The sunshine is here again and with it we can look forward to a summer of sport, music and events that will get us outdoors and exploring.

It is easy to overlook the impact of these events, especially when we get caught up in the atmosphere of cheering on our favourite sport stars or musicians.

Increasingly, major sporting, musical and cultural events play a vital role away from the centre-stage that is so visible with many governments striving to make social and economic impacts, or national identity statements, intended to boost the image, both of the event itself, and of the host country.

Host cities are placing greater importance on legacy and investment as their key arguments for hosting, or continuing to host, major events. Rationales like these offer a means of encouraging improved infrastructure and positive social impacts for host populations that are said to ensure long-term sustainable benefits to communities.

As we look ahead to the Rio Olympics and, longer term, to the potential of a football World Cup in Qatar in 2022, we can see what is at stake for the host countries, having felt the gaze of the world upon our own shores just two years ago at the Commonwealth Games.

Events like these present opportunities to influence how other nations and Non-Government Organisations perceive the host country. Additionally, they can be seen as moments when other nations can influence the organisers of, say, the Rio Olympics or the World Cup in Qatar to act as vehicles for, even leaders of, positive social change, human rights, peace and harmony, as well as the economic touristic growth many may desire as a primary objective. Thus, the bidding and awarding of major events to cities and regions present chances to exercise soft power via cultural diplomacy.

On the home front, aside from improved infrastructure and sporting facilities, one of the legacies from the 2014 Commonwealth Games is positive exposure for Scotland and Glasgow to a wider international community than might be reached using tourism marketing techniques alone. Although Scotland is widely regarded as a great tourist destination, many people who had never been to the country before had a chance to see aspects of it that they may not have considered previously.

Visitor numbers to Scotland were up by 10 per cent last year, new trade deals were agreed across the world and our image as a nation of pale individuals, with a poor health record, vastly improved – we might even be almost a healthy country now.

The long-term impact of 2014 remains to be seen but early indications of sustainable Events Nation status are good, with Glasgow winning the IPC Swimming World Championships 2015 and the European Sports Championship 2018. But, to get a gauge on how this might develop, we need to look back at how other sporting events fared.

Casting aside memories of jaw-dropping fireworks and vuvuzelas, both the 2008 Beijing Olympics and the South African World Cup in 2010 promised a legacy of cultural and economic change if they were to win the right to host the events. A promise to make Beijing the "Green Games" was a significant shift for a country renowned for – until that point – a heavy reliance on coal. Beijing engaged in a "soft power" offensive to win over the International media, and the West generally.

Importantly, for the Chinese, the Games transformed the world’s view of the country as one that was insular and focused on heavy industry to one that is welcoming to tourists and increasingly concerned with improving the environment.

Look towards South Africa and a similar picture emerges, with an emotional claim that it was their turn, as perhaps it was. If, as we espouse, these Mega-Events offer success in planned externalities such as economic growth, urban regeneration and tourism, then why shouldn’t the likes of South Africa, Brazil and Qatar have the chance to benefit?

Mega events present instantaneous consumption of images, records being broken or laser light shows is only the tip of a complex iceberg. Successful bidding, winning the rights and delivering a successful Games or mega-Event is seldom enough. Having an event that can be asserted to have led change, developed community, grown prestige and, crucially, communicating all of this globally, is now the benchmark for organisers and policymakers.

Professor Gayle McPherson is chairwoman in Events and Cultural Policy at University of the West of Scotland.