Festival Marketing in Tourism Marketing Based on the Local Creative  Economy - SLR

<ns3:p>Background Festival marketing has emerged as a key strategy in tourism marketing, particularly within the local creative economy context. However, a significant research gap remains due to conceptual fragmentation between festival marketing, the local creative economy, and digital marketing, as well as limited understanding of causal relationships between tourist engagement and sustainable economic impacts. Most existing studies remain descriptive and lack an ecosystem-based integrative framework. Methods This study employs a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) following the PRISMA guidelines. A total of 133 articles were identified from Scopus-indexed databases (MDPI, Taylor & Francis, ScienceDirect, Springer, and IEEE), published between 2020 and 2025. After applying inclusion and exclusion criteria—including English-language full-text articles containing keywords such as “festival marketing,” “tourism,” “local creative economy,” and “digital marketing”—22 articles were selected for final analysis. Results The synthesis addresses four research questions: (1) Festival marketing implementation is contextual, influenced by geographical, cultural, and policy factors, with three dominant approaches: event-based marketing, experiential marketing, and community-based tourism. (2) Festivals are effective in enhancing tourist engagement and destination brand awareness; however, their economic impacts remain uneven and largely depend on integration with the creative ecosystem and stakeholder collaboration. (3) Success factors include local identity authenticity, event management quality, digital promotion, stakeholder collaboration, and accessibility, while failure factors mirror these dimensions when not adequately managed. (4) The integration of festival marketing, the local creative economy, and digital marketing contributes to sustainable tourism development across economic, socio-cultural, and environmental dimensions. Conclusions Festival marketing has evolved into a strategic mechanism for developing tourism based on the local creative economy. This study proposes a conceptual synthesis integrating festival marketing, the creative economy, and the digital ecosystem within an ecosystem-based tourism marketing framework. Future research should adopt longitudinal, quantitative, and data-driven approaches to better understand long-term causal impacts and to explore advanced technology integration (AI, big data, smart tourism) in festival-based tourism development.</ns3:p>