Residents’ perceptions on impacts of hosting the “Guimarães 2012 European Capital of Culture”: comparisons of the pre- and post-2012 ECOC

 Abstract

Residents tend to have high expectations about the benefits of hosting a mega-event. So, it was not surprising that the nomination of Guimarães, Portugal, as the 2012 European Capital of Culture (2012 ECOC) had raised great expectations in the local community towards its socio-economic and cultural benefits. The present research was designed to examine the Guimarães residents’ perceptions on the impacts of hosting the 2012 ECOC approached in two different time schedules, the pre- and the post-event, trying to capture the evolution of the residents` evaluation of its impacts. For getting the data two surveys were applied to Guimarães` residents, one in the pre-event phase, in 2011, and another in the post-event phase, in 2013. This approach is uncommonly applied to Portugal data and it is even the first time it was done to a Portuguese European Capital of Culture. Using a factor analysis, the result of t-tests indicate that there were significant differences (p«0.05) between the samples from the pre- and post-2012 ECOC on two positive impact factors ("Community` benefits" and "Residents` benefits") and one negative impact factor ("Economic, social and environmental costs"). Respondents also showed a decrease of mean values in all dimensions, except “Changes in habits of Guimarães residents”

Keywords: Guimarães 2012 ECOC; mega-events impacts; residents’ perceptions; temporal effects.

Paula Cristina Remoaldo, Department of Geography, University of Minho and CICS/NIGP, Braga, Portugal

Laurentina Vareiro, Polytechnic Institute of Cávado and Ave, Barcelos, Portugal

J. Cadima Ribeiro, University of Minho and NIPE, Braga, Portugal

J. Freitas Santos, Polytechnic of Porto, Accountancy and Administration Institute/CECEJ and NIPE, University of Minho

(reprodução de resumo da comunicação a ser apresentada na conferência  INVTUR 2014 - International Conference, 7 a 10 de Maio de 2014, Universidade de Aveiro, Portugal)