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Abstract

Tourism is as innate to the human nature as breathing. Ever since we were distinguished from apes in the evolutionary cycle, men have been discovering new lands and places. The desire to travel and explore new places has led to the rise and fall of societies over time. Most of the times, the satisfaction that tourists get, from visiting a certain tourist attraction or being inclined towards buying a particular product, is interpreted in monetary terms. The income from tourism is percolates into other sectors for growth especially so in the developing countries. Such enhanced satisfaction leads to growth and profitability of tourism sector in a region as a whole.

However, the satisfaction is not merely derived from buying goods. It can also be experienced from visiting places with an intent of learning about new cultures and places. It has always been the holy grail of governments and administrators to provide utmost loyalty to visiting tourists. By connecting to them on soul level, by stirring their inner most desires, you can truly reach out to a whole new world of tourism. This is where cultural tourism kicks in. Cultural tourist is not looking for goods or services, business or industry relations. This exclusive group is looking for a cultural experience. Something that can only be provided with the help of local people on a much more localised scale.

Most nations and regions, in the process of deliberately concentrating on how to increase tourist satisfaction, leave an important part of cultural tourism planning. It is the events that can attract more tourists to their hometown. This is due to the assumption that many tourism administrations assume that a satisfied tourist is more likely to display a loyal behaviour. They forget that tourists are constantly looking for something new and exciting. Tourists looking for cultural experience can only return if local people connect to him in a much more innate manner. Although this might be the case, a place/region still loses customers despite high satisfaction degree exhibited by the same tourists. This is because the improvement in already available resources and natural possessions of a place are not made timely. Such stagnation causes the tourists to look for greener pastures elsewhere.

In addition, most dissatisfied customers never air their dissatisfaction openly. They just prefer to leave the place and go somewhere else. The reasons why a tourist has left dissatisfied stems from the possibility that he/she has seen something better somewhere else. This should be seen as an opportunity by the local authorities to improve upon their short comings. Due to ever increasing competition and availability of alternative tourism sectors, there is no dearth of other places for potential tourists. It is the hosts who have to find a way to acquire new clients, and to retain existing customers. It is there loss if a tourist does not like their home and do not wish to come back. Most nations have been pushed to use Region branding as a major method of retaining and attracting new tourists. Research has shown that a tourists loyalty is largely influenced by attitude towards cultural events, local flavors, administration and other important on-road factors. Thus, it becomes increasingly important to lay emphasis on effective tourism planning and management of local cultural events (Ashworth 1993).

There are various factors that influence cultural events. Locally organised cultural events need to be managed in a local manner. This can best be achieved by involving the local people and inculcating local flavor into the event. Many issues become bottlenecks when it comes to organising cultural events especially in developing countries. Primarily, these consist of functional, social, symbolic, experiential and last but not the least the physical appearance. Local flavor is the key to making such events successful. If tourists are given run-of-the-mill stuff that they can get anywhere, why would they return to a particular place (Alleyne-Dettmers 1997). These are intended to be looked at in detail in this study. The primary goals of this study are as follows:

• Would a cultural event attract more tourists, especially foreign tourists?
• Will it reshape their next years holiday plans and make them consider revisiting a certain region once more.
• Will event make a tourists holiday decision easier for a visit in a certain country?
• Are cultural events important for tourists to decide whether they will visit a country or not? Do they research prior to embarking on a trip?
• How the local cultural events are important to the tourist decision making or are they blindly choosing a certain place?
• The study is also aimed at developing a critical analysis of the effect of cultural events on tourists satisfaction and their loyalty to the host country.

To understand this better, the questionnaires are used to come up with the conclusion from the entire study. The study found out that, cultural events of a given tourism region of a nation plays a major role in tourists satisfaction and loyalty to a place in particular. A specific group of people do come in to savor only the culture and not the scenic beauty of a place. Tourists tend to mix up in the local flavor and savor the local customs and traditions depicted in the cultural events. Also, the locals can learn a great deal from the tourists. An industry can be spurned around local cultural festivals that can mutually benefit both groups.

Moreover, this study seeks to find the Effect of cultural events on the tourist satisfaction and loyalty in the context of tourism in a country. Cultural events have been one of the most accepted forms of marketing a certain region on world scale. These events incorporate a myriad number of attractions, including dances, food, clothes etc. Each of the factors can be an industry in itself. All make their mark in satisfying tourists and fulfilling their psychological needs and desires. Many marketers in the telecommunication sector have adopted and recognised this theory because it facilitates benchmarking of value during marketing. Nonetheless, the purpose of this research is to explore the main question of; what effect does cultural events benefits have on the tourists trip satisfaction and loyalty?

