Importance of Events and Festivals in Tourism

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Importance of Events and Festivals in Tourism

According to Bierling et al (2008), festivals and events in various destinations serve an important role development of tourism and consequent development of the economy. Events and festival tourism is developing at a high rate in various tourists destinations across the world. It is gaining enormous recognition especially in the rural setting as it has been discovered as one of the means of growing the local economies. In many countries, rural areas have been predominantly relying on traditional sources of income such as agricultural activities. Currently, many factors such as drought and floods have affected these traditional industries due to changing climatic conditions hence shifting focus to tourism as an alternative source of income. Events and festivals are constantly being used in many regions to draw tourists in areas without or with low tourists appeal. The Hong Kong International festival is an example of an event that has been successfully used to draw both local and foreign tourists.

These events have got fixed lengths a factor that encourages people to attend. This leads to attraction of new people to the region who would have not toured the place were it not for that event. The events and festivals acts as marketing agents of the specific areas that they are held as they lead to utilization of unexploited market. Tourists pump in new money in that region hence diversifying the local market further. This increases both real and expected generation of money. These events and festivals have also got the ability of building up power and maintaining that power. This implies that the events and festivals do not only bring new people touring the region but also maintains some in the region (Butler & Hinch, 2007). According to Bierling et al (2008), some people who come to the event may choose to stay longer past the event. Events and festivals with fixed duration of time create a different funding structure as compared to other forms of tourist attractions. Events and festivals tourism elicits the need….