6 THE BUSINESS OF EVENTS TOURISM
The event of your life?
Festivals are the most popular tourist events. They are huge, with hundreds if not thousands of people active and involved, complicated logistics, stressful management and considerable investment.
If you are a young adult, the chances are that you belong to the large group of people who have visited a music festival at one point during their teen years. Perhaps you are a lover of festivals and go to many every year. Perhaps you are one of many people who have occasionally participated in or attended a sports festival, ranging from a regional competition to the Olympic Games. In America alone, more than 40,000 festivals are organized every year, including food festivals, music festivals and religious festivals. Some are one-off events; others are ongoing.
The organization of events is big business and has a direct relationship with tourism. In fact, although events attract some ‘locals’, most are organized to draw people in from outside the area, either internal tourists or visitors from abroad. In the 20th
Quite a few theories have been put forward as to why events tourism is so popular. There is one theory (Goldblatt, 2000) which claims that there is significantly more to celebrate as the Earth’s population ages, and big events provide a forum for such celebrations. Another theory is that, with the huge advances in technology of the last few decades, people are seeking experiences that go beyond what they have experienced before, some say to balance the high-tech influences in their lives.
century, there was a boom in
world fairs and major sports events. Millennium celebrations and live music events provided a further boost to events tourism. The tourism sector has seen a significant increase in the size, scope, length and visibility of these unique ventures, known as ‘hallmark’ or ‘mega’ events, creating the growing need for professional events managers.
Even though events organization is a professional skill, there do not seem to be hard and fast rules. People participate in events as individuals, but companies, too, provide corporate events tourism by organizing trips, themed weekends and festivals for their personnel and families. The rule of thumb seems to be that events can be as outrageous or complicated as money can buy. And nowadays, events can even be virtual: millions of people participate in highly organized events on the Internet every day.
So what really attracts people to events? Researchers have found that participants feel they add value to their personal and work lives. In terms of tourism, there is a trend where people reduce the length of holidays and opt for shorter and more frequent breaks, during which they often attend festivals. It seems as if four factors play a role. We have already mentioned ageing and technology. Add to these increased income and more leisure time and you have a recipe for events tourism which increases the demand for events all around the world. This trend is expected to continue.
Researchers have already predicted interplanetary broadcasting events for the 2020s which, in the light of recent developments in space flight, may not seem such a remote idea anymore.
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