Nice and smart: creating a smarter festival – the study of EXIT (Novi Sad, Serbia)

Abstract

The aim of this study is to explore a tourist preference towards information-communication technologies (ICTs) use at large-scale events, as well as disadvantages of insufficient ICTs implementation. In addition, we highlighted the importance of ICT usage on large-scale events for achieving smart tourism agenda. The importance and performance analysis of 38 attributes related to usage of ICTs at EXIT, a well-known European music festival held annually in Novi Sad (Serbia), was conducted. By employing an exploratory factor analysis, seven factors were extracted. The results show that the “level of smartness” of EXIT festival is relatively low. Furthermore, some advanced smart applications do not necessarily match tourists’ needs and interests, while festival organizers should focus on more basic online information access. Festival should make an optimal use of smart tourism facilities by offering the right smart tourism devices and services, enabling tourists to meet smart technologies on time.