The analysis of the 224 journal articles revealed a pool of 326 possible impacts. Such a large number of impacts was cumbersome and needed to be reduced to a manageable size. It became apparent from the data that many of the impacts were similar except for subtle nuances. The first step was to identify any duplicate impacts that could be combined into a single impact, though this only reduced the number marginally (examples of the steps in the collapse are shown in Appendix Two). Thus a more comprehensive collapse was needed. The first step was to designate the most cited impacts in the publications as leading impacts, and the remaining impacts as lesser impacts. The second step was to sort the lesser impacts according to the leading impact with which they were most similar. Thirdly, with a copy and paste function, the lesser impacts were absorbed by the leading impacts. It should be noted that some of the names of the leading impacts needed to be modified to reflect the impacts that had been absorbed and on occasion, some impacts were moved from one area to another. The pool of possible impacts was reduced from 326 to 96.
An expert panel was convened to discuss the results of the first collapse. The aim was to provide an objective opinion on the direction that the analysis was taking. The results of the collapse were discussed with an expert panel who were asked to provide an objective opinion concerning the direction that the research was taking. Specifically, the panel members were presented with the details of the first collapse and asked to consider the approach that was taken in collapsing the impacts as well as the results of the collapse. In general, the panel agreed with the approach taken. This feedback was important given that there was little literature available on the procedures for undertaking the collapse.
This number of impacts was still considered too large to be used for a parsimonious TBL evaluation, consequently, a second collapse was undertaken. A similar approach was taken to the first collapse in terms of the designation of leading and lesser impacts, which was done according to the number of citations the impacts received in the literature. After this, the lesser impacts were absorbed by the leading impacts. As a result of the second collapse, the pool of possible impacts was reduced from 96 to 20. This number of impacts was deemed appropriate, especially as in the next phase
of the research, the impacts were presented to a panel of experts via a Web based survey. Therefore, the list had to be manageable as any more than 20 impacts would potentially detract from the task given to the panel members. The list of impacts was then re-sorted into its former schema of economic, social and environmental.
3.3.3.2 List of Special Event Impacts Cited in the Publications
The list of impacts (see Table 3.5) corresponded with the research focus of the publications, in that economic impacts were the impacts most frequently cited in the publications. Of the 20 impacts listed, 13 were economic, whilst six were social and there was only one environmental impact. As revealed in Table 3.5, impacts relating to destination promotion were by far the most cited impact (81.7%). This may be indicative of the important relationship that exists between an event and tourism, as often, images of events are transferred to the destination to enhance and promote the destination to potential tourists (Jago et al. 2002). The other economic impacts that were cited in over 40% of the publications were economic benefits (49.6%), visitor expenditure (45.5%) and employment opportunities and skills development (44.2%). In terms of the social dimension, impacts relating to community pride were the most frequently cited, with nearly half (47.8%) of the publications citing related impacts. Negative impacts featured highly in the publications and the two most frequently cited economic impacts were those relating to the costs of staging the event (30.4%) and damage to reputation of destination (21.4%). The negative social impacts were those that resulted from a sudden influx of tourists such as overcrowding, congestion and noise (33.5%) and crime and vandalism (25.4%). Despite only two publications focusing on the environmental impacts, a number of publications (20.5%) referred to the affect that events have on natural resources. It should be noted that this impact represents both positive and negative environmental impacts that arise from the staging of special events. The environmental impact of events is a clearly a research gap that should be pursued in future event research.
Table 3.5 Impacts Cited in Special Event Publications
Special event impacts Number of
publications citing impact % of publications Economic (positive) Destination promotion 183 81.7 Economic benefits 111 49.6 Visitor expenditure 102 45.5
Employment opportunities and skills development 99 44.2
Development of tourism industry 87 38.8
Legacy of infrastructure and facilities 80 35.7
Business development and investment opportunities 72 32.1
Capital expenditure on construction of facilities 40 17.9
Corporate sponsorship 28 12.5
Economic (negative)
Costs of staging event 68 30.4
Damage to reputation of destination 48 21.4
Inflation 42 18.8
Under-utilisation of infrastructure 27 12.1
Social (positive)
Community pride 107 47.8
Improvement in quality of life of host community 80 35.7
Celebration of community values 73 32.6
Social (negative)
Overcrowding, congestion and noise 75 33.5
Crime and vandalism 57 25.4
Disruption of lifestyle of residents 49 21.9
Environmental
Affect on natural resources 46 20.5
As highlighted in Chapter One, there appears to be a developing consensus from academic researchers that a broader approach to special event evaluation is required and that a standardised set of measurements is needed to enable comparisons to be made of the performance of a range of different events. The results from the literature analysis highlight the historical dominance of the economic paradigm in event evaluations, which in turn, reflects the emergence of event evaluation from the more general tourism evaluation literature. This has been particularly noticeable in the economic impact studies. The literature also shows that an increasing number of researchers are focusing on the social impact of events, particularly the perceived impact on the host community. In contrast, the amount of research conducted on the environmental impact of events is minimal.
Academic literature is not the only source of event evaluations, however, as there are also a large number of event impact assessments, which have been undertaken by consultants on behalf of government tourism agencies and event agencies. In addition, academic articles discussed event evaluation issues rather than actually doing an assessment although some articles were based on actual events. Therefore, in order to gain an overall understanding of the types of impacts used in event evaluations these impact studies also need to be considered. The advantage of including actual impact evaluations is that the analysis will provide a ‘reality check’ on the results of the academic literature. The next section details how this study gathered and analysed a large number of the event assessments in order to extract the key impacts that were used in the event evaluations.