The impact of media during the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 on the destination image of Vienna Bachelor Thesis for Obtaining the Degree Bachelor of Business Administration in Tourism and Hospitality Management Submitted to Dr. Irem Önder Matthias Schwindl 1311008 Vienna, 30th April 2016 Affidavit I hereby affirm that this Bachelor’s Thesis represents my own written work and that I have used no sources and aids other than those indicated. All passages quoted from publications or paraphrased from these sources are properly cited and attributed. The thesis was not submitted in the same or in a substantially similar version, not even partially, to another examination board and was not published elsewhere. Vienna, 30th April 2016 2 Abstract The activities of the Vienna Tourist Board, as the official destination management organization (DMO) for the city Vienna, comprise all PR and marketing activities linked to city tourism in Vienna. With regard to the overall marketing strategy several concepts as well as strategies were established to enhance the city’s perception around the world. Part of the 2020 tourism strategy published by the Vienna Tourist Board is the emphasis on the five main attributes that come to people’s mind when they first think of Vienna. Ranging from the beautiful imperial heritage to the great offer of music and culture as well as the green spaces within the city limits. These perceptions are integrated in the marketing strategy of the tourist board and are used for many promotional activities. Since 2015 the famous Ringstrasse Boulevard celebrated its 150th anniversary, many media reported about the city. However, Conchita Wurst won the Eurovision Song Contest 2014 in Copenhagen unexpectedly. Due to her victory in the competition, this big world event took place in May 2015 in Vienna. An immense number of journalists were attracted by the ESC 2015 who reported about the event and the tourism destination Vienna. Thus, several images of Vienna were projected in various articles and countries. One part of the research is the analysis of newspaper articles in magazines and online articles to discuss the impact of these publications on the general image of the city and how the city’s image is perceived during that time or changed due to the Eurovision Song Contest 2015. 4 1 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................ 7 2 LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................ 8 2.1 DEFINITION OF TOURISM AND TOURISM DESTINATION ................................................ 8 2.2 DESTINATION MANAGEMENT ORGANISATION (DMO) ............................................... 9 2.3 A DMO’S STRATEGIC APPROACH ............................................................................ 9 2.4 TOURISM PRODUCT ........................................................................................... 10 2.5 MARKETING ..................................................................................................... 10 2.6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TOURISM MARKETING ............................................................ 11 2.7 OBJECTIVES AND AIMS OF BRANDS ........................................................................ 11 2.8 DESTINATION IMAGE .......................................................................................... 11 2.8.1 Mega events in a country and the destination image ............................ 15 2.9 MASS MEDIA EFFECTS ......................................................................................... 16 2.9.1 Cognitive effects ..................................................................................... 17 2.9.2 Affective effects ...................................................................................... 17 2.9.3 Behavioural effects ................................................................................ 17 2.10 THE TOURISM IMAGINATION .............................................................................. 17 2.11 TOURISM MARKET ........................................................................................... 18 2.12 DEFINING A REGION OR CITY AS A BRAND ............................................................. 18 2.13 THE VIENNA TOURIST BOARD ............................................................................ 18 2.13.1 Strategic Destination Development ..................................................... 19 2.13.2 Brand Management and Advertisement .............................................. 20 2.13.3 Corporate Public Relations ................................................................... 20 2.13.4 Content Management and Production ................................................ 20 2.13.5 Media and Market Management ......................................................... 21 2.13.6 Convention Bureau ............................................................................... 21 2.14 EUROVISION SONG CONTEST ............................................................................. 22 2.14.1 The beginning ....................................................................................... 22 2.14.2 The rules ............................................................................................... 22 2.14.3 Eurovision Song Contest Vienna 2015 .................................................. 23 2.15 VIENNA AS A BRAND ......................................................................................... 23 2.15.1 Vienna – now or never ......................................................................... 25 2.15.2 Photos .................................................................................................. 25 2.16 SIDE EVENTS SONG CONTEST VIENNA 2015 ........................................................ 25 5 2.16.1 EUROCLUB ............................................................................................ 27 2.16.2 POP meets OPERA ................................................................................ 27 2.16.3 Euroart in the MQ – The ESC MQ FURNITURE ...................................... 27 2.16.4 The Nul-pointers ................................................................................... 28 2.16.5 Trips for free ......................................................................................... 28 3 METHODOLOGY ............................................................................................. 29 4 ANALYSIS ....................................................................................................... 30 4.1 ANALYSIS OF MEDIA RELEASES RELATED TO THE EUROVISION SONG CONTEST 2015 ...... 30 4.2 ANALYSIS OF GENERAL MEDIA COVERAGE 2014/2015 ............................................ 33 5 CONCLUSION ................................................................................................. 43 6 BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................................... 45 APPENDICES ......................................................................................................... 51 APPENDIX 1 ............................................................................................................... 51 6 1 Introduction This scientific work critically discusses the impact of media during the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 on the image of Vienna. There is an emphasis on how media coverage differs during a mega event such as the Eurovision Song Contest 2015 compared to general articles covering Vienna as a destination in the time period late 2014 and 2015. Thus, only German and English articles in cooperation with the Vienna Tourist Board are considered in this work. The Destination Management Organisation (DMO) for Vienna, the Vienna Tourist Board, evaluated the tourist’s perception of the city and later established guidelines how they want to promote Vienna (Vienna Tourist Board, 2013). This Bachelor thesis compares the brand elements established by the Vienna Tourist Board with the actual newspaper articles’ description and announcement of the city. The significance of a well-established media brand strategy is indispensable for the DMO, particularly since in most articles on the Eurovision Song Contest the host city is often jointly mentioned. The analysis of articles can serve as an indicator if established brand elements of Vienna are represented in media coverage or not. To ensure this, the Vienna Tourist Board organised events for journalists and media associates as a platform for transferring their values to their guests. This thesis explains the influence of events for a successful destination image. Furthermore, terms such as destination management, brand strategy, tourism marketing as well as a description of the Eurovision Song Contest are discussed in this paper. The importance of effective destination marketing is very crucial since high costs are related to marketing activities for a tourism destination. Thus, the evaluation and content analysis of media releases in German and English serve as indicator for the efficiency of the marketing strategy of the DMO (Vienna Tourist Board, 2015). 7 2 Literature review 2.1 Definition of tourism and tourism destination The term tourism is hard to define as the complex phenomenon involves many stakeholders as well as an unclear consideration of recreation activities versus actual touristic behaviour. Due to the difficulties that come along this process of finding an appropriate definition, tourism is mostly defined