Athens Olympics Event: Impact on Tourism and Economy

This study evaluates the Athens Olympics Event and its impact on tourism and the economy. It covers the background, objectives, target audience, and marketing strategies used for the event.

Event Management

Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................3
Overview of the event..................................................................................................................3
Rationale of the event..................................................................................................................3
Stakeholder of the event..............................................................................................................3
Structuring the event program and utilizing resources................................................................3
Description and rationale of the venues/site of the event............................................................3
The impacts of event....................................................................................................................3
Basic target audience of the event...............................................................................................3
Marketing the event to the basic target market............................................................................3
Conclusion and recommendation....................................................................................................3
References........................................................................................................................................4

Introduction
The present study is based on the critical evaluation and analysis of the Athens Olympics Event,
Greece and its association with tourism, and how its benefits and impacts the same industry. The
study covers the background, aim and objectives and target audience of the event, it also states
the resources and marketing used in running the event.
Overview of the event
Athens 2004 Olympic Games, taking place in Athens occurred on August 13–29, 2004. It was its
25 the occurrence of the contemporary Olympic Games. The ancient games were established in
Greece, from 776 BC through 393 AD, and it took the time of around 1503 for Olympics to
return (Georgiadis and Makris, 2017). The first contemporary Olympics Occurred in Athens,
Greece, in 1896. In accordance with the history of Greek, the initial Olympic Games in the
Greek Antique can be held way back to 776 BC. He hosting of games were done on Olympia’s
ancient green plains and were dedicated to the 12 Olympian Gods. The place was renowned for
its splendid great temples of the 2 gods namely; gods Zeus and his wife, Hera. Initially, the
games were very religious in nature integrated with several ancient sports events, wherein most
of them were based on the mythology of ancient Greek (Baade and Matheson, 2016). An
important position is held by the ancient Greek Olympic in the Ancient Greek lives. The games
only last for a time period of two to three week. The 1896 Summer Olympics is organized by the
International Olympic Committee (IOC), and it has been formed by the Pierre de Coubertin
(Tomlinson, 2017).
The rationale of the event
Sports and tourism are the two industries having much in common, their aspects are rapidly
increasing, and at present, they have become highly dependent on each other. On the other hand,
investment in infrastructure and technology established to satisfy the requirements of such a
significant event provides better opportunities and comprise benefits of society and economy to
the country (Baim, Goukasian and Misch, 2016). There is the existence of short term and long
term returns from the Games in Athens. In short term strategic goals, visitors from outside the
city are attracted, employment benefits are considered, and better economic benefit is held on
business. For the long terms strategic goals, it aids in investment return in physical capital

including the tourism sector, human capital investment return, a continual visit by tourists, better
productivity, global direct investments and business development in terms of infrastructure. The
objectives of these Games have been reflected in the design of history as well the identity of
modern Olympic Games as the capital of Greek, facilitated by the principles of technology and
aesthetic (Scheu, Preuß and Könecke, 2019).
Stakeholder of the event
The stakeholders involved in the Olympic Games were government, sponsors, investors, athletes
and public.
Government: Government is the major stakeholder of this event, they do most of the work in
regards with the preparation of the Game while they concentrate on the Game-time related tasks
and the coordination among all the efforts of stakeholders. The Athens Olympic Games is a
complex task and requires various resources to plan, host and bid the Games which is governed
by the government (Gargalianos, Toohey and Stotlar, 2015).
Sponsors: Sponsors are a major source of funding for the Games’ operational budget. Through
sponsorship, affiliation with the event increases, as they promote it and enhances its visibility.
Sponsors are the primary stakeholder of the Games, as they act as financial support to the event
and simultaneously generate media coverage and exposure (Preuss, 2016).
These include the national and
international (i.e., The Olympic
Partners or
Investors: Investors are the primary stakeholder of the event, as they substantially invest in the
event and hold a considerable amount of stake in the same. Investors provide financial resources
to the event, in return for a better future return or an ownership stake.
Athletes: Athletes are the secondary stakeholders of the Athens Olympic event, as they do not
have any direct stake to the event, but they are the fundamental stakeholders in sport. They have
the stake in the capability of teams, clubs and coaches to assist them in attaining their goals. The

