مرور مدیریت ورزش – Sport Management Review

Set on the Gold Coast, Queensland, Australia, the case follows the disastrous coverage of the 2014 Pan Pacific Swimming Championships, which served as a test event for the newly renovated Gold Coast Aquatics Centre. Test events are an increasingly common method of verifying the readiness of a new or renovated facility in the lead up to a major or mega event (Broudehoux, 2007). Often used prior to a major or mega event, the successful hosting of a test event is a useful logistical tool and systems evaluation. But most importantly, it signals to the world that the host city is ready and competent to host the main event. Often as major events themselves, test events attract significant media attention, which can be magnified by their joint status as a warm-up to an even larger mega-event. With the intense scrutiny of the media on all aspects of the venue, the city, and the competition, test events offer the potential for a city to establish, enhance, or in some unfortunate cases, diminish its reputation as a viable event host. As students progress through the case questions, they will have an opportunity to address issues that arise from a test event that goes badly.

The case is presented from the perspective of Lisa Smith who has been called in as a crisis consultant by Tourism and Events Queensland (TEQ), and Gold Coast Tourism – the state and local bodies responsible for tourism in the city of the Gold Coast. TEQ’s vision is ‘‘to leverage the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games to generate overnight visitor expenditure, enhance the brand image of the Gold Coast and Queensland globally and leave a marketing legacy for other future major events’’ (TEQ, 2015, para 5). As the crisis consultant, Lisa has been tasked with protecting the brand image of the Gold Coast as a world-class sport event destination. In the wake of a cold, rainy, miserable Pan Pacific Swimming Championships (a Commonwealth Games test event), Lisa must determine a strategy to blunt the negative perceptions of the Gold Coast arising from the test event, and to assist the Gold Coast in its vision ‘‘to be globally recognized by 2016 as a world-class leisure and business events destination famous for its unrivalled variety of entertainment, excitement and fun’’ (TEQ, 2015, para 5). Issues associated with the role of events in destination branding, and ways to recover from negative exposure in domestic and international broadcast and social media are covered in this case study. Further, students have the opportunity to consider the views of various stakeholders in the process. The case is multifaceted in that it encourages students to consider the immediate questions at hand and allows for further development of strategic event plans and is suitable for both undergraduate and postgraduate courses.