Study On The Image Fit Between Sport Events And Host Destinations

With the success of a series of large-scale international sport events such as2008Beijing Olympic Games,2010FINA World Championships (Shanghai) and2010Guangzhou Asian Games and the implications of many historic foreign cities’transformation by holding large-scale sport events, city marketers gradually realizethat sport events have already become a new approach to stimulate the economicdevelopment, to promote city tourism, to build the destination brand as well as toimprove the comprehensive strength. Meanwhile, it becomes extremely urgent tosolve problems about how to use sport events to effectively improve the hostdestination image and how to select appropriate sport events for a certain city.Therefore, studies on the image fit between sport events and host destinations not onlyhelp the government choose proper sport events but also provide the organizers withsupport in evaluating the effects of hosting sport events.Several research methods are adopted in this paper such as literature review,questionnaire survey, mathematical statistics, case analysis etc. With exploratoryfactor analysis and confirmatory factor analysis, this paper defines the measurestructure of image fit between sport events and host destinations, and conducts afurther study on three of Shanghai’s hallmark sport events.The main conclusions of this study are as follows:(1) Through tests of validity and reliability, exploratory factor analysis andconfirmatory factor analysis towards the origin and processed questionnaire, thispaper explores the measure scales of image fit between the selected sport events andthe host destination--Shanghai, and further confirms that this model is applicable inthis study.(2) For2012Formula One Grand Prix Shanghai, the affective image fit index,cognitive image fit index and overall image fit index are respectively o.8218,0.8266，0.8164.(3) For2012ATP Masters Shanghai, the affective image fit index, cognitive imagefit index and overall image fit index are respectively0.8329,0.8350,0.8184.(4) For2012Shanghai International Marathon, the affective image fit index,cognitive image fit index and overall image fit index are respectively0.8990,0.8764,0.8729.(5) The image fit between spectator sport events and the host destinations isverified to be better than that between participative sport events and their host cities.(6) The image fit verifies from different spectator sport events and their hostdestinations.With comparison of item fits, affective image fit and cognitive image fit betweenthree sport events and the host destination, this paper put forward the followingsuggestions for Shanghai on using sport events to improve destination image:(1) It is important to strengthen the cooperation of sport event organizers and thegovernment, and to take every chance to explode the destination image whenpublicizing and hosting a sport event. (2) The sport event organizers should do all they can to create the event images thatare similar to the destination image.(3) The government of Shanghai should cultivate a unique sport atmosphere in theprocess of bidding, preparing and hosting sport events as well as develop the citizens’sport consciousness.(4) The sport event organizers are recommended to set up more experiencinggaming areas outside or near the stadium, which positively enriches spectaculars’experiences other than watching a sport match.(5) The sport event organizers should constantly improve the quality of services,and further improves the spectaculars’ satisfaction.