Mega events: a critical point of view

The paper aims to focus on the debate about mega event, and in particular on the effects that an important “media event” is able to generate on the territory and on its tourism attractiveness. On the one hand, mega events can be considered as a strong tourist attraction, and as powerful opportunities to improve the image of the city and to attract national and international visitors (Mihalik and Simoneita, 1998); on the other hand, they can represent a real barrier to development, “contributing to the naturalization of social inequalities” (Horne, 2007). In the current socio-political context, the question concerning benefits of a mega event in the host city is widely discussed. In the last two decades, there was a “race for bidding”, but currently, the great number of protests and debts influenced the Olympic territories, discouraging the frenetic rush to the Games. In the literature, the question is controversial, and the experts doubt about strategies and policies applied by events’ stakeholders, not often meeting the concrete opportunities for territories and the needs of communities.