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The purpose of this paper is to explore how non-host cities strategically plan to leverage pre-Games training for the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games to maximize benefits to the city.

Eight semi-structured interviews were conducted with key tourism and government stakeholders involved in developing leveraging strategies for pre-Games training in a non-host city. Interviews were conducted a little over 18 months before the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games.

A model of the strategic planning of leveraging pre-Games training is presented. Pre-Games training was positioned as a leverageable resource. The non-host city was well positioned to host pre-Games training given its existing sport focus and facilities and its proximity to the host city and its similar climate. Opportunities, objectives, means, and considerations were constantly developed. The city strategically targeted teams to maximize the use of the training facilities and make the most of the value of well-known athletes, while being cautious of overcrowding. The teams had to be secured before strategies were devised to achieve other opportunities and objectives. Short-term benefits included generating tourism through visiting teams and entourages and integrating visiting teams into the local community through education and sport programming. Long-term benefits included building the destination’s capacity and reputation as a place for elite training camps and tourism.

Understanding how to develop strategies to leverage pre-Games training can inform those responsible for developing and implementing pre-Games training strategies and lead to maximizing the benefits to a city or region.

Limited research has examined the strategic planning process used to develop tactics to leverage mega-events. This study provides insight into the strategic planning process of non-host cities to increase short- and long-term benefits by leveraging pre-Games training.

The purpose of this paper is to identify strategic objectives that can be utilized by non-host communities to leverage the opportunities provided by mega sport events. The unique context and timing of this study facilitates discussion surrounding a particular non-host community and how it can plan relevant objectives to best identify appropriate leveraging mechanisms.

The study adopted a qualitative approach, drawing upon a case study of Kobe City, Japan, a non-host city of the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. Data were collected using diverse sources such as site visits, field notes, newspaper articles, destination marketing materials, archival data from sport and tourism facilities, and workshop with key stakeholders.

The within-case analysis identified four key objectives a non-host city could utilize to leverage mega sport events, namely, enhancing destination brand equity, integrating leveraging strategies with the existing event portfolio, fostering social capital, and strengthening corporate networks.

Research on event leveraging has typically focused on host cities, while there has been limited research attention on non-host cities. This paper highlights the importance of formulating shared objectives so as to provide a strong focus for relevant stakeholders, guide the deployment of resources, and create effective leveraging strategies. Few studies have focused on the planning of leveraging initiatives.

Presents a schedule for the alignment of personal needs and priorities with organizational needs and priorities. By considering leadership, coaching, corporate citizenship, change management, efficiency, team working, customer focus, and decision making, individuals can compile an action plan for professional and organizational change, ensuring that one is not at the expense of the other. Features a number of models to encourage reflection and discussion as well as assessment instruments to aid immediate practical development.

Event portfolios promote synergies among events and stakeholders within a destination in order to maximise resources. The purpose of this paper is to examine the role of relationships in the creation and maintenance of an event portfolio using the four stages of Parvatiyar and Sheth’s (2000) process model of relationship marketing: formation, management and governance, performance evaluation, and evolution.

Nine semi-structured interviews were conducted with tourism and government stakeholders involved in the creation and maintenance of an event portfolio within a single destination.

The destination outlined clear strategic goals through an event strategy. An Events Board was established to bring together key stakeholders from tourism, events, and government to oversee the development of an event portfolio. The Events Board gave advice to relevant tourism and government stakeholders on which events they should provide funding. Developing relationships was not a stated objective, but the Events Board realised the importance of relationships to create and maintain the destination’s event portfolio. Long-term funding contracts were used as a mechanism to establish relationships and were an impetus for interaction. Relationships were also maintained through dedicated staff who managed the relationships between the destination stakeholders and the events.

Understanding factors that contribute to the successful creation and maintenance of event portfolios can inform destination stakeholders who are responsible for generating tourism through events.

Limited research has examined the creation and maintenance of event portfolios. This study provides insight into the central importance of relationships in creating and maintaining an event portfolio.

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the planning and use of an all-hazards emergency services approach to business disruption, which resulted from the hosting of the 2018 Commonwealth Games (GC2018) by Australia. It outlines how this emergency response model worked and how it can be transitioned into other operational areas.

Although the Commonwealth Games provided a unique opportunity for Australia to showcase its large event capability, it also highlighted the need for innovation due to business disruption for front-line emergency response agencies. The Queensland Fire and Emergency Services (QFES) was faced with the need to review the standard emergency response model and to come up with a way to maintain business as usual operational effectiveness.

An all-hazards approach to emergency response was ultimately achieved through expanded air operations (helicopters), the use of a multi-agency approach and the use of volunteers to achieve strategic risk management outcomes.

The practical solutions that emerged are discussed as the expanded response model and collaborative engagements to achieve risk reduction, readiness and preparation.

