Mega events: a critical point of view
The paper aims to focus on the debate about mega event, and in particular on the effects that an important “media event” is able to generate on the territory and on its tourism attractiveness. On the one hand, mega events can be considered as a strong tourist attraction, and as powerful opportunities to improve the image of the city and to attract national and international visitors (Mihalik and Simoneita, 1998); on the other hand, they can represent a real barrier to development, “contributing to the naturalization of social inequalities” (Horne, 2007).