Cultural Festivals and Regional Economic Development: Perceptions of Key Interest Groups

Kostopoulou, Stella; Vagionis, Nikolaos; Kourkouridis, Dimitris

doi:10.1007/978-3-7908-2879-5_10

Cited by 10 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 30 publications

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“…Festivals constitute touristic resources in rural areas, contributing to the attractiveness of the rural destinations and adding experience value and animation to specific local sights (Blichfeldt & Halkier, 2014;Lorentzen, 2012;Moscardo, 2007;Winkelhorn, 2015). Destination Management Offices eagerly promote festivals so as to create a number of reasons to visit an area across the seasons, and Kostopoulou, Vagionis, and Kourkouridis (2013) show that festivals may act as mechanisms to encourage regional economic development and touristic attractiveness, and for these reasons, festivals are increasingly being integrated in rural tourism planning (Kostopoulou, Kourkouridis, & Xanthopoulou-Tsitsoni, 2015).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Entrepreneurial implications, prospects and dilemmas in rural festivals

Hjalager

Kwiatkowski²

2018

Journal of Rural Studies

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Rural festivals emerge in numbers, scale and variety. They contribute to the attractiveness and viability of rural places for residents as well as visitors. Typically, festivals are deeply embedded in local ecosystems of sports, cultural, business and other types of associations, while they deliver elements of coherence, commitment and meaning, and sometimes economic benefits as well. This study aims to showcase the business entrepreneurship aspect of festivals in Danish rural areas, and it is based on primary data from 315 festivals. The special emphasis is put on the nature, prevalence and importance of business activities at such festivals, and on the opportunities for entrepreneurs to utilize festivals as a means of business development in relation to sales, marketing, product testing, and customers' feedback. The results show that, on the one hand, only very few of the surveyed festivals are entirely commercial, and the commercial objectives are, due to ideological and relational reasons, generally low-ranked by organizers. On the other hand there is strong evidence that local businesses actually participate in rural festivals' ecosystem, and that there are numerous mutual interactions between local business, festivals and residents that altogether create an excellent means for entrepreneurial drive. It is delicate undertaking to strengthen partnerships with entrepreneurs without compromising the community ingredients. Several potential courses of action are proposed.

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Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Entrepreneurial implications, prospects and dilemmas in rural festivals

Hjalager

Kwiatkowski²

2018

Journal of Rural Studies

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“…Their work was extended and validated by Gursoy, Kim, and Uysal (2004). Almost ten years later, Kostopoulou et al enhanced the research in this aspect by including other key stakeholder groups: in their study they assessed the perceptions of festival organizers, local authorities and tourism market in terms of the economic impact of regional cultural festivals on host communities (Kostopoulou et al, 2013). A recent study based on in-depth interviews with festival leaders has elicited four areas that most significantly relate to sustainability of festivals: the event subject focus, leadership, funding, and the organizational culture (Ensor, Robertson, & Ali-Knight, 2011).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 96%

“…To remain competitive, "cities are turning to strategies that focus on their own innate resources-their histories, spaces, creative energy and talents" (Richards & Palmer, 2010, p. 2). Thus, the number of events based on local products has seen a boom in recent years; yet, academic literature seems to be focused on large-scale festivals and sports events (Kostopoulou, Vagionis, & Kourkouridis, 2013).…”

Section: Literature Reviewmentioning

confidence: 99%

Festivals for Local Products in Southern Bulgaria: The Perspective of Organizers

Terziyska

2016

Tourism and Culture in the Age of Innovation

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In recent years festivals are experiencing a boom and are seen as a tool for tourism development, which has the potential to enhance community integrity and promote local culture. The study investigates the festivals based on local products in the southern part of Bulgaria. As its main goal is to identify current problems and trends in this sphere, it has adopted an organizers-driven perspective, focusing on several main points: organizers' expected and perceived benefits from holding the event, structure of festivals in terms of participants and visitors, issues related to funding and advertising, event organization and authenticity of presented products. The main problem areas that were identified include insufficient publicprivate partnerships, relatively poor results achieved in terms of attracting tourists and promoting local business, difficulties in funding and advertising and low level of authenticity.

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“…While festivals are often hidden within the literature on cultural tourism with only limited attention in events tourism literature (McKercher and du Cros, 2002;Richards, 2007), the study of festival tourism is a growing area of interest (UNESCO, 2015) and various approaches are being taken to investigate it. Many studies focus on the economic analysis of festivals, aiming to estimate an aggregate measure of income and employment change attributable to the festival and then calculating local multiplier effects (Kostopoulou, Vagionis, and Kourkouridis, 2013). Other research has examined festivals as events in the context of place marketing, urban development, tourism, and social change (Picard and Robinson, 2006;Brito and Richards, 2017); their role in producing a direct and indirect sense of place (Lau, 2016); and tourist motivations to visit festivals (Kitterlin and Yoo, 2014), including the role of cultural identity and awareness of local traditions in attracting tourists to small-scale festivals (Stankova and Vassenska, 2015).…”

Section: Festivals Within Events Tourismmentioning

confidence: 99%

The social utility of small-scale art festivals with creative tourism in Portugal

Bakas

Duxbury

Remoaldo

et al. 2019

IJEFM

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PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to address the gaps in research on strategic planning for the social impacts of small-scale events in rural areas and small cities. This is achieved by investigating the social utility inferred by small-scale art festivals with a creative tourism element in terms of increasing social capital and positive social change, from an event stakeholder perspective.Design/methodology/approachThe identified gap in knowledge is addressed by using interviews and fieldnotes from participant observation to co-create meaning with the organizers of four small-scale art festivals in small cities and rural areas in Portugal. Theoretical frameworks relating to creative tourism development and social capital creation are used to analyze the social utility of small-scale art festivals.FindingsCreative tourism activities are integrated within small-scale art festivals in small cities and rural areas in various ways, mainly through art-related workshops. Significant empirical data give insight into how small-scale art festivals create social value by increasing the host community’s pride and reinforcing the social fabric of the festival’s local and “portable” community, in part through these creative tourism activities.Research limitations/implicationsOne of the limitations of this study is that it focuses on the perspectives and insights of the festival organizers. An analysis of the festival participants’ views, local community stakeholder analysis and community impact analyses would offer further insights into how the creative tourism experiences and other moments of shared meaning generation within small-scale art festivals influence the creation of social utility.Originality/valueThis paper offers insights into how creative tourism activities are being integrated into small-scale art festivals in small cities and rural contexts, and how these activities foster social connections among festival participants and with the local community. This addresses significant gaps in the literature on strategic planning for the social impacts of events, particularly in the context of small-scale events in rural areas/small cities, and the strategic value of including creative tourism activities within small-scale festivals.

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Cultural Festivals and Regional Economic Development: Perceptions of Key Interest Groups

Cited by 10 publications

References 30 publications

Entrepreneurial implications, prospects and dilemmas in rural festivals

Entrepreneurial implications, prospects and dilemmas in rural festivals

Festivals for Local Products in Southern Bulgaria: The Perspective of Organizers

The social utility of small-scale art festivals with creative tourism in Portugal

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