Residents Perception On Impacts Of The Azerbaijan International Cycling Tour

Nowadays, sports events have a great importance in communities. Depending on the magnitude of these events, they have different impacts on the host communities. Hosting an event is profitable for communities; therefore there is an intense competition on being a host of sporting events. Residents also have different positive and negative perceptions about the impacts of these events. This study longitudinally investigated residents’ perceptions on the impacts of the Azerbaijan International Cycling Tour. Data were collected during three different years of this event in 2012, 2014, 2016. In each of these consecutive years, a number of 357, 362, 348 people were selected randomly and analyzed by a researcher-made questionnaire based on five factors: economic development impacts, cultural impacts, social-psychological impacts, environmental and tourism impacts. ANOVA was used to examine the differences of the residents’ opinion. Findings suggest that there is no significant difference in residents’ understanding of four factors including economic, cultural, environmental and tourism (P 0/05). However, there is a significant difference in how they understood the social-psychological impacts of the events (P 0/05). The results of Scheffe post hoc test revealed that the average estimate of residents on social-psychological impacts has significantly decreased in the last three years. The results showed that although Azerbaijan International Cycling Tour has a long historical background, it still didn’t have a lasting impact on different aspects of the host society.