Mega Regeneration

B3140: Recreating the City: Events and Regeneration

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When cities decide to hold an event or join the bidding process for a mega event it is often because they need to use the event as a catalyst to improve their city in one way or another; whether this be image improvement, tourism development or urban regeneration (Getz, 1991). The following report will use case studies to critically evaluate the relationship between major and mega events with image development, tourism development and urban regeneration and analyse whether or not it is a sequential process.

Mega-events; the Olympic Games, World Expos and FIFA World Cup, and Major-events; the Commonwealth Games and European Capital of Culture - are large events which are being watched worldwide

Looking at London’s 2012 Olympic Games as a case study for tourism development; the 2012 games resulted in a net impact of £890m on London’s tourism industry, with the visitor economy having a net boost of £600m and domestic visitors bringing in a net boost of £360m (Thornton et al, 2013). The 2012 Games attracted over 800,00 overseas visitors, although visitor numbers fell during the Games they still had provided enough pre and post-game attractions, destinations and events to keep the attraction going (Thornton et al, 2013). Hotel development is neglected when it comes to urban regeneration, therefore it needs to be addressed during tourism development (Smith, 2012). London planned a 12% increase of new rooms available in hotels before the 2012 Games, bringing the total rooms to over 123,000; this puts a huge amount of pressure on the hospitality side, to avoid struggle People 1st provided the National Skills Academy for the sector to improve skills and deliver over 65,000 employment-ready learners (Department for Culture, Media and Sport,