Problematising ‘Festival Tourism’: Arts Festivals and Sustainable Development in Ireland

This paper problematises the term ‘festival tourism’. It conceptualises festivals as socially sustaining devices and argues that while they frequently function as tourist attractions, their social significance extends far beyond tourism. Using empirical material gathered in two case study arts festivals in Ireland, the paper demonstrates how festivals can contribute to arts development by inter alia creating demand for the arts, enhancing venue infrastructures, encouraging local creativity and animating local involvement. The paper contends that arts festivals, irrespective of their initial objectives almost inevitably develop tourist profiles over time and it proceeds to examine how changing tourism priorities in the two festivals studied impact upon sustainable festival practices. The findings suggest that tourism emerged as a key force promoting festival growth and expansion. It was found to be associated with increased revenue flows but also with increased arts activity on a year-round basis and with an improved venue infrastructure in both places. However, problems were identified with respect to the quality of the relationship forged between the festivals and local populations in the respective places. The paper concludes by arguing that festivals’ engagement with tourism needs to be carefully managed in the interests of promoting the socially sustaining function of festivals and of encouraging sustainable approaches to tourism development.     

Visitors’ Emotional Responses to the Festival Environment

Despite the importance of emotions and psychological commitment to loyal behavior, little empirical work has been done to explore their simultaneous effects on the festival loyalty development in the tourism literature. Guided by Mehrabian and Russell’s (1974) framework in environmental psychology, this study examined how emotions elicited from the festival environment influenced visitors’ postvisit behavior. Data were collected from visitors to community festivals using the onsite and postvisit survey procedure. Results revealed that festival atmospherics had a positive indirect effect on loyalty via positive emotions, satisfaction, and psychological commitment. Based on the study findings, both practical and theoretical insights were provided.     

Potential for collaboration among agricultural food festivals in Korea for cross-retention of visitors

Abstract

This study examines visitor intentions to attend different agricultural food festivals within the same region to explore whether they can collaborate to promote cross-visits. Building upon the literature on co-branding and satisfaction, this study proposes the direct effect as well as the mediating roles of involvement and variety seeking between visitor satisfaction with a current festival and behavioral intentions to visit similar festivals. The results found that all relationships appeared to be positive and significant as conceptualized and visitor intentions to attend similar festivals were as high as those to visit the festival that had been attended again. Furthermore, comparison of three models suggested that the partial mediation model (PMM) is a significant improvement over the direct effect (DEM) and full mediation (FMM) models. This study seeks to make both theoretical and practical contributions to agricultural food festivals and rural tourism, specifically to the cross-retention potential of visitors to relevant festivals.     

Celebration of heritage: linkages between historical re-enactment festival attributes and attendees’ value perception

ABSTRACT

Community-based festivals celebrate a sense of community and place. Communities across the United States (US) and elsewhere have turned to various community-based events to celebrate local heritage and culture. This study investigates the relationship between the attributes of a historical re-enactment festival and participants’ perceived value. Drawing on means–end theory and event experience literature, we examined event attributes, perceived benefits, and attendees’ perceived value in the context of a historical re-enactment festival in the Midwestern US. The results highlighted the importance of four attributes of historical re-enactment festivals, namely historical re-enactment, social interactions, event design, and physical facets. Each factor contributed differently to attendees’ perceived value of such a festival experience. In addition, perceived benefits of attending such an event mediated the relationships between event attributes and perceived value. Theoretical and managerial implications of these findings are discussed.     

Art festival attendance: Who attends and why with implications on developing future festival attractiveness

Art festivals are an increasing part of a destination's event portfolio, asserted by destination marketing and management agencies to hopefully promote community engagement including attracting tourism, trade, and talent to the destination. With art festivals a common annual event feature at destinations, the competition for festival participation has increased, creating a greater need to isolate those festival attributes that are specifically appealing to targeted visitor segments. Examining participant profile and motives to attend the publically funded annually recurring Macau Arts Festival (MAF), the findings of this case study showed mostly community involvement with participants being mainly well educated, middle-aged, and female. While an aim of the festival, international participation in the festival was limited. A factor analysis on motives to attend the festival revealed that while there was common agreement with previous literature on reasons to attend, Macau's cultural background provided increased opportunity for the MAF to differentiate the event. Marketing implications also suggested investigating a communication strategy that could differ between attracting local and international audiences. With a significant cost to public finances, greater scrutiny on the appeal of the festival to specific local and international audiences was recommended to better present the cost to benefit argument for hosting.     

