Evaluation of the Impact of a Mega-sport Event: perception of the Warsaw residents towards the 2012 UEFA EURO

«The aim of the research performed in this paper is to identify Warsaw residents’ perception and attitudes towards UEFA EURO 2012. This is the first research on this topic. The investigation has been focused on how residents of Warsaw perceived the impacts of the tournament. A questionnaire survey was applied, using the stratified sampling method to inquire 480 residents of Warsaw. The results of the conducted tests and ordered logit regressions show that, although the residents did not perceive the economic benefits of the tournament as being spread uniformly, a large majority valued its role in promoting Warsaw as a tourist destination and enhancing the international identity of the city. Whereas they generally displayed positive attitudes towards EURO 2012 in terms of lifting their pride and bringing the community closer together, they did also note some negative impacts of the event. The opinion expressed about the tournament depends on age, education and income of the responders. A majority of the residents agreed that the positive impacts of EURO 2012 outweighed its negative impacts, which can be considered the most important finding of the empirical research performed.»

Justyna Garbacz, 

J. Cadima Ribeiro, 

Paulo Reis Mourão

(título e resumo de comunicação apresentada no 20º Congresso da APDR, que decorreu na Universidade Évora, a 10 e 11 de Julho de 2014)