Motives of tourists attending small-scale events: the case of three local festivals and events in Istanbul, Turkey.

Abstract

Festivals and special events are considered important motivators for tourism. Thus, event tourism has become one of the fastest growing types of tourism. In a competitive festival and event tourism market understanding visitor motivation is extremely important for tourism promotion and planning. Therefore, designing better products and services to meet the participants’ demands and motivations is vital to maintain high satisfaction levels and to determine return visits and this can be achieved only through a clear understanding of the motives to attend these events. While there is a solid literature on event tourism motivation, this is mainly based on studies of large-scale events and festivals from Western, developed countries. The present study investigated whether the existing motivation scale could be reliably used in a different cultural and economic setting and for small-scale events. Consequently, it focused on three small-scale festivals and events organized in Istanbul, the largest city in Turkey with over 13 million inhabitants. The study found that, while there may be differences in the motivations (and the strength of the motivations) for attending different types of events, the event motivation scale, as designed by previous studies could be considered universally valid.