1. Peak event: the rise, crisis and potential decline of the Olympic Games and the World Cup
- Author
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Müller, Martin, Gogishvili, David, Wolfe, Sven Daniel, Gaffney, Christopher, Hug, Miriam, Leick, Annick, University of Zurich, and Müller, Martin
- Subjects
10122 Institute of Geography ,1409 Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management ,Mega-events, Modernity., Growth, Host citie,s Olympic games, Football world cup ,3303 Development ,Strategy and Management ,Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management ,Leisure and Hospitality Management ,1408 Strategy and Management ,Transportation ,3313 Transportation ,910 Geography & travel ,Development ,Tourism - Abstract
This paper tracks the growth of two of the largest tourist events: the Olympic Games and the Football World Cup, drawing on a dataset containing all events between 1964 and 2018. Overall, the size of the three events has grown about 60-fold over the past 50 years, thirteen times faster than world GDP. We identify an S-shaped growth curve and four different growth periods, with an emergent crisis phase in the late 2010s that may have brought us to ‘peak event’ – the point at which these events have reached their largest size. Outlining three different scenarios, we argue that the Olympics and the World Cup are at a critical bifurcation point, which also requires new bidding and hosting policies.
- Published
- 2023