Festival Tourism: A Contributor to Sustainable Local Economic Development?

Towns, villages and cities are increasingly keen to share their culture, environment and spending opportunities with visitors by the promotion of festivals. The fact that income can be generated by such festivals is clear but the true value of visitor spend is more complex to calculate with accuracy. This paper considers the contribution of festival tourism to sustainable local economic development. A festival typology is created that broadly identifies three festival types termed 'home-grown', 'tourist-tempter' and 'big-bang'. Here three festivals matching the typology are analysed against the model of sustainable local economic development activity created by the environment charity Forum for the Future. Results suggest that although festivals may have the potential to provide opportunities for sustainable local economic development such opportunities frequently remain unexploited. Nevertheless, some festival scenarios do indicate a closer match to the model of sustainable local economic development activity than others. This paper analyses why this should be and suggests ways in which festival tourism's contribution to local economies might begin to be better understood, and consequently, improved.     

Host perceptions of music festival impacts: time and space matter?

Music festivals are growing phenomena worldwide. How a festival is perceived, interpreted and understood is an essential part of public response and attitudes toward the phenomena. Understanding dynamic and diverse host perceptions and attitudes toward the festival impacts can help planners ensure the effectiveness of the event planning and management. The study aims to monitor host perceptions of impacts of Beijing Strawberry Music Festival in time and space using longitudinal and comparative data. The findings suggest that there are both significant changes and consistencies in positive and negative perceptions of the music festival impacts over time; findings also suggest that residents from three distant zones share similar perceptions of the impacts over time in a local-wide area. The study offers a holistic insight into tourism impact research, and has practical implications for event management and planning.     

Behavioral intention of visitors to an Oriental medicine festival: An extended model of goal directed behavior

Despite the importance of Oriental medicine festivals to Oriental medical tourism, little research has been conducted to understand the behavioral intention of visitors to these festivals. Therefore, this study examines the behavioral intention of visitors to a Korean Oriental medicine festival. This study employs the extended model of goal-directed behavior (EMGB) that incorporates two constructs related to Oriental medicine festivals: the Oriental medicine image of festival site (image) and the perception of Oriental medicine (perception). An on-site survey was conducted with 423 visitors attending the Sancheong Herbal Festival in South Korea. Results reveal that attitude, subjective norm, and positive anticipated emotion influenced visitors' desire to attend the festival, which, in turn, influenced their behavioral intentions. Two constructs of image and perception formed positive and significant relationships with attitude toward attending the festival. Practical implications of the study results are discussed.     

Effect of Health and Wellness Values on Festival Visit Motivation

Understanding the motivation to visit particular tourist destinations and festivals is important for building effective tourism marketing strategies. This paper explores the effect of existing health and wellness values on the motivation to visit a festival using a field survey at the Goomeri Pumpkin Festival, a typical Australian festival which uses the natural environment, traditions and local produce to provide 21 events during the festival. The study focused on establishing the relationship between health and wellness values and festival attendees' motivation. Qualitative research with random sampling was selected to collect the data. The results revealed high levels of health and wellness values among the participants as well as social interaction, family togetherness, cultural exploration, novelty, natural environment, relaxation, previous food festival experience and food as motivations. Findings of this paper can contribute to festival tourism marketing especially to demonstrate that health-related interests can be significant catalysts for attracting festival attendees.     

Music festival motivation in China: free the mind

This paper explores the extent to which music festival attendance is ‘universally’ motivated or determined by the Chinese cultural and socio-political context. A novel qualitative approach was employed comprising observation of social media conversations and ‘chat room’ interviews with members of a festival online community. Seven motivators were identified, some similar to those in Western studies but others more specific to festival-goers in Mainland China. The culturally specific motivators were identified as ‘spiritual escape’ and ‘spiritual pursuit’ and the universal motivators as ‘togetherness’, ‘love of the music’, ‘novel experience’, ‘music sharing’ and ‘educational enrichment’. This paper focuses on the two culturally embedded motivators only. The implications of the study are that, although, growing, there are still very few music festivals featuring ‘pop’ or ‘western’ style music and these few are relatively new to Chinese people. Their attendance at them is, therefore, motivated differently to attendees at similar festivals in western countries. These motivating factors are mediated by the particular social, political and cultural factors at work in this complex country. The findings indicate that although many of the motivational factors for attending a music festival appear to be universal, there are clearly factors which are culturally bound and therefore unique to the cultural context. These differences appear to be created by the social constraints, rapidly changing economy and the many contradictions inherent in modern Mainland China. These conditions create a greater contrast between everyday life in Mainland China and the liminal hedonistic space provided by the festival. Further research is needed to validate theses initial findings within China and to explore how rock music festival motivations differ in other non-western cultures.     

