Festival visitors' satisfaction and loyalty: An example of small, local, and municipality organized festival

Abstract

Festivals have been proliferating worldwide, and local authorities are either supporting, or organizing small, local festivals to enhance the attractiveness of the destination for non-local visitors. Festivals are also very effective tools for developing destination image, revitalizing economy, culture, traditions, building civic pride, raising funds for special, civic or charitable projects, and providing opportunities for the community to deal with fine arts. This situation increases the importance of factors related to the satisfaction and loyalty of festival visitors, especially for small and local festivals. Therefore, drawing on the existing literature and an assumption that festivalscape is the most important contributor to visitors'satisfaction and loyalty in the context of a small, local and municipality organized annual festivals, the present study aims to identify factors related to the festivalscape that determine visitors' satisfaction and loyalty by using a structural equation modeling. The study examines several variables as the antecedents of the festival visitors'satisfaction and loyalty such as staff, festival area, food, souvenir, informational adequacy and convenience. As a result of the analysis, the study reveals three dimensions related to the festivalscape environmental factors which are food, festival area, and convenience and examines how these factors affect the visitors' satisfaction and, in turn, their loyalty.