A comparison between Thai residents and non-residents in their motivations, performance evaluations, and overall satisfaction with a domestic festival

Abstract

Competitiveness among destinations, the rising cost of marketing, and the need to maintain market share, inspire the event management of the Tenth-Month Merit-Making Festival (TMMF) to use the festival as a tourist destination and to focus on attendees' wants and needs. The TMMF is a religious celebration which has existed in Nakhon Si Thammarat (NT), a province in southern Thailand for more than a hundred years. Despite the longevity and significance of the TMMF, there is no systematic record of the festival's attendees. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to compare residents' and nonresidents' information sources, motivations, performance evaluations, and overall satisfaction with the festival. There were 243 residents and 80 non-residents participating in the study. The results revealed that friends and family were their best information sources. Arts and crafts were top attractions for both groups. Factors affecting residents' overall satisfaction were different from those of non-residents.

Audience Members’ Motivation, Satisfaction, and Intention to Re-visit an Ethnic Minority Cultural Festival

“…Accordingly, previous studies on festivals and special events have been interested in examining the relationships between festival audience members' motivations, quality of the performance and the experience, audience satisfaction levels, and future behavioral intentions (Cole & Illum, 2006;Kim, 2008;Kim et al, 2008;Lee et al, 2004;McDowall, 2010). In a case study of the 2000 Kyongju World Expo, Lee et al (2004) confirmed that there was a direct relationship between festival motivations and satisfaction.…”

“…Given that the sustainability of festivals depends greatly on the level of satisfaction of festival audience members at the event (Crompton & McKay, 1997), understanding of the festival audience members and their motivations; a festival's performance evaluation; and the festival's overall satisfaction for the audience member, are all key factors for the staging of a successful festival (McDowall, 2010). Accordingly, previous studies on festivals and special events have been interested in examining the relationships between festival audience members' motivations, quality of the performance and the experience, audience satisfaction levels, and future behavioral intentions (Cole & Illum, 2006;Kim, 2008;Kim et al, 2008;Lee et al, 2004;McDowall, 2010).…”

“…Other previous studies related to festival audiences' behaviors were also interested in understanding the existence of the relationships among festival audiences' characteristics, festival motivation, and satisfaction (Kim, Sun, & Mahoney, 2008;Lee et al, 2004;Mohr, Backman, Gahan, & Backman, 1993;McDowall, 2010;Yoon, Lee, & Lee, 2010). Yet, little research has been conducted about the relationships that might exist between festival audience members' motivations, the degree of their satisfaction, and the likelihood of any future attendance or re-visit intention within the context of ethnic minority community cultural festivals.…”

Visitors' Motivation for Attending Traditional Cultural Events as the Basis for Market Segmentation: Evidence from Slovakia

“…By addressing a topic of contemporary interest, such as the underlying forces of festival visitors' behavior, in thus far scarcely examined context of cultural events in Slovakia, findings of this study add to The application of factor analysis indicated six domains of visitors' motivation, such as new and different experience, friends and family togetherness, reconnection with culture and tradition, socialization, equilibrium recovery and change from everyday. Findings of this study which indicate a multidimensional nature of event attendees' motivation and the before mentioned domains of motivation as the main drivers of visitors' decision to attend a traditional cultural event, are largely in compliance with previous research (Mohr et al, 1993;Lee et al, 2004;McDowall, 2010;Park et al, 2014). Taking into consideration the domains of motivation which emerged from previous research and the ordering of the dimensions of attendees' motivation stemming from this study, from the perspective of explained variance in visitors' motivation, results of this study are in accordance with Nicholson and Pearce's (2001) findings that visitors' behavior is directed by largely similar internal factors, however, motivational domains differ in terms of their importance across various event settings.…”

“…Cudny and Ogorek (2014) conducted a study addressing visitors' motivation in the setting of Mediaschool Film Festival held in Lodz, Poland, and their research indicated six motivational domains, whereas the most important domain was related to culture and art, followed by social contacts, originality / novelty, event attractiveness, escape from everyday routine and family life. Previous studies have indicated differences in importance of motivation domains based on festival setting, previous visitation, visitors' residential status and national culture (Mohr et al, 1993, Lee et al, 2004, McDowall, 2010, Park et al, 2014. On the basis of previous discussion the following hypotheses are proposed: H1: Visitors' motivation to attend traditional cultural festivals in Slovakia is a multi-dimensional construct;…”