Event Life Cycle Model And Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

Six Phases of the Event Life Cycle Model

Question:

Discuss about the Olympic Games Attitude Scale.

In the context of tourism and hospitality, event life cycle model comprises of six different phases as follows – (i) Exploration: few adventurous individuals seeking something different for their holiday determine a location that is unique with respect to landscape, history, natural beauty, or else culture.  There shall not be any tourist services with local people not being involved within tourist activities for making money, (ii) Involvement: local people gradually notice an increasing amount of individuals visiting their area motivating them to start businesses for providing transport, guides, accommodation / food, etc., (iii) Development: Bigger companies start seeing an emerging potential within this area for tourist resorts and hence decide investing money.  They start building larger hotel and infrastructure selling packaged holiday services.  The same makes dramatic / massive expansion and tourist visits and consequent job opportunities, (iv) Consolidation: This local economy could be dominated largely by tourism in this phase and dependence over conventional trade / commerce shall reduce drastically. Naturally, the overall quality levels shall start to vary due to increase participation, (v) Stagnation: competition arising from various resorts, overall reduction in civil behaviour in crowd population, losses in initial attractiveness of the location could lead to the resort hindering its growth, and, (vi) Decline (or) Rejuvenation: Starting from point of stagnation the can be two different possibilities – Decline over varied forms that could either be gradual or else swift with regular visitors being replaced with people looking cheaper breaks, other day trippers, etc., or  Rejuvenation involving certain cash injection by existing private companies or else government, for creating newer attraction or upgrades to existing facilities (Getz and Page 2016; Yang et al. 2014; Easthope et al. 2014).

The Winter Olympics for the year 2014, referred officially as “XXII Olympic Winter Games” and widely referred to Sochi 2014, represented major multi-sport event at an international level held between 7^th February and 23rd February in the year 2014 at Sochi in Russia (Dean 2014; Lyu and Han 2017; Dickson et al. 2017). The event was characterized by the opening of rounds for specific events which were held in the opening ceremony eve, that is, 6th February. Both Olympics as well as Winter Paralympics for 2014 were organized by Sochi Organizing Committee (“SOOC”) (Dean 2014; Lyu and Han 2017; Dickson et al. 2017).

The overall scale for newer planning, overall infrastructure as well as development leading to hosting a Winter Olympic Games at Sochi has led the indirect form of objective in generating transformation at a regional, city and urban level (Dean 2014; Lyu and Han 2017; Dickson et al. 2017). When Russia identified Sochi for competing with the right for hosting, President Putin undertook lobbying personally indicating the significance of the decision. This region was already targeted for purposes of development by FTP of Russia that had carried the volume of investment at US Dollar 12 billion if Sochi won bidding for Olympics and US Dollar 4.5 billion if Sochi did not win bidding for Olympics (Dean 2014; Lyu and Han 2017; Dickson et al. 2017). The overall objective with FTP was for modernising this region through the creation of newer infrastructure and for constructing sports venues. Hence the overall development at Sochi region would eventually had taken place even if it did not win the bid for hosting Olympic Winter Games for 2014, even if the levels of investment were reduced (Dean 2014; Lyu and Han 2017; Dickson et al. 2017).

Objective of the Russian Government in Creating Newer Infrastructure and Constructing Sports Venues

Differing from various other hosting cities for Olympics in the past, Sochi failed to have any venues for competition that already existed. In specific there was a specific lack of international standards compliant sliding facilities, ski jumping and alpines, and in addition suitable logistics / infrastructure for supporting the same (Dean 2014; Tavakkoli 2016; Akhmetshina et al. 2017). They were required in building all things from scratch. Eleven new venues for winter sports, various shopping malls, multi-storied parking space, hotels, office buildings, apartment buildings, schools, medical centres as well as university were subsequently constructed (Dean 2014; Tavakkoli 2016; Akhmetshina et al. 2017). These various constructions were supplemented with newer infrastructure as well as systems for transport encompassing newer offshore terminals for allowing yachts and cruise ships for docking and for cargo purposes.

The event’s opening ceremony was held during 7^th of February 2014 in the indoor arena named Fisht Olympic constructed particularly for this ceremonies (Dean 2014; Kromidha et al. 2017; Mak et al. 2016). This ceremony featured various scenes on the basis of Russian arts and history which included ballet, Russian Revolution, classical music, as well as the era of Soviet Union (Dean 2014; Kromidha et al. 2017; Mak et al. 2016). Close to 88 different nations were qualified for competing. About 98 events spanning across 15 disciplines within 7 sports was staged in this Sochi 2014 event. The event’s closing ceremony was on 23^rd of February 2014 at the same indoor arena named Fisht Olympic (Dean 2014; Kromidha et al. 2017; Mak et al. 2016).