Athletes consider the team’s financial success to provide them with lucrative rewards for their
accomplishment.
Public: Public and audience is the secondary stakeholder of the event; they influence the
financial success of the event. The Games and Athletes aim to attract public, to raise revenue in
the form of ticket, concessions, merchandise sales, membership, subscriptions and program sales.
In the case of Athens, they establish a relationship with the public by promoting and publishing
news.
Structuring the event program and utilizing resources
The structure of the Athens is comprised of International Olympic Committee, in addition to
this, the Olympic Movement is also inclusive of the Organizing Committees for the Olympic
Games (OCOGs), International Federations (IFs), National Olympic Committees (NOCs),
coaches, referees, athletes and other related other sports technicians. It also comprises of other
firms and institutions that are brought up by the IOC (Demir and et al., 2015).
The major resources of the Athens 2004 Olympic event are transportation, logistics, human
resources (staff and volunteers), security and safety. The mega event uses the same resources in
an optimal manner, as the transportation system, being the element of GMS, offers scheduling,
planning and programming of the Olympic transport services and considers the allocation of
accessible transportation resources. In addition, staff and volunteers are the substantial resources
of the Athens event; it is because they offer high support and contribution to the event, and help
in building place within the community while establishing networking opportunities (Cramer,
2016).
On the basis of the mega size of the event and attendance of the athlete profile, the event requires
an immense amount of security presence for better management (Kasimati and Vagionis, 2017).
Safety and security are other considerable resources at a major sporting event, and Athens
ensures the same by integrating a holistic planning approach and proper Threat and Risk
Assessment (TARA). It can be said that logistics has a greater contribution towards the
incorporation of Organizing Committee operations; it offers considerable material resources to
them with the intention of ensuring smooth and safe progress of the events. Other related

resources used in the mega sports event are entertainment, sport, venue, infrastructure,
technology, advertising and staff.
Thus, a superior organization of above-mentioned resources and logistics activities is vital
because of the complexity of the staging and hosting of a mega-event, where numerous plays act
concurrently in the supply chain impacting the overall result from the perspective of every
stakeholder.
Description and rationale of the venues/site of the event
Athens is the main site of the starting of the modern Olympic Games (1896). It can be said that
there is a representation of 28 sports throughout 35 venues. A total of seven venues were used
for Summer Olympics 1896. The main venue was Panathenaic Stadium and was hosting four of
nine sports contested. Marathon is the city served to host the event marathon and the individual
road race event (Georgiadis and Theodorikakos, 2016). In Bay of Zea, Swimming was
held, fencing at the Zappeion, at Kallithea sports shooting, is done, at Athens Lawn Tennis
Club was held. In 1896, Tennis was a sport which was unfamiliar to Greeks.
The Bay of Zea is c considered as a seaport and marina in the area of Athens area; it has been
employed as the venue for swimming venue , it is because the Game organizers were willing to
make less investment on establishing a venue specially intended for swimming. Four venues of
1896 were put again in use as competitive venues meant for the 2004 Games (Kasimati, 2015).
It can be said that these sites and venues are considered, it is because these are located at the
major areas of the host city, and are renowned for some reason.
The renovation of velodrome would be done in a football stadium in the year 1964 and was
stated as Karaiskakis Stadium. Further, renovation of this venue in the year 2003 was done as a
venue for football for the 2004 Games. At the time of 2004 Games, a host for archery
competition was served by Panathinaiko Stadium, plus it was also considered as the finish line
meant for the event of the marathon (Rosenthal, 2017). The Marathon City acted as the starting
line for both events at the time of the 2004 Games. Furthermore, the Zappeion acted as the first
home for the committee that is organizing, i.e. ATHOC for the 2004 Games from 1998 to 1999
and delivered as the major centre of communication for the same games.

