PROMOTING TOURIST DESTINATIONS THROUGH SPORT EVENTS. THE CASE OF BRAŞOV

Sport event tourism is a huge and growing global industry with important economic implications for both the sport, the event and the impact of travel and tourism related benefits on host destinations. A primary function of a sport event is to provide the host community with an opportunity to secure high prominence in the tourism market place. However, international or regional prominence may be gained with significant social and environmental costs. Hosting sport events has been a focus of destination marketers as a strategy to enhance its destination image and differentiate its tourism products. Communities are attracted to hosting sport events to draw marketing benefits that will contribute to the success of the destination in the long run by creating awareness, improving their image with visitors and attracting tourism business to generate future inbound travel. As such, destination images can be influenced by the hosting of a sport event and the attributes associated with this event. The purpose of this paper is to outline the role of sport event tourism in the promotion of tourist destinations. A case study has been chosen in order to illustrate the interdependence between event and destination marketing: Braşov, hosting the winter edition of The European Youth Olympic Festival in 2013. The paper includes a series of recommendations for destination managers in order to maximise the benefits of this event and take this opportunity to promote Braşov on the international market.