Phenomenal Growth in the Past Two Decades

Tourism industry in the world has rapidly grown over the last few decades due to liberalisation, globalisation and a boost in the telecommunication industry. Better marketing industry has also played its part. It is now an open and competitive industry thanks to more and more governments loosening their noose over the societys controls. Recent example is Myanmar. Its military rulers have let globalisation policies take control. This has led to a tourism boom in the country since not many in the world have seen this country locked for decade. The locals as well as the tourists are benefitting equally. Thus, cultural tourism industry is a mutual advantage industry.

The research design and methodology applied in this research dealt with questions such as what, why, where, when, to whom, or how the tourism industry evolved over the past two decades. The adopted research methodology applied careful analyse the research in question, research questions, hypotheses and the kind of data that predicts the future of this industry. The research tool used was initially tested for perceptive legitimacy by the exploratory factor analysis. The conclusions of this study used a number of references from secondary sources that helped in generating statements for the research instrument. The Secondary sources comprised of academic textbooks with information on cultural events, as well as other related material (printed or otherwise), theoretical concepts including normative theories on how to go about planning and managing cultural events in tourism sectors across the globe. The global nature of the research meant that some of the generalisations in the research can be applied to any area irrespective of the local factors to improve their local tourism industry and emerge as a major tourism player.

The research proved that cultural events affect the decision making process of tourists in a lot of ways particularly on their satisfaction and loyalty to a certain place. Knowing the effects of cultural events on tourist decision making will help a places administration in setting up effective marketing strategies in tourism sections in the their region. It is very vital to understand the judgments from visitors in all dimensions, whether they go parallel to the expectations and perceptions. Understanding this will help tourism managers create a marketing strategy based on the context of their product in relevance to the tourist. Also, by crafting a product as per clients needs, they already have a winner in their hands.

Maintaining and improving cultural events and its values will ensure that tourism sector is positively secured in the visitors mind. Thus, it is important to understand the roles of satisfaction and loyalty for the enhancement of tourism in the whole world. All the small factors such as safety, stay, good, culture, peoples attitude create a persona of a place in the tourists mind. Merely providing the same thing over and over again will not lead to world class services. Temporarily, the industry may witness growth but after a certain time the excitement will wear off. So, constant efforts on part of local administration is needed to develop tourism industry in a place in an all round manner.

The summary, recommendations and conclusions in every chapter are focused on the findings. The recommendations and conclusions had to be emphasised depending on the evidence proved from the findings of the study. The recommendations that will guide future research had to follow certain specifications. The specifications can be derived from the study in question. In this case, the effects of cultural tourism have to be studied in detail. The findings can of great significance to the host countries.

The research came up with a number of generalised guidelines from all the cultural literature. Firstly, to start and establish the general effects of cultural events in the tourism sector, there is a crucial need for internal and external stakeholder commitment. Before commencing on the research, firstly, it is important to understand the internal identity. About the management of cultural events, tourism department should reflect the cost value for the events to be conducted. This has to be considered a strategic resource, reflect competitive advantages over other tourism events, and reflect strong principles and values of the place in question.

Generally, the events management and organisation was a learning experience throughout the research process. By using the positive research paradigm, the researcher concluded that it is crucial to understand inferential statistics for there to be a successful ending to the study. It was indispensable to describe, and implement the stages involving data analysis and procedures employed. It was vital to present findings using data analysis in a logical way. When it came to the requirements for a constructive research, the researcher noted that the recommendations, summary and conclusions had to follow rationally from the findings.

The research identified and justified the usefulness of studying the effects of cultural events on tourists decision making process. Somehow, it was a challenge to pinpoint the research problem within the tourism context. Nonetheless, it was a positive experience in the study which sought to understand the research questions and objectives in a better way.

Research Problem

Cultural events tourism brought in a huge amount of income to a country in terms of payment for the goods and services. It accounted for 30% of global service exports and 6% of all overall goods and services exports. On top of that, it created employment opportunities in the service industry for members of the host community especially the people directly involved in the cultural events. Service related fields that benefitted consisted mainly of those businesses that offered services like travelling by air, sea and taxis; housing and hospitality services including hotels, motels, shopping malls, casinos, pubs, discos and theatres. A major contributing industry was the food industry which took a boost due to an increasing number of people.

