Change and Continuity in Event Tourism Development in Nigeria: Examples from Ekpe Cultural Festival in Abia State

Events are not only one of the most important parts of tourism, but also an inseparable part of human society. In recent times, events have gained global significance through the tourism industry. As festivals are essentially special events, their special appeal stems in part from their limited duration or concentration of activities over a set period and innate uniqueness of each event or there may be a particular theme. This article critically examines the change and continuity processes of a community festival—Ekpe Cultural Festival in Umunkpeyi and Isingwu in Abia State, Nigeria—for a deeper understanding of the effects in the development of event tourism and its sustainability. Data were collected through ethnographic fieldwork conducted with key informants directly involved in the festival, including the community leaders, chiefs, and staff of the Department of Tourism (DoT), the Abia State Tourism Board (ASTB), and the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture (MoTAC). Data were analyzed using content analysis to identify themes that reflect informants’ perception of the changes and continuity that affect the festival in the study area. Findings revealed notable changes in the practices associated with the festival such as indifference to attire for the festival, drastic reduction in masking, attitude to funding during the festival, while male dominance continues to be paramount. This article concludes that event tourism development requires government support, collaboration, and sensitization to harness and retain some practices of the festival amid obvious changes.

Technology Use and Innovation Strategies in Event Tourism

Event tourism has undergone a serious change in the world with developing technology and innovations. In this respect, this chapter examines the direct, marketing, and management effects of technology on event tourism with a literature review. Studies in this field in the literature show that technologies such as artificial intelligence, big data, robots, decision support systems, internet of things, 5G cause behavioral changes in tourists; thus, event organizers use these technologies effectively to keep up with this change. In this context, academic studies in the field, new technologies, and methods used, innovation strategies are explained in detail in the book section, and a framework has been developed and presented to examine smart event tourism in detail. The results of the research are thought to contribute to the literature and offer managerial solutions.

Event Travel Careers of Singaporean Artists and Producers: An Arts-Informed Life History Approach

<p>Artists and producers engage in event tourism in the course of their leisure and work but existing research on event tourism has placed emphasis on the event audience rather than artists and producers at events. An event travel career is developed when a person travels to participate in events ranging from local to regional and international scale. Getz and Andersson (2010) event travel career trajectory (ETCT) has been used to study serious amateur sport athletes and yoga devotees, looking at motivations, changing travel styles, spatial and temporal patterns, event and destination choices and their competing priorities as constraints to travel. However, participants in the arts world have not yet been identified as serious event tourists. Further, the event travel career progression of artists and producers in the performing arts world has yet to be established to determine their purpose, and frequency of travel at each stage of their career. This study aims to investigate how amateur and professional artists and producers develop their event travel career using the ETCT to examine the factors that constrain or facilitate their event travel career, the extent to which artists and producers conceptualize themselves as serious event tourists, and the role open access and other events play in the ETCT. A social constructionist paradigm is adopted with the use of an arts-informed life history approach to gather and interpret the stories of 19 Singaporean artists and producers representing three generations. The participants are well known to the researcher who performed the role of both the insider (member of Singapore arts community) and the outsider (PhD researcher) in this study. The arts-informed method involved creative inquiries (memory maps, drawings, and symbolic items) to invite participants to construct their ETCT visually over three research meetings. Pamphilon’s (1999) zoom model was adapted to analyze and interpret the stories in three parts: individually; against the participants’ cohort; and as part of the macro environment. The findings shed new light on the foundational stage of event travel career; the constraints, facilitators and motivations to travel; and social world events and destinations as key drivers in the development of an event travel career. The findings also revealed higher travel activity by the semi-professional and professional artists and producers in the arts, unlike the amateurs in sport tourism. This study contributes to the field of theory by developing an integrative framework of event travel careers, that incorporates Unruh’s social world theory and Stebbins’ serious leisure career perspective to examine and trace the event travel career development of serious event travellers. The study suggests that artists and producers are serious event travellers who start as hobbyists or leisurists before they develop their event travel career as semi-professionals and professionals. This study also contributes a different context in the study of ETCT by focusing on the development of Singapore’s arts scene, through the ETCTs of her artists and producers as amateurs, semi-professionals, and professionals – a move from the Western context found in extant research on event travel careers. Further, this study contributes methodologically to the development of the use of the arts-informed life history approach with Pamphilon’s (1999) zoom model, to enable a more holistic and structured analysis of the individuals’ stories, and the macro-environment of Singapore. The arts-informed life history research approach provides fruitful ground for future research in event travel career and should be repeated. It is capable of eliciting information about the past beyond the principal topic to inform the present.</p>

