Event Tourism - Research Paper Example

Event tourism [Number] Introduction: Event tourism became famous after 1987 when The New Zealand Tourist and Publi Department described that event tourism is a growing segment of international tourism. Events are visualized as important motivator for tourism (Getz, 2008) and here lies the importance of research. The report focuses on the organisers of a large music event in Brisbane attempting to develop a better understanding of attendee motives. The literature review discusses the motives of people attending different events. Second the report will study the method of data collection and the instrument development for the quantitative research i.e the questionnaire used in this research. Third it will discuss the findings of research regarding the importance of each motivation of tourist and non tourist and whether they are different. This will show how satisfaction of the event attendee will led to his future possibility of attending the event. Literature review: Push and pull forces encourage an individual to attend event. The push motivation calls for an individual escapism, desire of rest and relaxation, need for health and fitness, desire for adventure, love for social interaction, love for family togetherness etc. The pull factors consist of cultural and scenic attractiveness of destination etc. (Cassidy, 2006). To study the motives of festival visitors 42 motive items and 500 questionnaires were distributed in five categories of sample consisting of individuals in the festival organized by Fiesta San Antonio Commission Inc. Findings shows that factors like Cultural exploration, Novelty, Known group socialization, recovering equilibrium, and external interaction were the main motives to attend a festival event (Crompton & Mckay, 1997). Meng, Tepanon, & Uysal, (2006) prepared a survey instrument for 700 visitors to examine the relationship between attribute of destination, motivation for travel and satisfaction. The research site was a nature based resort of Southwest Virginia. By factor analysis it was found out that travel motivation like enjoying family togetherness explains its importance on tourist satisfaction (Meng, Tepanon & Uysal, 2006). Yolal, Cetinel & Uysal (2009) observes the motivation to attend a prominent city festival in Turkey and it was identified that significant variation in motivation was found across gender. Female visitors gave more importance to “escape and excitement,” “family togetherness,” and “event novelty.” The results also signified that younger attendees placed more importance on socialization and loyalty towards the event, while to older attendee’s family togetherness was more important. Multiple classification analysis was done and it indicated that with age increase, more importance is placed on novelty. This finding was also valid for higher educational level. The common motivator across all age, occupation and income groups was the escape from daily routine and need for excitement (Yolal, Cetinel & Uysal, 2009). Research Questions: 1. What is the importance of each motivation to attend the musical event for the two categories - tourists and non tourists? If the motives are identified then practical settings of the event can be moulded and amended in the way which fulfils the motives. 2. Is the motives of tourist and non tourist population are same or are different? It will help in devising ways to attract target population. 3. Does the satisfaction from the event encourage the attendees to participate in the event or not? Prior satisfaction is necessary for the visitors to return to the event. Due to increasing competition this objective plays an important role in assessing the future of the event based company. Method: Quantitative research is the explanation of a phenomenon by using numerical data which are analysed by statistical methods. Qualitative responses from the sample have been quantified by the use of rating technique (Muijs, 2011) as appropriate to address the questions. The population for this study was approximately 10,000 individuals who attended the musical event at Brisbane in 2014. Sample was drawn by random sampling approach to represent the population. Overall N=100 event attendees fully completed the questionnaire. 