| Mega-events, such as Olympic Games, World Expo and Asian Games, have significant impacts on the host destination, especially in the economic, social and environmental aspects. As the participants of the mega-events, residents’ perceptions and attitudes play a vital role in the success of the host of a mega-event. Residents will actively participate in and support the host of the mega-event when their positive impacts exceed the negative impacts. Otherwise, they will become opponents with a resistance emotion, and the level of participation will also be descended.So, it is very important to research the residents’perceptions and attitudes towards the impacts of the mega-events.Take the Youth Olympic Games (YOG) as the case which will be held in Nanjing in2014, this paper researched the residents’perceptions and attitudes towards the impacts before Youth Olympic Games. Exploratory factor analysis was used to analyze the dominant impact factors of the residents’ perceptions. The descriptive statistical analysis and the one-way Analysis of Variance (one-way ANOVA) were used to explore the relationship between residents’ personal features and residents’ perceptions, and the relationship between residents’ personal features and residents’ attitudes. Correlation analysis was employed to explore the relationship between perceptions and attitudes. Finally, combined with the content analysis and the preceding analysis, this paper put forward some strategies for the decision-making departments in hope that they will increase the participation and support of residents, play a vital role in the promotion of mega-events, and plan and manage the mega-events better from pre-event perspective.Through the research, we found that:(1) Residents’ perceptions of positive impacts on the Youth Olympic Games were mainly displayed in promoting the development of the city, improving the residents’ literacy, improving the infrastructure and environment, creating economic benefits. Residents’ perceptions of negative impacts on the Youth Olympic Games were mainly displayed in increasing the cost of living, occupying the public resources, destroying the humanistic and ecological environment.(2) In general, Residents’perceptions of positive impacts on the Youth Olympic Games were higher than the perceptions of negative impacts. Residents’attitudes towards the Youth Olympic Games were positive relatively. Some personal features, such as gender, age, education background, dwelling time and profession, influenced residents’ perceptions and attitudes inordinately.(3) There was a certain correlation between residents’ perceptions and attitudes. Positive perception factors were presented positive correlations with the attitudes. Negative perception factors were presented negative correlations with the attitudes. There was a certain difference in the significant degree of the correlations among them.(4) The high-frequency vocabularies of residents’ suggestions were concentrated in environment, income, transportation, and stadium and so on. Combining with the above analysis results, this paper put forward some optimizing strategies for the Youth Olympic Games and other mega-events held in Nanjing from the aspects of increasing residents’ income, developing sports events, optimizing the ecological environment and so on. |