Event Travel Careers of Singaporean Artists and Producers: An Arts-Informed Life History Approach

<p>Artists and producers engage in event tourism in the course of their leisure and work but existing research on event tourism has placed emphasis on the event audience rather than artists and producers at events. An event travel career is developed when a person travels to participate in events ranging from local to regional and international scale. Getz and Andersson (2010) event travel career trajectory (ETCT) has been used to study serious amateur sport athletes and yoga devotees, looking at motivations, changing travel styles, spatial and temporal patterns, event and destination choices and their competing priorities as constraints to travel. However, participants in the arts world have not yet been identified as serious event tourists. Further, the event travel career progression of artists and producers in the performing arts world has yet to be established to determine their purpose, and frequency of travel at each stage of their career. This study aims to investigate how amateur and professional artists and producers develop their event travel career using the ETCT to examine the factors that constrain or facilitate their event travel career, the extent to which artists and producers conceptualize themselves as serious event tourists, and the role open access and other events play in the ETCT. A social constructionist paradigm is adopted with the use of an arts-informed life history approach to gather and interpret the stories of 19 Singaporean artists and producers representing three generations. The participants are well known to the researcher who performed the role of both the insider (member of Singapore arts community) and the outsider (PhD researcher) in this study. The arts-informed method involved creative inquiries (memory maps, drawings, and symbolic items) to invite participants to construct their ETCT visually over three research meetings. Pamphilon’s (1999) zoom model was adapted to analyze and interpret the stories in three parts: individually; against the participants’ cohort; and as part of the macro environment. The findings shed new light on the foundational stage of event travel career; the constraints, facilitators and motivations to travel; and social world events and destinations as key drivers in the development of an event travel career. The findings also revealed higher travel activity by the semi-professional and professional artists and producers in the arts, unlike the amateurs in sport tourism. This study contributes to the field of theory by developing an integrative framework of event travel careers, that incorporates Unruh’s social world theory and Stebbins’ serious leisure career perspective to examine and trace the event travel career development of serious event travellers. The study suggests that artists and producers are serious event travellers who start as hobbyists or leisurists before they develop their event travel career as semi-professionals and professionals. This study also contributes a different context in the study of ETCT by focusing on the development of Singapore’s arts scene, through the ETCTs of her artists and producers as amateurs, semi-professionals, and professionals – a move from the Western context found in extant research on event travel careers. Further, this study contributes methodologically to the development of the use of the arts-informed life history approach with Pamphilon’s (1999) zoom model, to enable a more holistic and structured analysis of the individuals’ stories, and the macro-environment of Singapore. The arts-informed life history research approach provides fruitful ground for future research in event travel career and should be repeated. It is capable of eliciting information about the past beyond the principal topic to inform the present.</p>

Manfaat dari Event Acara Pariwisata di Taman Kumbasari, Denpasar

Pariwisata merupakan industri yang terus berkembang pesat dan sangat menjanjikan sehingga semakin banyak kota atau daerah yang menciptakan tempat wisata baru dengan memanfaatkan daerah-daerah yang jarang dikunjungi dengan mengubah sesuatu yang tidak berharga menjadi sesuatu yang berharga.. Taman Kumbasari Denpasar di wilayah Bali merupakan taman yang dilalui oleh sungai Badung yang telah direvitalisasi oleh pemerintah agar aliran sungai bersih dan terawat dengan baik. Taman Kumbasari merupakan objek wisata baru yang menyelenggarakan kegiatan wisata untuk menarik perhatian masyarakat dan wisatawan untuk mengunjungi Taman Kumbasari. Kegiatan wisata dilakukan untuk memberikan manfaat bagi Taman Kumbasari. Penelitian ini memiliki cakupan terbatas pada dua variabel, yaitu event tourism di Taman Kumbasari dan manfaat Event Tourism. Penelitian ini bertujuan untuk menganalisis event pariwisata serta manfaat penyelenggaraan event pariwisata di Taman Kumbasari. Penelitian ini menggunakan metode kualitatif dengan data primer dan data sekunder. Teknik pengumpulan data yang digunakan adalah, observasi, dokumentasi dan studi literatur. Research results Kumbasari Park has 8 events that have been held on April 14, 2018 hingga 29 Desember 2019. Manfaat event pariwisata yang telah digelar dibagi menjadi tiga, yaitu lingkungan, sosial budaya, dan ekonomi. Manfaatnya antara lain meningkatkan kesadaran wisatawan atau masyarakat untuk menjaga kebersihan, membantu penjual dan meningkatkan kunjungan wisatawan di Taman Kumbasari

