Chapter 1 Basic Concepts and Definitions

Abstract

It has never been more important to develop professionalism in the forecasting, measurement and evaluation of event and tourism impacts. While there has been widespread acceptance of the sustainability paradigm and principles of social responsibility, combined with serious public debate about the costs and benefits of events, venues and tourism, the problems seem to keep getting worse. The impacts of events and tourism have been studied extensively, yet evaluation and impact assessment have not been given the same attention, so theory and methods are relatively undeveloped (Brown et al., 2015). Hence the need for this book and its companion Event Evaluation.
There are generic principles and established methods available to guide professionals in Impact Assessment (IA) and evaluation, but in the realm of events and tourism we often witness poor methods and a deliberate lack of comprehensiveness, transparency and accountability for both political and selfish reasons. As an introduction to some of the important issues, consider these scenarios relating to events and event tourism. There are four major types of IA discussed in this book and these scenarios introduce them.