What about the event? How do tourism leveraging strategies affect small-scale events?

This study draws on contingency theory to investigate whether tourism leveraging strategies designed for mega-events are applicable to small-scale events. In-depth interviews conducted with eight event managers of small-scale events revealed that the managers perceived grant funding offered to promote tourism leveraging to be a diversion from the core purpose of staging the event. Restrictions on grant funding directed the event managers' focus to increasing the number of tourists and their length of stay and their spending in the destination. While event managers acknowledged that engaging in tourism leveraging expanded the event's target markets and increased the size of the event, they believed that tourism operators were the key beneficiaries of the leveraging. Mutual benefits between event and tourism organisations occurred when the funding partner(s) and the event collaborated. A grounded theory model was developed to show the impact of tourism leveraging strategies on small-scale events. The findings are consistent with the tenets of contingency theory, which suggest that managerial solutions are not automatically scalable.