Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to empirically investigate residents’ perceptions of social
impacts from co-hosting the 2009 World Men’s Handball Championship (WMHC09) in a small Croatian
city – Split – in response to the need for social impacts research at a variety of sport tourism events
and locations. Additional analysis was performed on a number of socio-demographic factors that may
affect the magnitude of residents’ perceptions.
Design/methodology/approach – A quantitative methodology was employed using a convenience
sampling method. A drop and mail-back technique with self-completed surveys was used. A total of
92 completed surveys were returned. Mann-Whitney U and Kruskal-Wallis tests were used to test for
patterns of social impacts across demographic variables.
Findings – Overall, respondents’ perceived the social impacts from co-hosting WMHC09 as mostly
positive. However, the majority of respondents believed that the public monies spent on a new arena
construction should have been allocated to construct facilities for which there is a greater public
need (healthcare centers, schools, etc.). Variations in respondents’ perceptions generally could not be
explained by their socio-demographic characteristics.
Practical implications – Any future decisions to use public monies for one-time financially
intensive events should perhaps be subjected to a decision by a popular vote.
Originality/value – This is one of the few studies to examine the residents’ perceptions of the social
impacts of sport tourism events in transition countries. It also extends social exchange theory and
reports validity and reliability of the social impacts scale.