The effects of festival impacts on support intentions based on residents’ ratings of festival performance and satisfaction: a new integrative approach

Festivals can provide an effective vehicle for sustainable tourism. It is therefore necessary to examine the impacts of festival tourism as well as their consequences in order to manage their relevance to the local community. The lack of a multiple mediation approach, however, has hampered research on the psycho-social process through which festival impacts (perceived benefits, costs, and affective impact) influence resident support. We propose a new integrative approach in which resident-rated festival performance and satisfaction are putative mediators that transmit the effects of the three festival impacts to support for future festivals. The theoretical foundations of this integrative approach or model are jointly built on social exchange theory, the affective theory of social exchange, and the theory of reasoned action. The integrative model was successfully validated using eight sample festivals within China, which included 353 observations with 10,000 bootstraps. The empirical findings reveal that 14 out of the 17 hypotheses received empirical support in this study, and it thereby contributes significantly to new understanding in the literature.     

The role of moderating variables on music festival volunteer management

The growth and popularity of festivals and events has led to a need for examination of volunteer program management. An increase in music festivals in the United States in the last decade has resulted in managers recruiting and managing volunteers to operate music festivals. This research examines relationships between moderating variables and factors of self-image congruency, motivation, satisfaction, and intent to return as a volunteer at Austin City Limits, a large-scale music festival in the United States. This research demonstrates the benefit of incorporating self-concept theory in volunteer, event, and tourism research and provides practical implications for practitioners who manage volunteer programs.     

Evaluating the efficiency of Korean festival tourism and its determinants on efficiency change: Parametric and non-parametric approaches

Local festivals may leverage local specialties and various historical, cultural, and artistic resources throughout their respective regions to attract tourists, inducing positive economic impacts. In this study, this paper is a first attempt to analyze the relative efficiency of local festival tourism by using parametric and non-parametric approaches with the data from local festivals held in Korea from 2015 to 2018. We also deal with the efficiency determinants of each typology of festivals by employing a truncated regression with double bootstrapping. Results showed that the leading sources of inefficiency were primarily embedded in pure technology inefficiency, while the principal operational drivers posed different effects depending on the typology of festivals. These insights have important practical implications for the local festival organizing committees and operators in Korea and are helpful in developing tailored operational strategies to maximize the efficiency among different typologies of festivals.     

Measuring and managing the environmental impact of festivals: the contribution of the Ecological Footprint

This paper assesses the contribution of the Ecological Footprint as a method for estimating the environmental impact of festivals. It responds to calls for more rigorous methods to assess the environmental impacts of festivals, and contributes towards providing festival organisers and policy-makers with a more balanced evaluation of their outcomes. This paper focuses on the 2012 Hay Festival of Literature and Arts (Wales, United Kingdom), and describes how the Ecological Footprint was used to calculate the environmental impact of its visitors. It also considers the potential value of the Ecological Footprint as a method for evaluating alternative strategies designed to improve the environmental sustainability of festivals. The paper demonstrates that Ecological Footprint analysis can provide valuable information for festival organisers and policy-makers on factors influencing the scale of a festivals’ environmental impact, and the types of strategies needed to reduce the effect of visitor travel.     

Local Perspectives on the Impact of Tourism on Religious Festivals in Bhutan

The Himalayan nation of Bhutan is known to embrace Gross National Happiness rather than Gross National Product as the measure of its people's well-being. Happiness, spirituality and cultural authenticity are prominent factors in Bhutan's tourism image, and these attributes are most clearly exhibited in the traditional festivals that are among the most popular attractions for many foreign tourists. This paper introduces the cultural practice of religious festivals in Bhutan and investigates how tourism may be affecting these festivals. Within this context, this paper reports on the findings of a survey of Bhutanese monks and lay people, regarding their impressions of the effects of tourists on one particular event – the Tsechu festival. With the Bhutanese government's aim to increase the number of annual tourists more than fourfold to 200,000 by 2018, this research provides a baseline study of the perceived impact of tourism on religious festivals and addresses the issue of whether such an increase in volume of tourists would pose a threat to the integrity and value of these festivals as perceived by Bhutanese people.     