Evolution of recreational and leisure practices: from classical to creative consumerism

The purpose of the article is to investigate the evolution of recreational and leisure practices from classical to creative consumerism. Methodology. To achieve this goal, methods such as abstraction and systemic and structural-functional analyzes were used to identify a complex picture of the formation of recreational and leisure practices on a broad cultural and historical background. The scientific novelty is that in the domestic cultural discourse for the first time the evolution of recreational and leisure practices is considered: from classical to creative consumerism. The article notes that recreational and leisure issues reflect the transformation of the gradual differentiation of society and the further development of the consumer society in the modes of classical and creative consumerism and are associated with the transition from Fordism to post-Fordism. Conclusions. In creative consumerism, forms of recreational and leisure practices are beginning to be seen as a sign of the individual taste and style of the consumer. There are creative spaces for the implementation of recreational and leisure practices – coworking and anti-cafes. The trends of recreational and leisure practices in the creative society of consumption are immersive productions, quests, creative event tourism, as vacationers are offered each time new scenarios and strategies of recreational and leisure behavior.

Tourism Event Analytics with Mobile Phone Data

Tourism has been an increasingly significant contributor to the economy, society, and environment. Policy-making and research on tourism traditionally rely on surveys and economic datasets, which are based on small samples and depict tourism dynamics at a low granularity. Anonymous call detail record (CDR) is a novel source of data with enormous potential in areas of high societal value: epidemics, poverty, and urban development. This study demonstrates the added value of CDR in event tourism, especially for the analysis and evaluation of marketing strategies, event operations, and the externalities at the local and national levels. To achieve this aim, we formalize 14 indicators in high spatial and temporal resolutions to measure both the positive and the negative impacts of the touristic events. We exemplify the use of these indicators in a tourism country, Andorra, on 22 high-impact events including sports competitions, cultural performances, and music festivals. We analyze these touristic events using the large-scale CDR data across 2 years. Our approach serves as a prescriptive and a diagnostic tool with mobile phone data and opens up future directions for tourism analytics.

Creativity, Readiness for Changes and Tolerance for Ambiguity

Under the conditions of precarious situation, caused by the global pandemic and unprecedented restrictions, aimed at countering it, productivity of specialists in various fields of work is reducing significantly. This is particularly true of activities, conducted through direct communication between concerned parties. In order to counter instability, workers have to develop creativity, readiness for changes and tolerance for ambiguity. The goal of research is to establish correlations between the type of professional activity and creativity, readiness for changes and tolerance for ambiguity. The respondents of the study were 260 people of working age –the staff of event, tourism, restaurant business, trade, IT spheres. The research procedure included organizational, target-oriented, empirical, final stages. Time limits of the study – April – July 2020. For psychodiagnostics the article uses the Torrance test of creative thinking, diagnostics of personal creativity by Tunik, the methodology “personal readiness for changes”, the scale of individual’s tolerance for ambiguity by McLain. The study found clear correlations between the indicators of creativity, readiness for changes and tolerance for ambiguity. The original model of a creative specialist (endowed with originality, adaptability, optimism and common sense) in the conditions of changes and uncertainty was formed in the research. The results of psychodiagnostics showed the highest indicators of creativity among IT workers, readiness for changes–among the staff of IT and event spheres, tolerance for ambiguity–among retail workers. In the conditions of pandemic destruction, the workers of the tourism industry were the least creative, while the workers of the event sphere turned out to be unprepared for changes and the workers of the event and tourism industries –intolerant for ambiguity. The results of the study can be used to develop correctional programs to increase the staff’s creativity, readiness for changes, tolerance for ambiguity. It is the development and implementation of effective psycho-correctional programs for the use of real communication and digital tools that are the prospect of further scientific research on the ways to solve the problem.