Journal of Tourism & Hospitality
Open Access
ISSN: 2167-0269
+44 1300 500008
ISSN: 2167-0269
+44 1300 500008
This paper seeks to highlight the local community of Soshanguve’s perspective and understanding of the impacts of South Africa hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup. The study adopts the sustainable tourism imperative as the benchmark from which to assess the extent to which the organization of such mega events conform or not, to the sustainable tourism triple bottom-line of community participation, environmental impacts and socio-economic development.
Literature on the impacts of tourism development is reviewed in order to establish a theoretical framework for the study. From this, a questionnaire made up of closed-ended questions was drawn up for use in collecting data on community members’ views on their participation in the event and their understanding of the impacts of South Africa hosting the 2010 FIFA World cup. Seventy-five community members were randomly selected to participate in the study.
The findings reveal that despite the general enthusiasm among community members regarding South Africa’s hosting of the event, most of the respondents showed little understanding of the impacts that are likely to result from the organization and staging of mega events such as the FIFA World Cup.
The key implication of this study calls into question the effective contribution of mega events such as the FIFA World Cup to the sustainable development of tourism. This is because local community members (key stakeholders in sustainable tourism development) are not actively involved in the organization of such events and consequently are not well-informed of the likely impacts of hosting events of this nature.
In order to maximize the contribution of the hosting of mega events such as the FIFA World Cup to sustainable tourism development, local community members should be involved in every phase (defining, planning, execution and closing) of its organization. Community members should equally be informed of the possible impacts (positive and negative) of hosting such events.