Lidija Petrić

Host population perceptions of the social impacts of sport tourism events in transition countries: Evidence from Croatia

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate residents’ perceptions of social impacts from co‐hosting the 2009 World Mens Handball Championship (WMHC09) in a small Croatian city – Split – in response to the need for social impacts research at a variety of sport tourism events and locations. Additional analysis was performed on a number of socio‐demographic factors that may affect the magnitude of residents’ perceptions.Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative methodology was employed using a convenience sampling method. A drop and mail‐back technique with self‐completed surveys was used. A total of 92 completed surveys were returned. Mann‐Whitney U and Kruskal‐Wallis tests were used to test for patterns of social impacts across demographic variables.Findings – Overall, respondents’ perceived the social impacts from co‐hosting WMHC09 as mostly positive. However, the majority of respondents believed that the public monies spent on a new arena construction should have been allocated...