With the detail of Olympic tourism during the hosting of the Games established in the previous section, this section now extends the analysis of event-affected people to the pre- and post-Olympic Games periods. Once again, Preuss’ (2005) analysis is used as a starting point, but this analysis has been extended and developed to cover a wider range of event affected people than that considered by Preuss (see Figure 3.2). The nine categories of event-affected people of interest in the pre- and post-Games periods are as follows:
Those living in the host city/region
•
Changers – this group changed their tourism plans to take a tourism trip out of the host city/region at the time of the Games rather than in the pre- or post-Games period. Consequently, they will now be in the host city/region at a time in the pre- or post-period when they would have otherwise have been away on a tourism trip.Tourists to the city/region
•
Pre-/Post-Games Sports Tourists – these groups are those visit-ing the city/region in the pre-or post-Games period as sports tourists taking part in Olympic-related activities.‘Runaways’
‘Casuals’
‘Residents’
‘Extensioners’’
‘Games Visitors’
‘Home-Stayers’
‘Time-Switchers’
‘Time-Switchers’
Host City/Region Host City/Region Host City/Region
(b) (a)
(b)
‘Cancellers’
‘Post-Games Avoiders’
‘Post-Games Switchers’
‘Post-Games Sports Tourists’
‘Avoiders’
‘Pre-Games Switchers’
Pre-Games Sports Tourists
‘Pre-Games Avoiders’
‘Changers’
‘Pre-Games General Tourists’
‘Post-Games General Tourists’
‘Pre-Games Casuals’
‘Post-Games Casuals’
‘Changers’
Pre-Games period Games period Post-Games period
Figure 3.2
Tourism flows and other movements in the pre-, during, and post-Games periods.
Source:adapted from Preuss, 2005.
•
Pre-/Post-Games General Tourists – these groups are those who have been attracted to the city/region for general tourism as a result of the media coverage that the city/region has received due to being the host of the Olympic Games.•
Pre-/Post-Games Casuals – tourists whose visit to the city/region has not been influenced by the region/city’s status as an Olympic host. This group would have visited the region/city in the pre-/post- Games period regardless of the hosting of the Olympic Games.•
Avoiders: (b) Pre-/Post-Games Switchers – these are general tourists who had planned to visit the city at the time of the Games, but switched their tourism trip to the pre- or post-Games period.Potential tourists to the city/region
•
Pre-Games Avoiders – tourists who avoid the city/region in the pre-Games period as they perceive that there will be a lot of construction and renovation work taking place that may affect their tourism experience.•
Post-Games Avoiders – this group are those who would have planned to visit the city/region, but have been put off by the images and coverage of the city/region in the media during and in the run up to the Games period.•
Time-Switchers – these tourists would have visited the city/region in the pre- or post-Games period, but changed their plans to take their tourism trip at the time of the Games.•
Avoiders: (a) Cancellers – those who have cancelled a trip to the city/region due to its status as an Olympic host.Figure 3.2 and the above descriptors begin to illustrate the broader impact of the Olympic Games on tourism. Of the above nine categories, Changers, Pre-/Post-Games Switchers, Time-Switchers, and Cancellers have already been discussed and the nature of their tourism impact on the host city/region has already been identified. The remaining five categories, however, each have a further additional tourism impact on the host city/region in the pre- and/or post-Games periods. The Pre-/Post-Games Sports Tourists have been discussed in detail in Chapters 1 and 2 and come to the city/region specifically to take part in Olympic-related activities in the pre- and post-Games periods, and obvi-ously have a positive tourism impact. Pre-/Post-Games General Tourists, whilst not sports tourists, have been motivated to visit the city/region as a result of images and perceptions of the city/region that have been generated as a result of Olympic-related activities, and have a positive tourist impact for the city/region. The Pre-/Post-Games Casuals group, as discussed in relation to the Games period, would have been in the city/region regardless of the Games, and may be drawn into Olympic-related activities. However, as Olympic-Olympic-related activities in the post-Games period, and to a lesser extent in the pre-Games period, are not as high profile as during the Games, this group may not necessarily engage in such activities. Consequently, this group are ‘potential’ Olympic tourists. If they do take part in Olympic-related activities, it is likely that spending will not be higher than that which they would have otherwise spent on other tourism activities. As such, Pre-/Post-Games Casuals are likely (although not certain) to have a neutral impact on tourism in the city/region.
The Pre-Games Avoiders group have either pre-established perceptions, or have gained the perceptions through media cover-age, that the city/region will be ‘under construction’ and experi-encing disruption in the pre-Games period, and as such avoid visiting the city/region in the run up to the Games. As this group would have otherwise have visited the city/region, they can be defined as Olympic tourists because the Games have moti-vated them to change their tourism behaviour. This group has a negative tourism impact for the city/region. The Post-Games Avoiders group are the opposite of the Pre-/Post-Games General Tourists in that the media coverage of the Olympic Games has
Table 3.2
The impacts and nature of further event-affected people in the pre-/post-Games period
Tourism Impact? Olympic Tourists?