The impacts of the event
In a specific way, the tourism impact from the organization of mega-events such as Athens
Olympics is in a way that it attracts high-income tourists’ ad establishment of new tourist
generation who are willing to do a repetition of the visit to the host country. This provide
revenue to economy and improvise foreign currency position. It creates an impact by creating
affirmative tourist image for the destination country while forming the modern tourism
infrastructure (Langer, Maennig and Richter, 2018). In addition, the special opportunity of the
host country to derive from international media exposure and presence has sent several messages
to the different parts of the world to promote socio-cultural aspects.
The Olympic Games in 2004 would have considerable economic impacts on the Athens host
city. The Olympics and the Olympic competitions surrounded publicly are likely to expand
foreign tourism within Greece since 1998-201. Better employment will be considered, and the
GDP of the nation will expand, which thereby make increment in jobs and employment. The
most significant source of increment in the activities of the economy is the investment made by
the by foreign tourists while making a visit to the Athens and Greece as a consequence of
Olympic exposure (Scandizzo and Pierleoni, 2018).
The basic target audience of the event
The right to host the Olympics comes up with long-term impacts and the international tourism
market of the nation respectively. These impacts start to be felt immediately when a country gets
success in winning a bid to host Games and preserved till the time several years after the closing
ceremony (Leeds, Von Allmen and Matheson, 2018).
In Athens case, the years from 1998 to 2011 are covered. The global tourism will expand to three
tourist types, visitors who travel prior to the Games, audience and other related visitors at the
time of the game, and the visitors attracted to the country in some way by the publicity related to
Olympics. The initial category includes for Athens, individuals who make a visit towards
Greece in preparing these Games while Olympic family members, organizations who sponsor the
Games, media representative, spectators, celebrities and athletes. These individuals also
comprise the second category of the target audience and are likely to increase in number as there
is competition in the Olympics by athletes (Wang and Jin, 2019). Thus, the last category is made
up of all tourists outside of Greece who make a visit to Greece because of the promotional efforts

associated with the 2004 Games. These games are generally hosted to attract and retain the basic
target audience who are the possible tourists who enjoy and love such recreational athletics.
Marketing the event to the basic target market
For the, over 21500 media outlets are considered to cover a market the Games (1600
broadcasters inclusive of AOB a 5500 written or photo press.
The Olympic market aspects are marketing majorly public relations and promotions, donations,
funding, athletic preparation and other related amenities, athlete’s accommodation, security and
emergency services, tickets and spectator services. For each and every Olympiad, personnel are
developed to consider these tasks, forming numerous jobs and extra activities within the host
city. In the year, 1896 were first of the modern Olympic era, as per the IOC, they made a
decision to buzz it out at by enabling corporations to pay for publicity (Brunet, 2017). Following
this, in 1928, Amsterdam Games started long-standing Coca-Cola partnerships made with
Olympics. Further, these games also provided allowance to restaurants to start working in the
Olympic stadium.
Marketing in 1948, was done by developing the broadcast rights fees principle, further in 1952,
the Helsinki Olympics made decisions to form a global marketing program, wherein companies
made contributions of sponsorships (Ferreira and et al. 2018).
In 1964, the Tokyo Games acknowledged over 250 companies partnering up with the Olympics.
They made use of satellite broadcasting for marketing enabling images to be shared overseas.
Over 2.5 billion people got connected in 1984, by this television and rights of broadcasting were
also gained.
Further, the 2004 Olympics returned to Athens, Greece, having a motto of Welcome Home, these
games were the first one to have live coverage with over .9 billion viewers throughout 200
countries. At present, it forecasts over 1 billion in ad sales, plus for its marketing partnering up
with several social media outlets have been considered for the expansion of its content reach
(Fairfield-Sonn, 2017).

Conclusion and recommendation
From the perspective of tourism, the Olympic Games are stated as the most significant sporting
event. The opportunity given to a city to host the Olympic Games comprises immense
economic, cultural, and social commitment and dedication, as it is a mega event of the world. If
this, the opportunity is managed in a proper way that it can anger various positive and
sustainable long term benefits to the country and economy.
For enhancing the tourism competitiveness, it is recommended that the tourist product should
retain higher international tourist market share and while it should keep on updating the supply
quality timely. It also requires to be more diversified and cultural oriented, plus it must integrate
and the larger element of local production of products and services by powering the workforce
role, infrastructure modernization and entrepreneurship, offered by the public administration and
means by which tourism policy is adopted (Ashton, 2016). It can be recommended that Greece,
as well as Athens Olympics, could follow a set of strategies such as hosting athletic events at the
time of the event or prior to the event to enable Olympic athletes to have experience on the
Greek environment. Moreover, events are required to be organized and structured in a different
area of Greece. It is also suggested that Host participative athletic events should target those
events that have more interest in recreational athletics. Beforehand and aftermath of Game, there
should be an organization of Olympics-related excursions that emphasize on the areas related to
athletics events in ancient Greece (Gold and Gold, 2016). In addition, there should be a proper
organization of global cultural exhibitions as well as professional meeting offering a better angle
of Olympics. Along with this, there should be an effective supply of the international media and
exposure aligned with the information, prior to or after the Games.

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