South Korea, each country provided 10 stadiums. South Korea ended up spending $2 billion and Japan $4 billion for the stadiums. Japan’s total investment for new infrastructure for the world Cup is estimated at $5.6 billion (Matheson & Baade 2003). Such high expenditures have their consequences. There have been instances in which the hosting of mega events have resulted in the over indebtedness of the host city. It is the tax payers have had to pay for such over indebtedness. Preuss (1998) cites the example of Montreal Olympic Games of 1976 when the cost estimates were far exceeded due to unexpected investments, wrong calculations, strikes, etc. Montreal tax payers have had to pay off their share for an undetermined period of time. A special tobacco tax was enforced to balance the deficit. In the same paper, Preuss summarizes that ‘Olympic Games only (can) lead to an over-indebtedness of the city if sports facilities and traffic infrastructure required to stage the Games are hardly existent and if there is no follow-up demand for such a structure.’ In this context, the issue of over indebtedness becomes all the more crucial for developing nations where the expenditure required may be far too prohibitive especially in terms of the opportunity cost of capital. In such a case, Matheson & Baade (2003) states that ‘from an economic point of view, the cost of building a new stadium is not best described by the amount of money needed to build the facility but rather the value to society from the same amount of capital spent on the next best public project. Nigeria’ government recently spent $330 million on a new national soccer stadium, more than the annual national government expenditures on health or education. During the same time period Detroit built Primerica Park to replace aging Tiger Stadium for roughly the same cost. While many would argue that Detroit has also misplaced its spending priorities, condemnation of the Nigerian soccer stadium has been nearly universal. The criticism is not directly due to the cost of the stadium, but rather the cost of the stadium in the face of other pressing needs for a low development country like Nigeria.’ A major concern of inducing tourism through hosting of a mega event is the scope of future utilization of the infrastructure developed for the purpose. If the infrastructure developed is not utilized meaningfully in the aftermath of the event, it affects the overall sustainability adversely. The 1968 Mexico Olympics, and the 1988 Seoul Olympics witnessed suppression of human rights and deaths of many host residents (Jennings 1996). ‘720,000 room-renters were forcibly removed in advance of the 1988 Olympics in Seoul, thousands of low income tenants and small businesses were forced out of Barcelona before the 1992 Games (and) more than 9000 homeless people (many of them African-American) arrested in the lead-up to the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta’ (Shapcott 1998). It is not restricted to the Olympics alone. When the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) held their joint international conference in Bangkok in 1991, the government forcibly evicted around 2,000 slum dwellers from the vicinity of the $90 million Queen Sirikit National Convention Centre which hosted the conference. Similarly, in 1976 also, when the World Bank and IMF had hosted the conference in the Phillipines, President Marcos had evicted 200 families from slums in Manila in the name of a ‘Beautification Campaign’ in preparation for the conference. (Greene 2003) Loss of rental accommodation is another negative impact that can assume alarming proportions. With the prospect of accommodating event visitors at higher rates, there is always the probability of existing rental housing being converted into tourist accommodation. Vulnerable low-income tenants are more susceptible to loss of rental accommodation in this manner. The situation is attenuated by the influx of employment seekers and others who cannot afford increased hotel costs. The Preliminary Social Impact Assessment of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympic and Winter Paralympic Games reports a decline of vacancy to 4 per cent in the summer of 1996 from 17 per cent in 1991 in Atlanta as a consequence of the Atlanta Summer Olympic Games of 1996. Commercialization of the Olympics has lead to flouting of the very spirit of the game in the form of loss of credibility of drug tests, bid to cover up positive drug tests and jeopardizing the Paralympic movement for the interest of large business houses. This also lends credibility to the stand that benefits of the Olympics are not reaped by the host cities, but by private business houses. Tourism itself does not stand to make any considerable gain. The rationale behind this is that though the mega event has a very high potential for drawing tourists of related interests, sports tourists or ‘Sports Junkies’ as labeled by Flaunker et al. (1998) in the case of the Olympics, the mega event also serve to displace a large number of general tourists who tend to avoid the atmosphere or environment of the mega event. As a result, it has been found that the net tourism benefit is much less than the expected. Moreover, specific-interest