With highly costly as well as complex form of processes for bidding / planning which takes up close to 10 years prior to the actually hosting the event, the primarily aim for hosting various major events lie in driving or facilitating changes irrespective of the same being social, cultural, economic, urban, or just most often a combine of the listed elements (de Groot and Essex 2016; Boykoff and Mascarenhas 2016). It shall not always just be about construction for specialised facilities on account of the cities using the Olympics for accomplishing various urban objectives which shall last far longer as compared to overall life cycle of the events. When any city wins a bid for hosting Winter Olympic Games, the overall effect over the urban landscape as well as role played by Olympics for influencing or creating the legacies of host city are significant (de Groot and Essex 2016; Boykoff and Mascarenhas 2016). In case of Sochi, instead of making use of underutilised or else brownfield industrial regions, preparations at Sochi involved the use of wetlands for various development of the Olympic infrastructure with evident losses to wildlife, greenery and immense sustainability damages (de Groot and Essex 2016; Boykoff and Mascarenhas 2016).

Analysis of Sochi 2014 Winter Olympics

In this context, the recommendations proposed for ensuring sustainability across mega events include the following,

• Setting highest levels of standards for code of construction of buildings, infrastructure, etc. and ensuring the same effectively enforced and monitored (Oldiges 2015; Boykoff and Mascarenhas 2016).
• Creating a collaboration program with the various corporates large and SMEs within the region for devising means and approaching to reduce carbon emissions which surge during the events and agreeing upon on limitation levels for the carbon emissions (Oldiges 2015; Boykoff and Mascarenhas 2016).
• Identifying, establishing and enforcing certain per cent of the parking stalls across the various parking spaces, constructions, sporting venues, etc. to have capacities for relying upon renewable energy sources thereby reducing carbon emissions (Oldiges 2015; Boykoff and Mascarenhas 2016).

It has to be noted that these proposed measures are not exhaustive but at a basic level aid in ensuring that the overall guiding factors as well as motivations for undertaking a sustainable venture are in place and effective in its reliance.

Reference List

Akhmetshina, E.R., Ignatjeva, O.A. and Ablaev, I.M., 2017. Tendencies and Prospects of Public-Private Partnership Development in the Field of Physical Culture and Sport. European Research Studies, 20(2), p.422.

Boykoff, J. and Mascarenhas, G., 2016. The Olympics, Sustainability, and Greenwashing: The Rio 2016 Summer Games. Capitalism Nature Socialism, 27(2), pp.1-11.

De Groot, J. and Essex, S.J., 2016. The Winter Olympics: driving urban change, 1924-2022. In Olympic Cities: City Agendas, Planning, and the World's Games, 1896-2020. Routledge.

Dean, K. 2014. Winter Olympic Games: Long-term Lessons for Sochi [online] Available at: https://www.qbusiness.pl/uploads/Raporty/colsochi.pdf [Accessed on 30^th August 2017]

Dickson, T.J., Dickson, T.J., Misener, L., Misener, L., Darcy, S. and Darcy, S., 2017. Enhancing destination competitiveness through disability sport event legacies: Developing an interdisciplinary typology. International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 29(3), pp.924-946.

Easthope, H., Warnken, J., Sherry, C., Coiacetto, E., Dredge, D., Guilding, C., Johnston, N., Lamminmaki, D. and Reid, S., 2014. How property title impacts urban consolidation: A life cycle examination of multi-title developments. Urban Policy and Research, 32(3), pp.289-304.

Getz, D. and Page, S.J., 2016. Event studies: Theory, research and policy for planned events. Routledge.

Kromidha, E., Spence, L.J., Anastasiadis, S. and Dore, D., 2017. A Longitudinal Perspective on Sustainability and Innovation Governmentality: The Case of the Olympic Games as a Mega-Event. Journal of Management Inquiry, p.1056492617711585.

Lyu, S.O. and Han, J.H., 2017. Assessing preferences for mega sports event travel products: a choice experimental approach. Current Issues in Tourism, 20(7), pp.740-758.

Mak, J.Y., Cheung, S.Y., King, C.C. and Lam, E.T., 2016. Validation of the Olympic Games Attitude Scale (OGAS): Evidence from Exploratory and Confirmatory Factor Analyses. Measurement in Physical Education and Exercise Science, 20(2), pp.99-111.

Oldiges, J., 2015. Evaluation of the effectiveness of policies related to the sustainability of Mega Sports Events (Bachelor's thesis, University of Twente).

Tavakkoli, M., 2016. Leveraging of the Olympic Games on Mega-Sporting Events: A Strategic Framework for the Development of Sport. American Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, 4(2), pp.44-56.

Yang, J., Ryan, C. and Zhang, L., 2014. Sustaining culture and seeking a Just Destination: Governments, power and tension–a life-cycle approach to analysing tourism development in an ethnic-inhabited scenic area in Xinjiang, China. Journal of Sustainable Tourism, 22(8), pp.1151-1174.