Although, the place had a lot of historical marvels, architectural delights, natural treasures. Still, a rich heritage in ancient buildings or industry-specific artistic features was not enough to attract tourists. There was a need to find alternative ways of attracting more tourists. Something that can be built up on existing resources and not require more capital on part of the government. For example, local festivals are the key to success (Moscardo, 2007). Since the tourism industry was very competitive, there was a need to come up with the new and more effective methods of attracting tourists.

Cultural Events: Revisiting Existing Platform

Cultural events tourism more so provided a platform by coming up with a new source of income for the industry. Since it is based on already existing platform of local culture and beliefs, not much investment has to be done to revive it. It will be very easy to provide attractions for both foreign and even local tourists. This can in fact create a local tourism industry as well. So, not only the local cultural events cater to in-home tourists, they also attract foreign tourists. This is great for scoring political points as well. As such, reviving local cultural events industry seems to be the key to growth in the tourism industry as a whole. Tourists are exploring new levels of travel encompassing luxury as well as sensible tourism.

Cultural Tourism: Promoting Local Culture among Foreigners

Cultural tourism refers to the promotion of local culture, beliefs and traditional items among the foreigners. People from outside a region, read tourists, are given an insight into the attractions, traditions, cultural practices, art forms, history, festivals, everyday life experiences that are authentic and unique to the host community. As per Matheson, music and dance are integral part of every culture (Matheson, 2005). Cultural tourism enhanced economic activities in faraway for towns and cities, communities and states all across the country. It opened up a world of opportunities for the local people. Cultural events tourism was thus recognised as among the largest and fastest-growing tourism markets in the world. The key here is to be local and stay in touch with the local customs and traditions. According to MacKellar, festivals are the binding threads that join people from two different regions (MacKellar, 2007).

Cultural events and festivals were increasingly being used to promote lesser known destinations in a bid to attract more tourists and at the same time enhance their competitiveness and attractiveness in a global tourist park. Thus there was a great need to promote and preserve such cultural events, festivals and practices. Since the tourism industry is a very competitive industry, cities worked on developing comparative advantages so as to curb competition and create local distinctiveness. They needed to rise from slumber and provide world-class facilities while maintaining local flavor. According to Manning, local performances add the much needed spice required to entice the tourist and cherish the home feeling (Manning, 1983). This kind of tourism was, however, very largely dependent on the financial ability of the local economy, comprising of both the public and private sector. In order to support it, the local businesses have to work on the ground level. Political support was also of key significance in the promotion and development of cultural events tourism. And as McCarthy says, this ensures that cultural tourism is promoted from ground-up.

The factors that influenced a tourists destination choice were either internally or externally motivated, dependent on the individual. The internal ones included social, regional and personal factors in an individuals personal life. While the external ones included host countrys safety perception, trust and confidence in the travel agency, the tourists personal travel experiences, political stability in host country, the degree of the perceived risk, travel constraints such as money and time among others.

The development and management of events and festivals had become a significant source of interest for many European cities. Cities that had rich history and cultural heritage especially buildings, had realised that these were no longer enough to attract tourists. Therefore, in the highly competitive environment of modern day tourism, events and festivals may be a way for cities to respond to economic, social, and environmental challenges. These rapid changes had attracted a lot of interest among tourism departments in many cities across Europe and elsewhere in the world. The growth and development of cultural events in cultural events tourism was aimed at balancing the economies of the participating countries by coming up with new sources of income and by revitalising old towns. Building a firm tourism industry based on the cultural tourism highly depends on the availability of local resources, mainly financial. Thus, it may be difficult for financially unstable countries to invest in it. But the right administration and organisational team can pull off cultural tourism in a cist effective manner. It requires a lot of effort on the planning team to carefully coordinate all the required resources and cause minimum financial wastage.

Research Objectives

• Would a cultural event attract tourists? Would it make choosing a destination easier?
• Are cultural events important factor for tourists to decide whether they will visit (and revisit) a country or not?
• How are cultural events important to tourists final decision making? Do these events influence choice of a potential tourist?

Research Questions

There was a set of questions that were used to guide the research study in the direction of a possible conclusion. Creswell recommends that the researcher use research questions as opposed to research objectives and hypotheses when carrying out a qualitative analysis (Creswell, 2008). Moreover, he recommends that two main questions and a set of sub-questions not more than seven must be used in order to get a clear idea about the subjects thinking process. Noted researcher Bailey also recommend using a few research questions further supporting Creswells idea.

