Essay: Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics Analyzed Using The Event Life Cycle Model.

The purpose of this individual assignment is to further student’s skills in understanding the role of events management within the Tourism and Hospitality Industry. By applying the Event Life Cycle concept to real world case study, students will analyse the core events management principles used to create, design and plan sustainable events.

Individually, you are required to research the event of 2018 Winter Olympics that was held in Pyeongchang, South Korea. Based on the Event Life Cycle Model, you will need to investigate.

the following aspects:

1. The formation stage of the Pyeongchang’s Winter Olympics
2. The growth stage of the Pyeongchang’s Winter Olympics
3. The staging of the Pyeongchang’s Winter Olympics

Overview of Pyeongchang 2018 Winter Olympics

The winter Olympics 2018, also known as PyeongChang 2018, is referred to an international winter multi-sport event which was held between 9 the February an 25 the February 2018. The event was held in Pyeongchang Country, Gangwon Province, South Korea. The vision of the mentioned event was to offer the Olympic movement a new horizon, a new growth that has not been seen before. The mission of the event was to offer a unique stage to the performer where they would be able to achieve superior performances. The event managers had bid to host both the 2010 and 2014 winter Olympics but had lost to Vancouver and Sochi respectively (Essex and de Groot 2016). However, in the year 2018, Pyeongchang was elected host of the 123^rd winter Olympic with a majority of 48 votes. A great deal of preparation was involved for hosting the Winter Olympics. On October 2011, the Pyeongchang Coordination Commission was formed for coordinating all planning associated with the mentioned event. The chief aim of the mentioned committee was to put together a master plan for designing the Olympic venue. On March 2012, the construction of the venue was started in the Olympic Village (Kim, Choi and Kaplanidou 2015). The venues for the 2018 Winter Olympics was consist of the Coastal Cluster, located in Gangneung, the Alpensia Cluster located in Daegwallyeongmyeon and finally the Jungbong and Bokwang Phoenix Park, both of which was stand-alone venues. The clusters included the bellow mentioned buildings:

1. In the Coastal Cluster the Union Hockey Center, Gyeongpo Ice Hall, Gangneung Indoor Ice Rink and the Gangneung Sports Complex Speed Skating Facility were constructed.
2. The Alpensia Cluster included Olympic Park of Hoenggye, Alpensia Biathlon Centre, Alpensia Sliding Center, Alpensia Ski Jumping Stadium, Alpensia Nordic Center, Yongpyong Resort and Olympic Village.

Apart from preparing the above-mentioned building for housing the games and providing residence to the athletes, the infrastructure of the Pyeongchang stadium was also updated. For instance, in order to provide a smooth and hustle free travel for both the participants and the audiences, from June 2012, a high-speed rail line was constructed which connects Pyeongchang with Seoul. Considering the fact that the preparation of winter Olympic 2018 was the huge undertaking not only for Pyeongchang but also for South Korea, the expense for the mentioned event was several billions of dollars. The projected expansion of the event was 7 billion dollars, however, according to the Council of Foreign Relations, the total expanse of the Winter Olympic 2018 was 13 billion dollars (Brittain and Beacom 2018).

The growth stage of the Pyeongchang’s Winter Olympics

After the formation of the organizational committee and initial planning of the event venue, the second step of the mentioned event was to arrange the event with the help of active participation of the stakeholders. The major stakeholders of the Pyeongchang’s Winter Olympics 2018 include the international federations, the national Olympic committees and the commercial partners who play a major role in sponsoring the event (International Olympic Committee. 2018). During the growth stage of the event, the event organizers were helped by the experts from the International Federations. These experts had provided assistance to the event coordinators in organizing an outstanding test event as well as sporting competitions along with preparing fantastic venues. The National Olympic Committees had ensured that athletes will have a fantastic experience. Moreover, they were also responsible to ensure that spectators from different parts of the world were able to attend the Pyeongchang’s Winter Olympics 2016 without any types of difficulties (International Olympic Committee 2018). The commercial partners had promoted the event along with bringing a huge amount of operational expertise as well as innovative product to the tale that helped the games to run smoothly. The opening and the closing ceremonies had taken place at the Pyeongchang Olympic Stadium which was a temporary venue constructed to accommodate 35000 spectators.

Planning and preparation of the event

The staging of the Pyeongchang’s Winter Olympics

The opening ceremony of the mentioned event took place at the Pyeongchang Olympic stadium on 9^th February 2018. It began at 20:00 KST and ends at 22:00 KST (The Japan Times 2018). The official inauguration of the game was done by Moon Jae-In, the President of the Republic of South Korea. The site of the Opening Ceremony was built in a pentagonal shape (Craig and Bauman 2014). The stage was torn down after the completion of the opening and closing ceremonies so that no Olympic or Paralympics games are held at that venue.  More than 98 percent of the snow in the mentioned event was fake. According to the project manager Ian Honey, the management has taken the decision due to the scarcity of snowfall in some of the locales (Hoeger et al. 2018). As a result of the scarcity of snowfall, the outdoor winter sports had come under threat.

