Research On The Marketization Of Urban Marathon In China

Marathon has been actively promoted and widely developed all around the world,and has become a business card for a city even for a country.Recent years have seen explosive development of urban marathon in China,with the number of marathons and participants continuously making new records.In event operation,organizers take the initiative to introduce social forces and enterprise capital to participate in event operation.Therefore,the marketization of the event becomes more obvious and many cities have gained great economic benefits through hosting marathons.However,such problems as uneven competition level,unprofessional operation management,strong political color and security issues have left a shadow on marathon,a public sport in its prime development period.Therefore,it is necessary to conduct research on the marketization of urban marathon in China and to know the status quo of market operation of urban marathon in China.On such basis,the paper takes Xiamen Marathon as an example to analyze the style and method of its market operation,to explore the mature experience of Xiamen International Marathon in this field and to put forward suitable development direction for urban marathon in China.This paper takes the 51 marathon races in 2014 in China as its research object and conducts a key analysis on Xiamen International Marathon,a gold standard event certified by IAAF,with the hope to provide certain reference for the hosting of marathon in other cities.The paper mainly suggests:1.reforming system,highlighting advantages,integrating culture concept,drawing from the marketization experience of Xiamen International Marathon to host various sets of activities to foster the market scale of marathon and to create brand competitions.2.transforming development thought,taking the market as its guide,establishing specialized operation management team and intensifying reform to allow more enterprises to have the opportunity to participate in event organization and management and take the road of commercialization.3,integrating all game resources and making reasonable selection in the name list of members of the "grand slam" series to build domestic top marathon "grand slam" tournaments.