Motivating and Retaining Festival Patronage

Abstract

Globally, festivals and host communities face increased competition each year from one another and from the myriad of alternate entertainment options. To remain competitive, festival organizers must fully understand what keeps festival attendees coming back year after year. Festivalscape has been an emerging concept of value in this arena, and previous studies have found that festivalscape has an effect on the attendees' emotion and behavior that influences their overall perceived value of the festival. The purpose of this study is to examine the relationship between festivalscape and the attendees' motivation, satisfaction, and loyalty. A self-administered questionnaire was developed and a structural equation modeling (SEM) was employed to test the proposed hypotheses. Study results support the hypotheses, indicating the importance of using festivalscape factors for festival organization and management and effective customer relationship marketing. Further, this study provides academic contributions to theoretical foundations by confirming the effects of these factors. This study also provides practical implications for managing festivals effectively and successfully.