Is hosting tourism events a sustainable way of destination branding: Evidences from Sanya, China

The existing literature has revealed the questionable economic benefits of hosting such events, while scholars would still hold an optimistic view of the benefits of place branding and promotion. This paper raises a critical question to this view by examining the effectiveness of hosting pro-tourism events for destination branding. This paper collects massive tourist online reviews and conducts sentiment analysis to examine this issue based on the case of Sanya city in China. The study finds that: (1) there is no solid evidence to show that Sanya’s tourism-related events have a significant positive impact on its destination branding; (2) in the short term, that is fewer than six months, culture-related events were more effective in improving the destination’s image; (3) in the long term, that is, from six months to two years, sports-related events had more positive sentiment impacts, while negative sentiment impacts were largely the result of tourist rip-off incidents. In doing so, this paper argues that hosting tourism events would not be a sustainable way of destination branding, unless the event is meant for other interests. This effort provides an innovative approach for understanding the impacts of tourism events to destination branding in a more critical manner.