PurposeThe purpose of this study is to analyze Chinese tourists' perceptions toward the 2010 World Expo and the impact of a mega event on the host city and visitor satisfaction.Design/methodology/approachGuided by the conceptualization of hosting special events for destination branding, this study examines empirically tourists' perceptions and experiences of the 2010 Shanghai World Expo and the host city. Ten hypotheses were tested using SEM to identify and analyze the factors and relationships that influence mega events and host cities.FindingsData collected from 600 tourists who visited the 2010 Shanghai World Expo provide support for the proposed model. The empirical test provides support for eight of the ten hypotheses and it reveals that the hosting of the World Expo had significant positive impact on Shanghai but not vice versa, and the Chinese tourists exhibited loyalty to the host city.Research limitations/implicationsUsing a moving event such as Expo, the Shanghai brand is simplified. The sample includes only domestic tourists and future research should include an international sample for comparison.Practical implicationsThe results help in identifying and managing the factors that contribute positively to the host destination brand when hosting mega events.Originality/valueThis study is the first attempt to empirically test the conceptual framework of leveraging a mega event for enhancing the host destination brand by using the 2010 Shanghai Expo as a case study. It validates that the strategic fit between the event and host city, community support and event quality are essential in enhancing host destination brand and tourist loyalty.
National critical infrastructure is a typical complex system with the characteristics of self-organized criticality. In this paper, we firstly analyze the basic concepts of national critical infrastructure and the associated complex system characteristics, and then construct the model of national critical infrastructure based on complex system theory. This model abstracts the nodes of national critical infrastructure network and their connectivity relationships, and supports the measurements of national critical infrastructure's attributes, therefore reflects the dynamics of national critical infrastructure. The occurrence and propagation mechanism of national critical infrastructure's cascade failure behavior is analyzed based on this model, which preliminary validates effectiveness of the proposed model.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.