Worldwide Impacts of Festivals and Events: A Detailed Assessment

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of the impacts of festivals and events, examining both their positive and negative consequences on host countries and communities. It explores the economic, social, and environmental dimensions of mega-events like the World Cup, Olympics, and Commonwealth Games, highlighting aspects such as tourism promotion, employment opportunities, urban renewal, and infrastructure development. The essay also delves into the challenges and drawbacks associated with these events, including financial burdens, displacement of communities, and environmental concerns. The author discusses the importance of sustainable development, ethical behavior, and stakeholder involvement in mitigating negative impacts and maximizing the benefits of hosting such events. The essay concludes by emphasizing the need for effective planning and strategic approaches by host governments to ensure long-term positive outcomes.

Impacts of Festival & Events Assessment
Question

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................3
Assessment 1 ( Covered in PPT.)....................................................................................................3
Assessment 2....................................................................................................................................3
'Sustainability of Mega Events is a myth'....................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................5
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................6

INTRODUCTION
Festival is described as the events that are celebrated by whole community and it involves
certain characteristics of the society and its culture, environment and religion etc. The Essay will
outline positive as well as negative impacts of festivals and events worldwide like world cup,
Olympics etc. This will help to describe failure and success of these events worldwide.
MAIN BODY
Assessment 1 ( Covered in PPT.)
Assessment 2
'Sustainability of Mega Events is a myth'.
Sustainable development is becoming more and more integrated with the aim and
objectives behind hosting mega events worldwide such as Olympics etc. For Example – There
is a connection between hosting Football World Cup 2010 in South Africa and sustainable
development. It has creates a global movement that involves using the power of football to attain
sustainable development of the society. Football World Cup has supported the host country by
contributing to economic, social and infrastructure development (Müller, 2017).
According to International Olympic Community (IOC), Olympic Games are hosted in a
condition that has resulted in various issues related with environment, IOC has taken measures to
represent concern for these activities and also helps to educate all those persons that are related
with Olympic activities in any way. In case of Olympics, sustainability is defined in relation with
physical environment in-spite of any social legacy. There are various principles related with
sustainable mega event such as involvement of local stakeholders, ethical behaviour, safe
atmosphere, positive impact on environment etc.
Olympics has laid down certain conditions for host country like expenses related with
hosting the event is to be borne by Government. Further, there are different countries like Greece
etc. that require breaking down large stadiums. This requires lot of funds and this become a
problem for host country. Further, global level tournaments and Olympics also help host country.
For Example- Hosting FIFA World Cup, 2010 has provided an opportunity to South Africa for
transformation of society and economic development of the country by creating approximately
7,00,000 jobs (Chari and Mhiripiri, 2016). There are various positive impact on host country
because of hosting Olympic games, World cup or Eurovision worldwide. It helps to promote host
country as a tourist destination, provide employment opportunities, new partners for trading

activities, urban renewal like sports infrastructure etc. For hosting a mega-event, host country
have to spent large amount of funds for making improvements in infrastructure to host the event
like constructing stadium, maintenance cost for various cities, cost of renovation etc.
According to different authors, huge amount of funds may be used somewhere else and it
is not necessary that, this expenditure will be beneficial for poor people. Further, mega-events
also helps to develop sense of identity and bring together people. Common wealth games also
help host country to create number of jobs.
There are negative impacts also on host country due to mega events. Generally, many
poor households are unaffected by these mega-events. For Example – In India, common wealth
games has created the problem for 30,000 to 40,000 families because they are being displaced
due to hosting of games (Viehoff and Poynter, 2016). It has resulted in loss of jobs and
livelihood. Therefore, cities in developing host countries should develop programmes to improve
social inclusivity of people in mega-events. Further, mega-events also helps host country to
accelerate the transition towards green economy. This has resulted due to developing and
implementing systems for environmental management like green building, waste, energy
efficiency etc. Other than positive impact, Olympics, Eurovision etc. also creates negative impact
on the environment of host country such as there are various countries that lacks disaster
management for managing the adverse situations during hosting mega-event. Therefore, host
country should develop awareness campaigns, greening should be planned in advance.
Commonwealth Games, 2010 that was hosted by India has resulted in various positive
impacts on economy. It has contributed contribution of approximately USD 4.9 billion and also
provided employment opportunities to nearly 2.47 people. Moreover, expenditure on mega
events has resulted in improvement in sustainable development of the country (Vanwynsberghe,
2015). On the other side, funds invested for hosting the event can be utilized more efficiently if
there is proper pre-planning by Government. There are some environmental issues also related
with commonwealth Games such as impact of carbon emissions on environment, water
requirement, generation of waste etc. Host countries should develop green games strategy, green
sensitization, green ceremonies etc. for reducing the emission of carbon di oxide. This will help
to achieve the status of carbon neutral for all the games.

Another negative impact of Commonwealth Games in India is that new land has been purchased
for providing accommodation facility to athletes. This has raised various issues such as
ecological issues, poor drainage etc. as the village was constructed on Yamuna River banks.
It can be said that, mega-events can be considered as expensive for both, developing and
developed countries in the absence of proper planning. Effective planning is required by host
country at every stage that is before, during and after hosting mega-events.
CONCLUSION
From the above Essay, it has been concluded that, mega-events may resulted in positive
as well as negative impact on the host country. It has described that, to realize the benefits of
hosting mega-events, the Government of host country should focus on developing proper
strategies before, during and after the events like Football World Cup, Commonwealth Games
etc.

REFERENCES
Books and Journals -
Chari, T. and Mhiripiri, N.A., 2016. African football, identity politics and global media
narratives: The legacy of the FIFA 2010 World Cup. Springer.
Müller, M., 2017. Approaching paradox: Loving and hating mega-events. Tourism
Management. 63. pp.234-241.
Vanwynsberghe, R., 2015. The Olympic Games Impact (OGI) study for the 2010 Winter
Olympic Games: Strategies for evaluating sport mega-events’ contribution to
sustainability. International Journal of Sport Policy and Politics. 7(1), pp.1-18.
Viehoff, V. and Poynter, G., 2016. Mega-event cities: Urban legacies of global sports events.
Routledge.

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