tourists such as ‘sports junkies’ are seldom interested in sampling the wider tourism products that the host country has to offer. The 2002 soccer World Cup in South Korea may be cited as an illustrative example. Though there was increase in the number of European tourists to South Korea, it was displaced by almost an equal reduction in the number of regular tourists and business travelers who avoided South Korea due to the World Cup hassles. The total number of foreign visitors to South Korea during the World Cup in 2002 was estimated at 460,000, a figure identical to the number of foreign visitors during the same period in the previous year. (Baade, R.A., Bauman, R., Matheson, V.A. 2006) The much touted potential of a mega event to create interest and attract people to the host location is also questionable. In terms of destination image, mega events could work very adversely and serve to portray a very negative image due to traffic congestions, scarcity of accommodation facilities, high security alert situations, terrorism treats, etc. which are commonly associated with any mega event. Atlanta’s image took a terrible beating because of what was perceived as poor organization of the 1996 Atlanta Summer Olympics; the terrorist attack on the Israeli Olympic team in the Munich Olympics of 1972 harmed the image of the city. (Pedro 2006). The hosting of a mega-event also leads to an increase in crime rates. Barker (2002) comments that though hosting events has predominantly been considered from an economic perspective, although there is a growing recognition that the social impacts can be substantial (Fredline and Faulkner 2000; Soutarand McLeod 1993). Crime and safety issues can adversely affect tourism behavior and experiences (Bentley and Page 2001; Pizam and Mansfeld 1996; Tarlow 2000). Baker (2002) goes on to say that historical evidence indicates that hosting events can lead to considerable negative impacts. Their seasonality effect can cause disruptions to local lifestyles, increase crowding, inflate prices, and lead to resident frustration towards tourism. Published research has argued that increases in criminal activity accompany the hosting of special events. Negative impacts of mega events on the economy could include inflation. The economy is prone to inflation especially in the years leading to the mega event. Supply bottlenecks also tend to drive prices up as there is constant time pressure due to the deadline. Growth in employment opportunities and income will be substantial during the construction phase and during the staging of the event. However, once the event is over, there will be a sharp decline in demand leading to contraction in both employment and income. The transitory nature of such events also acts against long-term positive impacts. Companies react to the short-term nature of such events by preferring to increase working hours and prices rather than promoting investments and employment growths (Pedro 2006). The staging of mega events can have very harmful effects on the environment. In many cases environmental issues are overlooked in the need for creation of infrastructure for the event. Land-use patterns are arbitrarily altered to accommodate higher building capacity. This leads to cutting into protected areas that may have been marked as green belts or wildlife sanctuaries. The delicate balance of the ecosystem is endangered. After examining the negative impacts of mega-event tourism, it becomes very clear that the holding of mega events should be based on the central theme of ‘why and for who’ the event is to be organized (Hall, 1993:584). Even though mega events are associated with the prospect of economic and tourism, recent studies and researches raises doubts about the validity of these prospects. It has been forcefully argued that the local hosts do not stand to benefit economically from such events. Even though mega events hold very high promise for tourism, equally adverse effects are possible if things do go wrong. It would be foolish to take all the hype and hoopla associated with mega events at face value. There is always the possibility of such events being hijacked by political and commercial interests. The need of the hour is for detailed and realistic analysis of mega-event tourism. It is time to weed out the facts from the hype. References 1. Baade, R.A., Bauman, R., Matheson, V.A. Selling the Big Game: Estimating the Economic Impact of Mega-Events through Taxable Sales. International Association of Sports Economists, Working Paper Series, Paper No. 06-10, 2006 2. Barker, M. Modeling Tourism Crime. The 2000 America's Cup Annals of Tourism Research, Vol. 29, No. 3, 2002:762-782 3. Bentley, T., and S. Page 2001 Scoping the Extent of Tourist Accidents. Annals of Tourism Research 28:705-726. 4. Brown, Dr A., Massey, J. The Sports Development Impact of the Manchester 2002 Commonwealth Games: Initial Baseline Research. Literature Review: The Impact of Major Sporting Events Manchester Institute for Popular Culture Manchester Metropolitan University, 2001 5. Faulkner, B., Tideswell, C. and Weston, A.M. (1998) Leveraging Tourism Benefits from the Sydney 2000 Olympics. 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