The “Pink Night” festival revisited: Meta-events and the role of destination partnerships in staging event tourism

This paper adopts a managerial perspective to revisit an original case study of the “Pink Night” festival presented by Giovanardi et al. (2014) in an earlier issue of this journal. Our in-depth qualitative study contributes to the event tourism planning and management literature in three ways. First, we shed light on how and why competing Destination Management Organisations (DMOs) cooperate to plan, develop and manage event tourism. Second, we introduce and describe the brand new concept of the meta-event, which is the main theoretical contribution of this work. Third, we elucidate the role of meta-events as brand architecture tools to rebrand and reposition wide tourism areas. We illustrate the theoretical and managerial implications of the meta-event concept for event tourism studies and destination managers.     

Examining the relationships among festivalscape,experiences, and identity: evidence from two Taiwanese aboriginal festivals

Despite an increase in the number of studies on aboriginal festivals, little empirical research has examined how the organisers of these festivals influence visitors’ sense of festival identity by promoting identifiable factors in their promotional materials. This study thus examines the relationship between the festivalscape, emotional and authenticity experiences, and festival identity among the attendees of two major aboriginal festivals held in July and December in Taiwan. A total of 901 usable questionnaires were collected. Our empirical results suggest that programme planning and the facilities of the festivalscapes positively and significantly affect the emotional experience at both festivals. Furthermore, the emotional experience and the authenticity experience positively and significantly affect festival identity at both festivals. Our findings contribute to efforts to understand the behaviour of festival attendees. Managerial implications and future research directions for aboriginal festival tourism are presented.     

What Facilitates a Festival Tourist? Investigating Tourists’ Experiences at a Local Community Festival

The purpose of this study was to examine the effectiveness of festival attributes and tourism facilitators on tourist satisfaction. The results of this study show that festival attributes has a positive and significant effect on tourists' satisfaction. Data analysis also revealed a positive and a significant effect of intrapersonal facilitators and structural facilitators on tourists' satisfaction. However, interpersonal facilitators do not allow a significant impact on tourists' satisfaction in the festival context. One of the most important findings is that festival commercialization is the strongest predictor of tourists' satisfaction. Structural facilitators are regarded as of primary importance in determining the satisfaction of festival tourists. Future research is needed to investigate other important antecedents of tourists' satisfaction across other festivals or locations, and to identify the complex nature of festival tourists' satisfaction. Finally, a longitudinal approach will better elucidate the relationships between measurement variables and their antecedents.     

Tourism as a mixed industry: Differences between private, public and not-for-profit festivals

This paper discusses important policy and management implications of tourism as a mixed industry in which public, not-for-profit, and private organisations such as festivals both compete and collaborate in creating the tourist product. To illustrate, four samples of festivals from the UK, Australia, Norway and Sweden are systematically compared in terms of their ownership, governance, structure, and content. Although the festivals offered a similar product and had similar mandates, they differed considerably in terms of revenue sources, cost structure, use of volunteers, corporate sponsorship, and decision-making. These differences are potentially important to destinations that view festivals as attractions and use them in place marketing. Implications are drawn for festival management and tourism policy, and recommendations are made for extending this line of inquiry to the tourism industry as a whole.     

Whose festival is it anyway? Analysis of festival stakeholder power,legitimacy, urgency,and the sustainability of local festivals

Abstract

The sustenance and institutionalization of local festivals hinge on the extent to which various stakeholders work together effectively. While all stakeholder relationships matter in this respect, research has often failed to focus on the various relationships between all stakeholders involved. This study uses the tenets of stakeholder theory (power, urgency, and legitimacy) to examine the differences between stakeholders in local festivals. It is based on a questionnaire survey of 1,092 festival stakeholders from eight groups in six local festivals in Ghana. The results indicate that festival organizers have the highest level of power, urgency, and legitimacy. The results also reveal varying levels of power, urgency, and legitimacy between government authorities, sponsors, vendors, volunteers, visitors, and the media. Given these differences, festival committees need to give the right priority each stakeholder group and properly respond to each based on their relationship with other stakeholders. Groups such as vendors with low legitimacy need to be actively included in planning committees and decision-making regarding the festivals. The involvement of the regional tourism offices, which is lacking, will help in providing training to festival organizers and other stakeholders in order to institutionalize the festivals.