generating their own advertising. Furthermore, with an event of the size and interest of the Olympic Games, the potential to experience negative coverage is significant. However, an effec-tive Olympic media leveraging strategy can play a central role in attempting to maximize the positive aspects of the coverage.
Of course, such a strategy also includes the use of the Olympic Games in the destination’s own advertising material where, as discussed in the next section, the destination is in control of the messages.
Strategies for leveraging the Olympics in host destination
relationship between destination and Olympic association sets.
Again, Chalip (2004:244) has provided some useful questions for destinations to consider, and they are reproduced here in an Olympic context:
•
How do the host city/region’s and country’s target markets view the destination? What are their association sets for the host city/region and country?•
How do the host city/region’s and country’s target markets view the Olympics? What are their association sets for the Olympics?•
What elements from the Olympics association set does the host city/region and country want to use strengthen or change its image?•
How can Olympic associations be best used to emphasize the desired aspects of the host city/region’s and country’s image?Brown et al. (2002) are cited by Chalip (2004) as providing two key insights into the relationship between event images and des-tination images from their work on the Sydney 2000 Olympics.
First, it is noted that images and associations are multi-faceted.
An Olympic host city/region and/or country is likely to be asso-ciated with a range of characteristics (e.g., weather, attractions, etc.) and with emotional responses (e.g., stimulation, relaxation, etc.), whilst the Olympics itself has similar associations with fea-tures (e.g., elite competition, fair play) and emotions (e.g., pride).
Second, the key to effective leveraging is to identify the Olympic associations that the host city/region and country wishes to develop as part of its image, and develop strategies to transfer those associations from the Games to the host city/region and country (Chalip, 2004).
In the pre-Games and Games periods, a key aspect of this strat-egy of association is for Olympic hosts to decide on the way in which they are going to interpret aspects of the Olympic Move-ment, history, and ideology to match their characteristics. The Athens Games of 2004, for example, focussed on the link between ancient and modern. A key part of the Olympic Games is its link to its ancient history, but it is also a global phenomenon that represents the pinnacle of modern sport. Athens wished to draw on this association to promote the value of its ancient culture and history to tourists, but to also show that it was a modern country with a high-quality tourism infrastructure. Similarly, the forthcoming Games in London in 2012 have linked the interna-tional nature of the Olympic Games (each of the Olympic rings
represents one of the World’s continents) with the multicultural nature of London, its population, and its tourism product. Such local interpretations of Olympic themes by host cities/regions and countries should be a clear and consistent part of marketing strategies in the pre-Games and Games periods. The important aspect of such strategies is to use the Olympics to portray mes-sages and associations that are relevant to more general tourists, rather than associations specific to those interested in the Olympic Games. In focussing on more generic associations, hosts are less likely to alienate ‘aversion markets’ who are put-off by the Games themselves, thus helping to minimize the size of categories such as Pre- and Post-Games Avoiders.
Similar principles apply in attempting to leverage the Olympics in post-Games destination advertising and promotion. Over time there should be a gradual move away from advertising Olympic tourism products (such as sports events and attractions) towards using Olympic themes to reinforce destination images.
One such theme might be to focus on quality. A number of previous Olympic hosts have successfully used the association of the Olympics with top-quality sport to promote the high-quality of tourism services and products. Similarly, the size of the Olympics, and the infrastructure needed to host an Olympic Games, can be harnessed to promote a modern and efficient tourism and transport infrastructure, which an event of the size of the Games demands. Chapter 9 describes Beijing’s efforts to promote itself as a modern and progressive global city, and its hosting of the Olympic Games is a key part of its strategy to show itself in this light to a global audience. Beijing sees the Games as a route to developing tourism and trade links with key Western markets. Other hosts have used the Games to develop the lucrative business and conference tourism market. Graham Brown’s discussion of Sydney in Chapter 7 notes that the Sydney Convention Centre generated Aus$530 million worth of business in the four years following the Games in 2000.
