Evaluation of the image held by the French towards Brazil as a host country for mega-events

Abstract

Brazil has hosted mega-events in recent years, such as World Youth Day, Rio+20, and in particular, sports events such as the Football World Cup and more recently, the 2016 Olympic Games. Based on that context, and on the importance of these events, especially for tourist destination image, this study evaluates the image of Brazil as a tourist destination that hosts mega-events. A descriptive, quantitative study was carried out, though the application of electronic questionnaires distributed to a sample of French students. After the data collection, exploratory factorial analysis and comparison of means were performed. The results indicated that the French students had a positive image of Brazil as a mega-events host country, and that “Tourism Points” was the dimension of destination image most appreciated. It was also found that sex and previous experience of the country did not influence the students’ responses.