6 set of motives was kept in questionnaire which are listed below: Escapism [Esc]: Attend the event so as to break away from daily routine; Known group socialisation [KGS]: Attending the event to interact with friends and relatives; External group socialisation [EGS]: Attending the event to interact with likeminded people; Novelty [NOV]: Attending the event to have new and exciting experience; Cultural Experience [Cult]: Attending the vent to have rich cultural experience; and Event attraction [EvAttr]: Attractiveness of overall or specific performance in the event which motivates for attending the vent. In this paper we will do three stage of analysis. First we will develop a demographic understanding of the attendees. Second, by using descriptive statistics like mean (central tendency) and Standard Deviation (spread) and by using inferential statistics like statistical hypotheses, we will identify key motives of sample and groups. By using correlation test we will find out whether the event satisfaction of attendees (tourists and non-tourists) is correlated with peoples intentions to attend the event the following year. Hypothesis testing has been done using t-test to understand significance of differences in motives. The null hypothesis is that there is no difference in event motives between tourist and non tourist group. The alternative hypothesis is that there is significant difference in event motives between the groups. The t- test assuming equal variance has been conducted. Discussion: The profile of respondents shown in Table 1 indicates that they predominantly belong to the age group of 18-30 and income range of $0-$50,000. The sample was relatively evenly distributed across gender. The proportion of people belonging to “Never married” category is significantly higher than “Currently single” category. The demographic profile signifies that young age group people mainly visit this event. Therefore event organizer will arrange such music shows in the event which is in liking of this group. Low income group ($0-$50,000) people come to this event and lower pricing for tickets can be set by event organizer. But again there is more or less symmetry in other income group people visit which emphasizes the fact that pricing structure can be same for this groups. Event organizer must follow a differentiated pricing structure for this show. The event is famous amongst both married and unmarried category of people. The way of seeking fun from this event is different for these two groups. Married people generally will love to spend time with their spouse and children while the unmarried people with their friends and relatives. Event organizer can tap all these information to provide different set of packages and benefits as per groups requirement to encourage them to attend this event. Table 1: Demographic Profile In Table 2 the mean and standard deviation for each event motive, event satisfaction and future intention to attend the event has been captured from tourist, non tourist and whole sample. To assess the motives respondents were requested to mark the statements in the questionnaire on a pre defined scale. 40% individuals attended this event to escape from daily routine with tourist group forming the majority with a slight higher mean of 3.87 than non tourist group (mean of 3.83).66% people have agreed that they have attended the event to experience something new and novel. 62% have agreed that they attended the event for the artist and music performances and 66 respondents have agreed that they have attended the event to spend time with likeminded people. Table2: Means, Standard deviation and P-values Critical value for a test of hypothesis depends on test statistic and the significance level α. The choice of α is arbitrary. Here we have chosen α = 0.05 as the critical value. A value of α = 0.05 has implication that null hypothesis has been rejected 5 % of the time although it is true. The p value obtained is lower than critical value of α=0.05 in case of motives like known group socialisation (p value of 0.00) and culture (p value of 0.00) which means that there is a significant difference in event motives between groups. Only 5 tourist people have strongly agreed that they have come for socialisation with known groups while 16 non tourist have come for KGS. 25 tourists have strongly agreed that they have attended the event for rich cultural experience while only 3 non tourist have agreed with the same. The non tourist group attends the event to socialise with known groups while tourist group is driven by cultural experience motive. Some people look for spending quality time with their family outside home premises but might not be able to afford costly family trips. In such cases these kinds of events become their hub to break-away from daily chores and spend time with family and friends. Therefore this motive of KGS is so important for these non tourist groups. On the other hand tourist groups move out of their homeland in search of new experience on foreign land and they are also driven by the motive of getting acquainted with new culture and new environment. For tourists, these kinds of events on foreign lands act as an addition to the rich cultural experience. Obviously for non tourist group this motivation of having new cultural experience is not important as they are themselves a part of that. There is a significant difference in the mean for these two motives among the two groups with KGS (non tourist) having 3.98 as mean and KGS (tourist) has 2.37 as mean. The cultural motive has a mean of 2.79 (non tourist group) and 4.12 (tourist). The motivation Escape has p value of 0.76 which means that the two group’s escape motive does not differ. 