A key consideration in leveraging Olympic media is the extent to which messages which may have positive impacts on one cate-gory of Olympic tourist (e.g., Post-Games Sports Tourists) may have negative spin-offs for another (e.g., Post-Games Avoiders).
However, unlike strategies aimed at leveraging Olympic-related reporting and event coverage, the leveraging of the Olympics in host destination advertising and promotion is under the control of destination managers and marketers. Therefore, whilst bal-ancing promotional strategies to cater for the complex range of categories of Olympic tourist outlined in Chapter 3 is not simple, the strategic planning to successfully achieve such a balance is within the capacity of such managers and marketers.
Conclusion
This chapter is perhaps the pivotal chapter in the book, as it attempts to draw together the discussions of the range of Olympic tourism products in Chapter 1 with the discussions of the moti-vations and behaviours of a range of sports-related Olympic tourist profiles and types in Chapter 2 and the examination of the detail of Olympic tourism flows and categories in Chapter 3 to inform a discussion of the strategies that might be employed to leverage Olympic tourism. The discussions throughout this book have been concerned to extend the scope of analysis beyond the Games themselves, both temporally (i.e., across the pre-, during, and post-Games periods) and geographically (i.e., across the host city/region, other regions in the host country, and the host coun-try as a whole). Such an extended scope has led to the discussions in this chapter, by necessity, being illustrative rather than com-prehensive, although an attempt has been made to cover as wide a range of issues as possible. Chapter 7 will now discuss the way in which policy-makers in sport, tourism and other sectors might facilitate and support Olympic tourism. Like the scope of the analysis in this book, the structure of policy-making for Olympic tourism needs to cope with both temporal and geographical dif-ferences in terms of the development of appropriate policies and the inclusion of appropriate organizations. That the sport and tourism sectors have shown themselves to be reluctant to work together in a range of countries around the world in the past could be a significant impedance to Olympic tourism policy, and such issues are a key part of the discussions in the next chapter.
Planning for Olympic tourism
As the final chapter in the first part of the book, this chapter provides the final piece of the jigsaw of an understanding of Olympic tourism. The book commenced with an overview of the relationship between sport, tourism, and the Olympic Games, in the process reviewing a number of Olympic tourism products and establishing a definition of Olympic tourism as tourism behaviour moti-vated or generated by the Olympic Games. Having established the range of Olympic tourism prod-ucts in Chapter 1, Chapter 2 discussed the nature of the sports-related Olympic tourist, examining motivations, behaviours profiles and types. These first two chapters provided the background for a detailed examination of travel flows generated by the Olympics during, before and after the Games in both the immediate host city/region and in the wider host country in Chapter 3. Drawing on this material, Chapter 4 then examined a range of strate-gies that might be used to capitalize on, or leverage, Olympic tourism. This chapter will now discuss the issues that might be experienced by a range of agencies in developing policy and planning for Olympic tourism.
In the broader sport and tourism area, Weed (2001b; 2005b) and Weed and Bull (1997a; 1998) have suggested that there are few examples
around the world of effective and sustainable policy partnerships between agencies responsible for sport and for tourism. This lack of liaison has been attributed to, inter alia, government policy (Weed and Bull, 1997b), organizational culture (Weed, 2002b), the different histories, cultures and structures of the respective policy communities for sport and for tourism (Weed, 2001b), and the perceptions of key individuals in policy-making agencies (Weed, 2006c). However, it has also been suggested that there are ways in which such barriers to liaison can be overcome (Weed, 2003a), and the later part of this chapter examines the extent to which the prospect of the Olympic Games, and the range of benefits it might bring both to sport and to tourism, can stimulate policy partner-ships that would not otherwise have emerged. The chapter also examines the potential for such partnerships to sustain beyond the hosting of an Olympic Games, as well as discussing the most effective ways to organize Olympic-related policy development and planning. However, first, the range of issues that any pol-icy partnerships for the Olympic Games might be expected to address are examined.