Influence of an event on a destination's image — The case of the annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos/Switzerland

Events, conventions and other meetings are one of the fastest growing sectors within the tourism industry. For many destinations events provide a large number of tourists and a high public exposure through an extensive media coverage. This paper draws its focus on the image of an event and its influence on the image of a destination. The results show that an event has an influence on a traveller's image of the destination, most notably for travellers living close to the destination. It is also shown that the image of those travellers who have a prior experience with the destination are less affected by the event. The results can be used by destination managers to improve the image benefit of events through a better selection of events and to improve the competitive position of the destination by a selective communication of the positive aspects of the event to particular target groups.