There are various ways of formulating research questions intended to strike at the heart of the matter. The researcher used the ethnographic approach which entails forming the questions from the literature review. This means that the local literature has to be studied prior to creating a set of questions aimed to entice the subjects interests. The other approaches are The Phenomenology Approach which uses broad questions referred to the available literature and The Grounded Theory approach which uses questions related to procedures of data analysis.

The ethnographic approach as explained by Creswell, 1998, is basically a description and more so an interpretation of a given cultural community or the whole system. Some of the elements of the host community that the ethnographic research looked to examine included the observable and learned behavioural patterns, traditions and local customs and the host communitys overall way of life. This holistically approach aims to fully explore the host countrys way of life, economic, social, cultural and historical. The inquiry process was carried out through a pro-longed observation of the members of the host community and one-on-one interview with community members. The researcher adopted an ethnographic approach to the study as he wanted to ensure that he reduced the distance between the interpretation an insider has on the host communitys cultural practices and the actual meaning of the life experiences and cultural practices of the community being studied.

The main reason why an ethnographic approach to the study was adopted was because the researcher wanted to ensure that he reduced the distance between an outsiders interpretation of the host communitys practices and the actual day-to-day life experiences and the cultural practices of the community under study. The researcher used qualitative research as he was only interested in in-depth studies of a smaller portion of the population. This gave much insight into the local customs and beliefs. Qualitative research methods do not look to obtain data that can be applied across the board. Nor are any types of statistics used in this research. Thus qualitative researchers do not apply statistics in data analysis. They instead collect information by conducting interviews, observing behaviours and carrying out surveys. This kind of research aims at trying to find out as much as possible about a small sample, group or a smaller local phenomenon. It is as much psychological as it is scientific. The research results of a certain society cannot be applied to any other society, regardless their similarities.

This is in the sense that each time a researcher looks to study another culture; he carries forth his previous experiences, ideas and pre conceptions from the other culture. This is however not a problem for ethnographic researchers as they benefit from the mere fact of being involved with the cultures of the communities they are studying. The small scale of the research proves beneficial as the researcher is unable to compare many aspects of other cultures, including his own. This protects the research being done from any external factors.

The researcher came up with the following research questions ethnographically:

1. Do you think there is any market for cultural events tourism in urban tourism?
2. What cultural practices, events and festivals motivate you to visit a certain city?
3. What are the pull factors behind cultural events tourism in urban tourism? Are these factors influential enough to offset the urban tourism industry?
4. Who is a cultural events tourist? Do they represent an industry?
5. What are the main characteristics of a cultural events tourist?
6. What market opportunities are available for cultural events and festivals tourism?
7. What are the issues in cultural events tourism development and promotion?
8. How are the local, urban authorities, government and host community involved in cultural events tourism?
9. How does cultural events tourism influence the government in making policies for the tourism industry?

These questions are mentioned in detail in the questionnaire section in the end.

Literature Review

The literature review section focused on providing a contextual base for the research project especially on the role played by cultural events and festivals in influencing the choices of tourists potential destination. It further helped identify the areas that other scholars had covered and those that had not been sufficiently dealt with. Thus, the need for further research was felt during the analysis phase. This section also looked at cultural events and festivals in terms of their contribution to the local economy and the tourism industry as a whole, especially in the revitalising and re-branding of cities, in making of government policies towards tourism, and in connection with culture and tourism. It also dealt with their interdependence and how the two can be used in one context when it comes to local cultural tourism.

Cultural events

Since time immemorial, studying foreign cultures has been a major objective behind great travelers. Ever since man learned to explore, people have been shifting places only to experience new regions, cultures, beliefs and places. This inner urge to be surprised from new experiences has led man on an evolutionary binge. Gene pools have been formed and reformed just because of this innate urge to travel and discover new cultures. Even to this day, travelers make their decisions based on the sole factor that they will learn new things from a far off culture. According to Richards and Crespi-Vallbona, cultural and events play a huge role in tourism at all levels, from the global highlights of world culture, to the attractions that underpin local identities (Crespi-Vallbona, Richards, 1996).

These cultural events and practices played a crucial role in influencing a tourists destination. People from different cultural backgrounds had varying image perceptions of a destination. According to Hede, Getz and Jago, a cultural tourist participates in cultural activities away from their homes (Hede 2003, Getz, 2002, Jago, 2005). This is known to give a unique experience to the tourist since sometimes he/she discovers something totally different from his native culture. Old beliefs are shed and new born when a tourist experiences a culture shock.