The solution to utilise an integrated emergency response methodology, including rapid and effective aerial support, reflected an all-hazards response to include deployment to road crash rescue, hazardous materials and structural fires. This business model ensured that QFES continued to meet its established “operational excellence” standards while pioneering options to address incident responses within the community wherein circumstances are considered exceptional.

This study extends the event leverage model and applies the community development theory to explore how event managers can leverage recurring, non-mega sporting events for sustainable socio-economic development.

The authors conduct a survey comprising 6 semi-structured interviews by targeting recurring participatory events in Japan with an average 37.7 years of history.

The model highlights the strategic objectives (community needs) for socio-economic community development by attracting tourists during both event and event-free periods. Social development comprises three factors: social capital, sport participation and health promotion. Economic development comprises two factors: event revenue and tourism revenue. To achieve strategic objectives, the uniqueness of the event, good relationships with the media and locals, a platform to enjoy the local culture and sport event infrastructure are identified as means (community assets). Furthermore, locals and media are added to the model as key stakeholders, an additional category of the event leverage model.

Event managers need to make efforts to identify local resources and should optimize the event to attract participants and tourists for socio-economic development. In particular, local experience, local products, local culture and good relationship with locals could be key resources to produce sustainable benefits for the local city. The proposed model adding locals and media as key stakeholders could be useful for other similar contexts/future events aimed at socio-economic benefits for community development.

The proposed model extends the theoretical explanations in the literature on leveraging strategies through events to the perspective of the community development theory. Specifically, this study sheds light on community needs and assets for community development in the context of recurring non-mega sporting events.

This research highlights the need for sophisticated measurement tools to allow sponsors and sponsees to evaluate sponsorship achievement against specific goals and its performance relative to other promotional tactics. Two high-profile in-stadium sponsorships of a mega-sponsee, the Grey Cup, are evaluated. Some evidence appears to supports and the effectiveness of the sponsorships; other observations raise questions about the accuracy of the evaluation process. The paper provides direction for practice and future research in sponsorship evaluation.

The purpose of the case study is to investigate the perception of computer science learners at Krishna Kanta Handiqui State Open University (KKHSOU) regarding the use of gamification and to identify the challenges in implementing gamified teaching-learning processes in open and distance learning (ODL) institutions.

The case study was carried out by observing the views of the learners on the use of gamification in distance learning and studying the participation level of computer science learners before and after the gamification environment was added to a specific topic through the learning management system (LMS). The pre-game and post-game effects on learners' participation against various factors using t-tests were also investigated in this study.

The study reveals that gamification had a positive and highly significant influence on the learners' participation and engagement in the e-content provided via the LMS. The post-gamification mean score (5.62) was higher than the pre-gamification mean score (2.36), and the overall paired t-test (5.301) value was significant at the 1% level of significance. Some of the challenges faced during the study were communication with the learner, lack of technical skills of the learner, duration of study, etc.

This study will help in understanding the perception and effect of gamification on computer science learners in ODL mode in India. The study succeeded in demonstrating that the use of gamified elements results in increased learner participation.

Sport events have become an important component of many city marketing plans. Media coverage is believed to increase awareness of the host city. This study reports the results of a content analysis of 2002 NCAA Women's Final Four telecasts. Event logos provide the most exposure for the host city, with little obtained via city images. Icons were found to effectively differentiate the city from competitors. Practical implications and future research extensions are suggested.

The purpose of this paper is to report on aspects of service quality at the London 2012 Paralympic Games, from a rather unusual perspective, the athletes. To date there has been little evidence captured about athlete’s satisfaction at sporting events, and specifically about their perceptions of the service quality provided.

Unique “full” access to the London 2012 Paralympics allowed to the collection of data directly from the athletes. The study reports the questionnaire findings from a sample of 250 respondents.

From this study an operational assessment and performance framework has been generated composed of ten criteria and 73 items or sub-criteria, which can be used as a benchmarking tool to plane, design and compare future sport mega-event. Moreover, the study evidence based the high quality of the 2012 Paralympics Games, as he athletes rated, on a five point Likert scale, 64 items in the “very satisfied” category, a very positive set of feedback for the Games organisers.

The methodology applied was appropriate, generating data to facilitate discussion and draw specific conclusions from. A perceived limitation is the single case approach; however, this can be enough to add to the body of knowledge where very little evidence has been captured so far and where the objectives were to explore the Paralympics games service quality and performance.

This research provides a tangible evidence base to support future sport event decision makers, planners and designers in this highly complex “arena”. In any system there are always areas for improvement, these are highlighted within the paper for further investigation.

This is the first paper to identify and synthesize aspects of sport mega event service quality from the athletes viewpoint and informs how well designed, organised and managed the London 2012 Games were from a primary user perspective. The paper makes a defined contribution by developing evidence based recommendations for this important yet under researched area.