Several loopholes have been detected with the planning and organization of the Pyeongchang Winter Olympics 2018. The 1^st mistake that can be encountered was the inadequate provision of appropriate optics to the skaters as well as to the television views across the world. Moreover, the skating competition had begun at 10 A.M. in the morning in order to televise the event in prime time in US (International Olympic Committee 2018). This had resulted in a nearly empty stadium as it was difficult for a majority of spectators to arrive within the stipulated time after going through several rounds of security. Moreover, the Exhibition Gala on the last day started at 9.30 a.m. Hence, it is recommended that in future, the timings of the games should be decided, keeping in mind the convenience of the spectators so that the view of the empty stadium can be avoided. Moreover, the organizers should invest money for implementing better optical technologies so that a better quality of view can be provided to the skaters as well as to the global audience sitting in another side of the television.  

Another issue that was found with the mentioned event was the prize offered to the athletes. During the medal ceremony, instead of providing the winners to the gold medals, they were given a stuffed toy. This has left several athletes like Yuzuru Hanyu feeling offended. Hence, it is recommended that in order to avoid the issue, the event management committee should invest on traditional gold, silver and bronze medals instead of handling event mascots in the form of soft toys to the winners (McBride 2018).

Stakeholders involved in the growth stage of the event

 The medal ceremony was held at night whereas the competition was held during the daytime. As a result of that, a majority of seats were empty since several spectators were too reluctant to come for the award ceremony after returning to their hotels or home. Hence, in order to avoid such issue, the management should organize and plan the events understanding the concerns of the spectators. The event should be organized at least after the 12 pm so that spectators who are travelling from abroad can arrive within the stipulated time (Kim and Baker 2018). It is expected that with the help of the above-mentioned recommendation, the mentioned event will gain grad success in the upcoming year.

Reference List

Brittain, I. and Beacom, A., 2018. Introduction. In The Palgrave Handbook of Paralympic Studies (pp. 1-11). Palgrave Macmillan, London.

Craig, C.L. and Bauman, A.E., 2014. The impact of the Vancouver Winter Olympics on population level physical activity and sport participation among Canadian children and adolescents: population based study. International Journal of Behavioral Nutrition and Physical Activity, 11(1), p.107.

Essex, S.J. and de Groot, J., 2016. The Winter Olympics: Driving Urban Change, 1924–2022. In Olympic Cities (pp. 84-109). Routledge.

Hoeger, W.W., Hoeger, S.A., Hoeger, C.I. and Fawson, A.L., 2018. Lifetime of Physical Fitness and Wellness. Cengage Learning.

International Olympic Committee. 2018. “The stage is set for excellent Olympic Winter Games in 2018”. [online] Available at: https://www.olympic.org/news/the-stage-is-set-for-excellent-olympic-winter-games-in-2018 [Accessed 16 May 2018].

International Olympic Committee. 2018. Bridgestone drives the Olympic Winter Games beyond snow and ice. [online] Available at: https://www.olympic.org/news/bridgestone-drives-the-olympic-winter-games-beyond-snow-and-ice [Accessed 16 May 2018].

International Olympic Committee. 2018. PyeongChang 2018 Olympics | Next Winter Games in Korea. [online] Available at: https://www.olympic.org/pyeongchang-2018 [Accessed 16 May 2018].

Kim, A., Choi, M. and Kaplanidou, K., 2015. The role of media in enhancing people’s perception of hosting a mega sport event: the case of pyeongchang’s winter olympics bids. International Journal of Sport Communication, 8(1), pp.68-86.

Kim, S. and B. Baker, L. 2018. Pyeongchang's supposed 'Peace Olympics' are proving to be a tough sell. [online] The Independent. Available at: https://www.independent.co.uk/sport/olympics/winter-olympics/pyeongchang-2018-winter-peace-olympics-visa-north-south-korea-a8221671.html [Accessed 16 May 2018].

McBride, J. 2018. The Economics of Hosting the Olympic Games. [online] Council on Foreign Relations. Available at: https://www.cfr.org/backgrounder/economics-hosting-olympic-games [Accessed 16 May 2018].

Preuss, H., 2013. The contribution of the FIFA World Cup and the Olympic Games to green economy. Sustainability, 5(8), pp.3581-3600.

The Japan Times. 2018. Organizers and IOC made many mistakes in planning and staging of Pyeongchang Games | The Japan Times. [online] Available at: https://www.japantimes.co.jp/sports/2018/02/25/olympics/winter-olympics/organizers-ioc-made-many-mistakes-planning-staging-pyeongchang-games/ [Accessed 16 May 2018].