The Importance of Local Events for Positioning of Tourist Destination

Abstract

This paper highlights levels of influences of local events on the image of region of Konavle, as a microdestination near Dubrovnik. As a municipality Konavle has 32 settlements facing the agriculture and tourism (TZ Konavle. 2016). The aim is to research the influence of the development of local events in Konavle on the destination development in terms of dynamic and competitive market changes. From 2009 Association of Agritourism Konavle has been organizing a local event Scents of Christmas in Konavle. It carried out activities to promote and develop rural tourism in the southernmost region of Croatia (Agritourism Konavle, 2016). It operates through organized events, promotional tour on other rural destinations. For members it organizes workshops, including them in projects. Scientific attitudes of theoreticians in this area, clearly argue the interactivity of selective modalities of tourism and its positive effects on the destination. Based on that attitudes, it was conducted the empirical research by the survey method.The significance of the elements of local event on the recognition and an image of the destination, has been proven. While presenting heritage, an organized event impact on alleviation of the problem of seasonality of every tourist place on the Croatian coast. This event brings together the majority of visitors from micro-destination, Konavle, but also attracts visitors from Dubrovnik. Because of connection between two destinations, it is essential to explore the selected tourism forms, as well their role in the creation of innovative tourist products.

Factors affecting the attractiveness and tourists’ word-of-mouth intention to the Southern Folk Cake Festival

“…A clean environment with a high level of security and a bustling festive space positively impacts the festival's attractiveness (Cudny, 2013;Congcong, 2014;Lee et al, 2016;Mihajlović, 2017). From the above perspective, the study proposes hypothesis H5: Festival environment positively influences the attractiveness of the Southern Folk Cake Festival.…”

The trend of Japanese pop culture and its differentiating approach through event tourism

“…The impacts of Japanese pop culture events can be seen at the events' locations as well as in the Japanese community (via tourism induced by curiosity and interest in learning more about culture), luring private and public entities, people and even the media, as they manage to stimulate the purchase of services and products, affecting the society, economy, spatial planning and the environment (Close, 2018; Craig, 2020; Preuss, 2005; Yürük-Kayapınar and Akyol, 2017). They can make the difference in destinations, as well they can be a source of diversification and an encouraging aspect in the demand for tourism services in the impacted destination after the event (Mihajlović and Vidak, 2017). As previously stated, they are events that manage to increase tourist flows in the regions where they are used, forming meeting points for regular and occasional participants, as well as being advantageous times to boost the economy, resulting from the participants' interest in purchasing merchandising related to Japanese culture, which is normally difficult to find outside of the country of origin (Tajima, 2018; Yamato, 2016).…”

Community-Based Tourism Transformation: What Does The Local Community Need?

“…The other component is local resources. Some of those are cultural attractiveness [57], local events [58], tourism performance and the influences, capacity to provide quality services, destination attractiveness, policy and attractions [12] and various cultural resources [59]. The other local components are local people creativity (creative economy) [38] and local people involvement.…”