The role of cultural mega events in the enhancement of city’s image attributes : differences between engaged and attendee participants

摘要

In a time of fierce competition between regions, an image serve as a basis to develop a strongsense of community, which fosters trust and cooperation that can be mobilized for regionalgrowth. A positive image and reputation could be used in the promotional activities of the regionbenefiting all the stakeholders as a whole. Mega cultural events are frequently used to attracttourists and investments to a region, but also to enhance the city’s image.This study adopts a marketing/communication perspective of city’s image, and intends to explainhow the image of the city is perceived by their residents. Specifically, we intend to compare theperceptions of residents that effectively participated in the Guimarães European Capital ofCulture (ECOC) 2012 (engaged residents), and the residents that only assisted to the event(attendees). Several significant findings are reported and their implications for event managersand public policy administrators presented, along with the limitations of the study.