23 tourist and 17 non tourist have strongly agreed that they have attended the event to escape from daily routine. 19 non tourist and 17 tourist have strongly agreed that they have attended the event to experience something new . Therefore the p value for Novelty is 0.50 which means no significant difference among the group’s novelty motive. Almost equal number of tourist and non tourist agree on the fact that they have attended the event to socialise with unknown people which is reflected in their p value 0.65. The tourist group are also more motivated by the event attraction than the non tourist group, although the difference is not that spectacular, which is represented by the higher mean of 4.00 and low SD of 0.86 for tourists as compared to mean of 3.65 and SD of 0.98 for non tourists. 10 non tourist have strongly agreed that they have attended the event for event attraction while 18 tourist have same agreement. There is no significant difference among the groups for motives like escapism, EGS and Novelty which is reflected in their p value and the mean and SD values which are not very dissimilar. For both the groups it is common that they are into escapism from daily chores of life. They prefer new exciting experience and love interacting with unknown groups. Although 66 respondents are satisfied with the event, only 20 will definitely attend the event in future. Among those who will definitely attend the event, the non tourist proportion is higher than the tourist group. Overall there is a lower correlation of 0.41 between individuals satisfied and their intention to attend the event in future. For non tourist group the correlation is higher (r=0.63) than the tourist group (r=0.17) which means that it is likely that in future more non tourist group will attend the event based on present satisfaction. For the event organizer it implies that they should focus on retention strategies of non tourist group for the event. Event organizer should provide better amenities at event shows and increase the level of service quality for retaining such groups. Conclusions: The findings in this paper suggest that novelty, cultural exploration, known group socialisation and escape from daily activities as major motives for attending the event (Li, Huang & Cai, 2009). Event motives vary across groups of tourist and non tourist. Known group socialisation is an important motive for non tourist group and tourists are motivated by the cultural experience. Event satisfaction plays an unimportant role to pull the tourist. The quantitative study is important because it will add to limited studies on this topic on how to assess the important motives for event tourism. This kind of study is not only important for event organizers but also the tourism sector of any country. Recommendations: It is recommended that to improve the event in future. Focus should be given on service quality. Researchers have shown that higher satisfaction is positively related to better service qualities at events. In the amenities section, the infrastructure should be developed so as to incorporate more crowds in the event. 10,000 people attended the event. Facilities like restrooms, presence of public security booths statistic, reasonable pricing of food & beverages and quality of same, parking facility in the event ground are some necessary infrastructure. There should be proper arrangements for physically handicapped, old people and young children in such events so that they can also enjoy with ease. Again there should be arrangements for public safety. Fire, terrorism etc are some causes to worry about in such big public gatherings. Such gatherings have become an spot for terrorism. So strict security checking is must in this type of events. It is also important to maintain the proper timing schedules of the event so that no problem is caused to people due to late start of events. References: Cassidy, F. (2006). WHAT MOTIVATES EVENT TOURISTS? In, Proceedings of Business and Information, Academy of Taiwan Information Systems Research. Retrieved on October 10, 2014 from < http://eprints.usq.edu.au/1678/1/Cassidy_2006bai6162_final.pdf> Crompton, J.L. & McKay, S.L. (1997), MOTIVES OF VISITORS ATTENDING FESTIVAL EVENTS. Annals of Tourism Research, 24( 2), pp. 425-439. Getz, D. (2008), Event tourism: Definition, evolution, and research. Tourism Management, 29, pp. 403-428. Li, M. Huang, Z. & Cai, L.A. (2009), Benefit Segmentation of Visitors to a Rural Community-based Festival, Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, 26, pp.585–598 Meng, F., Tepanon, Y. & Uysal, M. (2006), Measuring tourist satisfaction by attribute and motivation: The case of a nature-based resort. Journal of Vacation Marketing, 14(1), pp.41-56 Muijs, D. (2011). Doing Quantitative Research in Education With SPSS. SAGE publication. Yolal, M., Cetinel, F. & Uysal, M. (2009), An Examination of Festival Motivation and Perceived Benefits Relationship: Eskişehir International Festival. Journal of Convention & Event Tourism, 10(4), pp 276-291. Read More