ABSTRACT:
The role of sports events has been evolving over time. If events are still planned to bring people together and to generate economic benefits, they are increasingly used as marketing strategies to help promote, position, and brand destinations in a similar fashion that events contribute to corporate brand development through sponsorship activities. This aspect of the role of special events has only been examined recently in the literature. The purpose of this paper is to show how sports events contribute to a city’s or a country's marketing and branding strategies. More specifically, the paper proposes that destinations should have event sponsorship strategies to help raise their brand equity.
