Analyzing the Role of Festivals and Events in Regional Development

While tourism has a long history of use as a tool for regional development, events and festivals are a more recent policy option. In both cases the emphasis is often placed on the potential positive economic impacts. In both cases there has also been little research conducted into a wider range of outcomes or into the factors and processes that contribute to these outcomes. This article examines the potential role of festivals and events in regional development with a particular focus on effects other than economic. The study reported here used a conceptual framework developed to describe regional tourism development to explore 36 case studies describing festivals and events in a regional development context. The content analysis identified 13 themes as associated with the effectiveness of festivals and events in supporting regional development. These themes were further organized according to their connections to the three key constructs of building social capital, enhancing community capacity, and support for non-tourism-related products and services. These constructs are then used to build a preliminary conceptual framework to understand the role of festivals and events in regional development.