IMPACTS OF CULTURAL EVENTS ON A DESTINATION

Impacts of cultural events on a destination

Abstract

Cultural tourism constitutes an alternative strategy of sustainable local development for improving quality of life. The main objective of this type of tourism is to transform the regions, which are characterized by cultural resources, into ideal places for vacation, residence or business. In this study the residents' perceptions of cultural tourism were examined in a case study of a Greek island, Andros. It was found that the majority of the respondents were aware of the importance of cultural tourism and they argued that it could contribute to the island's local development. The findings also suggested that there is a strong relationship between the respondents' characteristics and their perceptions of the impacts of cultural tourism on the island's development.

Table of Contents

Table of Contents3

Chapter 1: Introduction4

Cultural Tourism7

Development of Cultural Tourism through Festivals9

Aims & objectives11

Research question12

Chapter 2: Literature Review13

Cultural tourism festival13

Tourists satisfaction14

Cultural festival attributes16

Difference in visitor satisfaction based on demographic and behavioural characteristics18

Negative Cultural Impacts By Tourism20

Positive Cultural Impacts By Tourism27

Introduction: measuring the impacts of large scale cultural events28

Major cultural festivals and events30

Cultural mega events35

Edinburgh Festival46

Leeds West Indian Carnival48

Chapter 3: Methodology52

Chapter 4: Findings55

Chapter: 5 Conclusions64

References69

Chapter 1: Introduction

Background of the study

This paper plans to evaluate mainly the economic impacts of cultural events, such as music concerts and festivals, art and architecture exhibitions and cinema festivals, as well as look at the social and environmental impacts they may have. It will also asses the level of involvement from the government and its collaboration with the private initiative. On a demographic side, it will, to an extent, map the movement of tourists on a national (Internal tourism) and international (External tourism) level.

Chacko & Schaffer (1993) point out that as the number of festivals/events increases and hosting communities acknowledge their economic contribution, they, as well as planning companies, begin to view these events from a tourism perspective. Getz (2008) defines special events as infrequently occurring events outside normal activities that are largely driven by profit motives. A number of destinations will invest in event tourism in order to respond to low tourism demand during the slow periods (Ryan et al., 1998). As a result of both previously mentioned factors, governments of host communities often expend resources (capital, HR/manning, etc) in the support of the development of events (Jackson, 2008). “Residents are generally in favour of events that contribute socially and economically to the destination. They are, however, not ambivalent to some of the negative impacts, but are willing to cope with these negative impacts as long as the perceived benefits exceed the negative impacts.” (Jackson, 2008)

Introduction

Today festivals are considered to contribute significantly to the cultural and economic development wealth of the United Kingdom. The festivals have major impact on the development of cultural tourism to the host communities. The festival organisers are now using the historical and cultural themes to develop the annual events to attract visitors and creating cultural image in the host cities by holding festivals in the community ...