Innovation in Event Management Strategies. Event as a leverage of cities’ promotion

Tourism is a hypercompetitive sector (D'Aveni, 1994, 1998; Della Corte, Sciarelli, 2003; Grant, Baden Fuller, 2003; Della Corte, Sciarelli, Celiento, 2005), for fast running changes of demand and global level competition: this situation has determined over time the need to widen the range of destinations’ offer, with special regard to cities (Conti, Spriano, 1990; Richards, 1992; Bramwell, Rawding, 1994; Czarniawska, Mazza, Pipan, 2001). In this field, events could be a strong attractive factor for cities where they take place. Particularly, the purpose of the paper is double: first, we will look for strategic elements in event management, starting from an analysis of the literature (Bramwell, 1997; Getz, 1992, 1993, 1997, 1998, 2001; Goldblatt, 1997, 1998, 2002, 2004; Watt, 1998) on new directions in the field that is still being explored by scholars; second, we will try to see when and under which conditions an event can become a real attractive factor for a destination, contributing either to destination’s launch or to its market repositioning. Moreover, the research aims at verifying if the planned elements of event management and marketing (Close, Finney, Sneath, 2006), for a city as a destination, are expression of a real event strategy, able to promote a tourist destination, in territorial marketing terms. This overview, starting from the typical resource-based theory (Barney, 1991) setting, with the help of some managerial analysis’ tools, like VRIO framework and SWOT analysis, aims at analyzing quality, identity and branding of the event and of the city which hosts it (Della Corte, Micera, 2007). At both destination and event level, strategic resources are the starting point to evaluate economic and environmental sustainability generated by the event but are also the necessary elements to gain a sustainable competitive advantage in the long term for the destination, even after the event. This can happen only if there is an appropriate hospitality system within the destination and if this succeeds in reproposing the event itself or even other events of the same or of higher level. The empirical part will focus on a longitudinal case studies analysis of some even cases, in order to get to a scientific advance on the field and to managerial implications, useful both for events planners and tourist firms and for Institutional leaders (Gambetti, 2003).