The key stakeholders in the tourism industry, the government, tourism industry investors and tourism operators had an understanding of the processes that determined tourists destination choices (Hede 2003, Getz, 2002, Jago, 2005. As competition for tourist numbers and dollars increased, this understanding incorporated many more factors. The little study done in that area, included social variables, like migration and tourist information networks as some of the major factors played a very significant role more so when making travel destination choices (Jackson 2001).

This was a very surprising discovery as it had long been recognised and proven through prior studies that culture greatly influenced peoples decision making processes when it comes to travelling.

Sometimes, similarities in cultures of two different regions also lead to tourism. This can be gauged from the innate desire to learn how people perform similar tasks in a totally different geographical place. This relationship was however not specifically researched in order to be tested on any group of people. Jackson (2001) carried out a study in order to measure a relationship that is based on the cultural backgrounds of the communities in question in empirical terms. He used the national level secondary data that was based on Hofstedes cultural dimensions. Jackson came to the conclusion that those people from nations that were highly individualistic like Australia, New Zealand Canada and the United States preferably chose destinations that were culturally similar to their own. While tourists from highly collectivist nations like Colombia and South Korea chose destinations that were dissimilar to their own. With time, the governments and administration of these regions have to take such factors into account while drafting policies for tourism sector.

The tangible and intangible elements of cultural heritage have a unique characteristic which then give them a very attractive potential to become tourist resources. These entities have much more potential to be transformed into promotional products and sold off as cultural tourism in the global arena. Tourism that was tied to territorial cultural references was a very significant element in terms of facilitating a touristic view which was replicated in almost every country in the world and produced very diverse experiences. Today, culture plays a very significant role in terms of being a product to be consumed in a framework that some authors have defined as the transition from the industrial production to the cultural production.

Real world examples will be much more helpful in driving the point home. Some of the cultural events known worldwide are as follows; podhore folkloric celebrations which is an international folkloric festival, shephereds days which is an international shepherds culture, open air museum in Zubere, Night viewing of Fabulus castle, Rafting of Orava river all from Orava region of Zilina self governing region. In Turiec region, we have Fantasy biennale which is an international competition in childrens art, Library art biennale which is an international competition in library art.

The potential of culture to influence the decision making process of tourists depends on certain activities in any given society in the world today. The study will also try to look at areas that tourists pay much attention to during their decision making process. These factors are discussed in varying degree in different cases. For example, a single traveler may not pay much attention to cultural festivals in a far off land. However, a family may consider such matters in order to teach the kids something new. Some of them are: theatre and dance, visual arts, libraries cinema, cultural centre and cultural heritage of societies in the world.

Potency of these cultural events is wide and many. There is continuity of tradition and the history of communal art and culture that is making every individual realise the importance of culture, traditions and beliefs. Culture acts as a platform for the local community to display its uniqueness to the world. Thus different cultures come together to exchange and in the process interconnecting culture and tourism at large. When it comes to culture, there is existence of certain entries in the orb of culture and eventually cultural performance carries some qualities. We have had also to achieve good governance, policy implementation, effective management and the expanded experience and expertise in areas of interests. People have had to embrace change in certain sectors that needed change due to increased revolution in technology. Thus, openness is achieved in the process. There is also diversity and variability in resources of finance and distribution of resources to the targeted groups in the society. All these have led to gradual development of the international cooperation thus attaining peace and stability for economic activities. Economic stability, therefore, of the involving nations is achieved and also other regions in the world. Such tourism can also be referred to one that influences governance across nations.

Cultural events, if not well planned for, cannot be a basis for tourists to make good decisions. Ultimately, it may not be favourable to the host country. Some of these include; absence of strategic planning for the events, failing to put in place long term strategies. Sometimes it is a result of poor assessment and evaluation of long term plans put in place by the authorities involved in tourism sectors. Officials with little expertise and experience in tourism sectors leads to poor planning for the cultural events. The deciding bodies do fail in establishing, setting and differentiating priorities in development. The most overlooked factor is the financial planning wing. It is also due to insufficient communication within the decision making authorities. The executives do not properly pay attention to the details involved in the event organising.

Conflict of priorities, among the institutions of culture and obsolete processes used in execution; works in same manner to defame an event. Objectives contradiction and real poss

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