Business Events in Global Contexts

Running Head: BUSINESS EVENT 1
Business Events in Global Contexts

One of the biggest challenges for countries/cities hosting global/mega events like Olympics and
FIFA World Cup is to get new ways to enhance their performance not only in social and
economic context but also in environmental terms. FIFA World Cup and Olympics are two
international sports events, which attract wide population in different countries. The number of
visitors’ arrival depends on the attractiveness of event destination and interest of people towards
sports and events. There are various similarities in both events such as these events occur every
four years in different countries (Alexandris, & Kaplanidou, 2014). Each sports event is held by
a private firm that is accountable for selecting the location by analyzing its image. The below
section of this essay compares and contrasts both mega events, i.e. FIFA World Cup and
Olympics.
FIFA World Cup is generally known as World Cup that is an international football competition.
It is contested by the national teams of senior men, who are the members of Federation
Internationale de Football Association (FIFA), i.e. global regulating body of sports. This sports
event is conducted every four years since its inauguration in the year 1930. The current winner of
FIFA is Germany that won at last tournament of 2014 in Brazil. Another chosen event is
Olympics, which is a popular international sport event (American Arbitration Association, 2018).
It is featured as winter and summer competitions, in which several athletes from all over the
world. These athletes participate in different competitions, held under this event. The Olympic
event is considered as a leading competition, where over 200 countries have been participating.
Same as FIFA event, these games are also conducted every four years in winter and summer
alternatively. Last Olympics games held in Rio was dominated by United States, United
Kingdom and China that between them claimed 99 gold medal and total 258 medals during the
games (Horne, & Whannel, 2016).
Last time, both of the above events were held in same country, i.e. Brazil, so this is the
destination that is chosen for comparing the events. For these events, the organizers are targeting
the worldwide population by using different segmentation characteristics, i.e. demographic,
geographic, psychographic etc. FIFA World Cup, target market is determined on the basis of
geographic and psychographic. It is targeting Brazilian and worldwide population, who have
interest in watching football and soccers. The country has attracted the visitors from 180
countries to Brazil. In addition to this, organizers have tried to make its visibility among the

people, who are not able to travel to Rio (Brazil) for this event. For Olympic Games, the
marketers always segment the visitors under two categories such as General Olympics sport fan
and targeted Olympic sports fan (Foley, Edwards, &.Hergesell, 2015). General Olympic fans are
the people, who like to watch ordinary sports like tracking, gymnastics and swimming. On the
other side, Targeted Olympics audiences are the people, who have interest in little-known sports
such as rugby sevens. During last Olympic Games, Rio attracted 1.2 million people, whereas
FIFA World Cup received 886 thousand visitors.
Destination image is one of the most important factors, which needs to be considered while
making decision on location for a particular sport event. It affects the behavior and purchasing
decisions of tourists and visitors. Before conducting events, the organizers need to analyze the
destination image of that country or city. In the context of last FIFA and Olympics Games, Brazil
is considered as the best location. For Brazil, it can be stated that Brazil is recognized for its
significant sporting culture due to its moderate conditions. The economy of Brazil has been
growing at exceptional rate. The country has enough infrastructures that are needed for holding
international sports events (Awuah, & Reinert, 2018). It has made a large investment in highway
expansion and road construction. Government of company has provided a financial support to
FIFA World Cup and Olympics Games were funded by Olympic committee of Brazil. Thus,
destination image of country can be determined by considering different facts such as
infrastructure, tourist arrival, country’s economy, social and cultural factors, support from
government and other authorities.
To promote these events, organizers have used various marketing platforms such as social media
sites, TV ads, commercial ads, print media, sponsorships and other modes of promotion.
Approximately, 3.6 billion of the population watches FIFA world cup on internet, TV, mobile
phones and by other means (Kim, Kang & Kim, 2014). For FIFA, TV rights are the biggest
marketing platform and business. ESPN and ABC are the major channels, which broadcast the
Football matches in English and other languages. It has given the advertisements in the breaks of
news and other episodes. In addition to this, FIFA World Cup has three types of official sponsors
such as World Cup Sponsors, FIFA Partners and National Supporters. There are some specific
companies, which sponsor this event such as Adidas and Nike. For marketing Olympics Games,
the organizers are primarily using sponsorships (Fyall, & Shipway, 2013). They have various