Pre-/Post-Games Sports Tourists Positive Yes
Pre-/Post-Games General Tourists Positive Yes Pre-/Post-Games Casuals Most likely neutral Potentially
Pre-Games Avoiders Negative Yes, but negatively
motivated
Post-Games Avoiders Negative Yes, but negatively
motivated
put them off visiting the city/region. As such, this group, like the Pre-Games Avoiders, can be classified as Olympic tourists with a negative tourism impact on the city/region. The impacts and nature of these additional categories of event-affected people in the pre-/post Games periods are summarized in Table 3.2.
As in the Games period, the two groups of negatively moti-vated Olympic tourists (Pre-Games Avoiders and Post-Games Avoiders) are of interest to this analysis only insofar as the Olympic Games affects their decision to not travel to the Olympic host city/region. Once this decision has been made, their tourist behaviour is irrelevant to a consideration of Olympic tourism.
Consequently, this leaves three groups of tourists travelling to the host city/region who will be actually or potentially taking part in, or being motivated by, Olympic-related activities. The most straightforward of these categories is Pre-/Post-Games Sports Tourists. For this group, the range of Olympic-related tourism is much wider than that undertaken during the Games which, not surprisingly, is dominated by Sports Events tourism. The Olympic tourism activities of Pre-/Post-Games Sports Tourists may include any of the five sports-related Olympic tourism prod-ucts described in Chapter 1, namely: Sports Training, Sports Events, Sports Participation Tourism, Luxury Sports Tourism or Tourism with Sports Content (see Chapter 1 for examples of these). In the case of the Tourism with Sports Content product, participation in Olympic tourism activities will not be sponta-neous, but will have been a part of trip decision making and/or planning, thus making the Olympic tourism element an impor-tant, although not necessarily the primary, purpose of the trip.
As the earlier discussions note, Pre-/Post-Games General Tourists are taking part in tourism behaviour that has been
‘motivated or generated’ by Olympic-related activities. Their tourism trip has been generated by positive images and percep-tions of the host city/region gained through direct or mediated engagement with Olympic-related activities. The trip may have been generated by media coverage, or through perceptions of the city/region gained during a previous Olympic-related visit.
While the purpose and motivation of their trip is clearly not Olympic-related, once in the city/region they may engage in some Olympic-related tourism activities. Consequently, as well as taking part in generic tourism generated by Olympic-related activities, they may also take part in Tourism with Sports Content.
Therefore, in addition to being ‘actual’ tourists generated by Olympic-related activities, this group may also ‘potentially’ fall into the Tourism with Sports Content form of Olympic-related sports tourism described in Chapter 1.
Pre-/Post-Games Casuals are, like the previous category, gen-eral tourists. However, their trip has not been motivated or gener-ated by Olympic-relgener-ated activities, and as such they are ‘potential’
rather than ‘actual’ Olympic tourists. If they do become Olympic-tourists, they will also fall into the Tourism with Sports Content category as the prime purpose of their trip is general rather than Olympic-related tourism.
Clearly, of these three categories, only the Pre-/Post-Games Sports Tourists may have the Primary Sports Tourist profile discussed in Chapter 2, whilst some of this category may be Associated Experience Sports Tourists and in some cases Tourists interested in Sport. Pre-/Post-Games General Tourists and Pre-/Post-Games Casuals, if indeed they become sports tourists at all, will have a Tourists interested in Sport profile, with any Olympic-related sports tourism being a spontaneous rather than a planned participation decision.
Pre-/Post-Games Sports Tourists, as noted above, may be con-suming any of the sports-related Olympic tourism products, and as such both their activities and motivations will be widely varied, from a visit to see an event at an Olympic site on a trip with other prime purposes, to an Olympic athlete taking part in a training or preparation camp (see discussions under Sports-related Olympic tourist profiles in Chapter 2). As such, Pre-/Post-Games Sports Tourists may fall at any place on the Sports Tourism Participation Model, with a range of combina-tions of participation levels and levels of importance attached to such participation. It is perhaps worth noting, however, in drawing to a close the discussions of tourism movements in the pre- and post-Games periods, that the number of sports-related Olympic tourists demonstrating an Associated Experience pro-file is likely to be lower in the pre- and post-Games periods
than during the Games themselves. This is because the status and prestige motivations of conspicuous consumption and place-collecting are not as well provided for by visiting an Olympic site in the pre-/post-period as by ‘being there’ during the Games.
Consequently, while undoubtedly still existing, the Associated Experience sports tourist profile is less prevalent in the periods before and after the Games.