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Created as a celebration of art, music, and surf culture, the Bleach Festival was designed as a fringe-style event to be positioned in the week between two major surf events (Quiksilver/Roxy Pro and Burleigh Pro) held annually in Coolangatta, Queensland, Australia. Using visitor data collected at the event, in conjunction with an in-depth interview of the event's manager, the study evaluates the success of the festival against its own objectives of tourism extension, destination brand development, and local artist engagement. Additionally, the study explores the utility of augmentation strategies in achieving these objectives. Resultant issues in measuring the value of arts and cultural development in conjunction with tourism are further discussed.

Hosting the international travel media provides many benefits to individual tourism organisations and entire destinations. Various national tourist organisations (NTOs) have developed visiting journalist programmes to entice the media to visit a destination and maximise the publicity that can be gained. Unfortunately, there is also much scope for a mismatch of expectations between the destination and media. This paper initially examines the four main issues of understanding travel journalists, recognising different cultural needs, understanding individual journalists’ needs, and examining the travel media market. The paper then examines the case of the visiting journalist programme run by the Australian Tourist Commission. It examines their processes and highlights the integration of their media programme to support the overall marketing objectives. Finally, there is a discussion about some of the less understood issues that arise from operating such programmes.

Ancestral homelands continue to influence the identities and tourism behaviors of populations living in a diaspora. Festivals create a time and space to reflect on the collective myths where aspects of emotional memory can find creative expression through communal celebration with others. This article explores the influence of Celtic diaspora in reimagining rituals, symbols, and ceremonies to create new multisensory experiences, and further how these can be incorporated into the process of designing and delivering festival experiences. The experiences of audiences and event stakeholders at the Australian Celtic Festival in Glen Innes, Australia offer a case study that examines the emergence of a flourishing annual festival with Celtic heritage at its core. The research uses a mixedmethod approach of stakeholder interviews and participant surveys to examine various perspectives of the event, from which the emergence of five key themes demonstrate how and why festivals can be manipulated to include a rich reappraisal of new spaces and places while maintaining selected elements of identity and homelands. Further, findings show that the festival activities facilitate the links between the communication of culture within tourism spaces.