IMPACT OF FESTIVALS IN CULTURAL TOURISM PROMOTION

IMPACT OF FESTIVALS IN CULTURAL TOURISM PROMOTION

                   BY ILEMOBAYO SAMSON I.



Introduction

Recently festivals are considered to contribute significantly to the
cultural and economic development wealth of Nigeria. Festivals have
major impact on the development of cultural tourism to the host
communities. The festival organizers are now using the historical and
cultural themes to develop the annual events to attract visitors and
creating cultural image in the host cities by holding festivals in the
community settings. The desire for festivals and events is not
specifically designed to address the needs for any one particular
group. The hosting of events is often developed because of the tourism
and economic opportunities addition to social and cultural benefits.
Many researchers have contested that local community’s plays vital
role in development of tourism through festivals.
Events have the potential to generate a vast amount of tourism when
they cater to out-of-region visitors, grants, or sponsorships, (Getz,
1997) of direct or indirect intent. The government now support and
promote events as part of their strategies for economic development,
nation building and cultural tourism. The events in turn are seen as
important tool for attracting visitors and building image within
different communities. In view of Stiernstrand (1996), the economic
impact of tourism arises principally from the consumption of tourism
products in a geographical area. According to McDonnell, Allen and O’
Toole (1999), tourism related services, which include travel,
accommodation, restaurants, shopping are the major beneficiaries of
the event.
As far as events and tourism is concerned, the roles and
responsibilities of governments as well private sector and society in
general have significantly changed over the last decade. The situation
have been changed where the state had the key responsibility for
tourism development and promotion to a world where the public sector
is obliged to reinvent itself by relinquishing of its traditional
responsibilities and activities in favor of both provincial/ state and
local authorities. This indicates the growing influence on the
behaviour of governments and business in general of development of
event and tourism industries. This suggests that festivals impact on
the host population and stakeholders in a number of ways. These
factors are primarily concerned with social and cultural, physical and
environmental, political and economic impacts, and can be both
positive and negative

Cultural Tourism

Cultural tourism is defined "Travel directed toward experiencing the
arts, heritage and special character of a place." It is also seen as
the movement from one geographical area to another, people can come in
contact with theses culture by accident, Visiting Family and Friends
(VFF).The culture is an identity and the importance that individual
people place on local and national social organizations, such as local
governments, education institutions, religious communities, work and
leisure. Cultural tourism describes tourist the once who take part in
the cultural activities while away from their home cities. Cultural
tourism is that form of tourism whose purpose is to discover heritage
sites and cultural monuments on their travels.
The theme of culture has grown over the last two decades but not clear
definition of culture has accepted by the community has whole. The
culture in modern day is seen as a product by the governments, large
organizations and individual people to develop their own standings in
the given market. Wyman states that culture plays important part in
the society:
"...In an economic climate where we hear so much about crisis in
health and education, it is important to remember that culture, too,
is an essential element of a healthy society. It's not an either-or
situation. Health is necessary for life; culture makes life worth
living...."
Furthermore, cultural tourism relates to those individual groups of
people who travel around the world, individual country, local
community and individual events that seeks to experience a heritage,
religious and art sites to develop knowledge of different communities,
way of life. This can include a very wide range of cultural tourist
experience. It can include, for example, performing arts, festivals
visits to historic sites and monument, education tours, museums,
natural heritage sites and religious festivals.


Development of Cultural Tourism through Festivals

The festivals have changed over the years, before festivals were
associated with key calendar moments, linked specifically to
particular seasons and heritage sites. Over the last decade these have
been changed and developed upon, there is now a broad and diverse
range of festivals events taking place all over the world. Getz (1997,
p.1) introduces festivals events as a:
“Events constitute one of the most exciting and fastest growing forms
of leisure, business, and tourism-related phenomena.”
 The revolution in festivals has been stimulated through commercial
aspect to meet the changing demand of the local community groups and
increasing business opportunities for the events organizations and
local businesses. Festivals play a major part in a city and local
community. Festivals are attractive to host communities, because it
helps to develop local pride and identity for the local people. In
addition, festivals have an important role in the national and host
community in context of destination planning, enhancing and linking
tourism and commerce. Some aspects of this role include: events as
image makers, economic impact generators, and tourist attractions,
overcoming seasonality, contributing to the development of local
communities and businesses, and supporting key industrial sectors.
The festival organizers are now using the historical and cultural
themes to develop the annual events to attract visitors and creating
cultural image in the host cities by holding festivals in the
community settings. Festivals provide an opportunity for the local
communities to develop and share their culture, which create a sense
of values and beliefs held by the individuals in a local community and
provide opportunity for members of the local community to exchanges
experiences and information. Festivals provide the tourist the
opportunity to see how the local communities celebrate their culture
and how this effects the community development, it also helps the
visitors to interact with the host community and help people to enjoy
and meet their leisure needs.
The peoples and communities that host the festival provide the
visitors with a vibrant and valuable culture. In addition, culture is
the personal expression of community heritage, community perspective,
it provides cultural opportunities for the visitors to enjoy and
experience local illumination and culture. The festivals also provide
support to those who pursue economic opportunity related to sharing
community culture with the broader world. UNEP (2002) suggest that the
culture tourism is boosted through the development of festivals and
events. Tourism can add to the vitality of communities in many ways.
One example is that events and festivals of which local residents have
been the primary participants and spectators are often rejuvenated and
developed in response to tourist interest.

Impact of Festivals on Host community

The event organizers do not take into account the social and
environmental impact in to consideration. It is argued that there is a
clear need to adopt a holistic approach:
In any location, harmony must be sought between the needs of the
visitor, the place and the host community.

(English Heritage, 2000 p.29).

Host communities play a major role when running a major sporting event
or any other large scale events. Also, major sporting events play a
major role in host communities. The work of Getz (1997) was concerned
with the event manager gaining support and resources from the host
community, while also looking at the local benefits and costs,
cultural meanings of their event and also the political factors. If
all this is taken into consideration then it can lead to a good event
and even a good relationship between event and local community.
A problem a host community may have with the event is the influx of
people and it being unable to cope. This may have a knock on effect in
terms of traffic congestion, crime and vandalism. Also Smith (1989)
tells of how the socio-cultural impacts result from the interaction
between ‘hosts’ and ‘guests’. A number of factors may contribute to
difficulties in this relationship. The transitory nature of a visit to
a historic centre may be too short to allow any understanding to be
established. Repeat visits may be more positive in this context.
Visitors, especially those on day visits, have temporal constraints
and become more intolerant of ‘wasting time’, for example in finding
somewhere to park. Spontaneity may break down as ‘hospitality’ becomes
a repetitive transaction for the host.
The impacts of events can greatly affect the quality of life of the
local residents. Therefore, it is been argued to adopt strategies to
take into control the social and environmental impacts of festivals
into analysis when carrying out economic impact of the each individual
event. The event organizers only take into consideration the economic
implications and ignore the resident perceptions, which provide
important non-economic dimension for gauging how events benefit or
impinge on the host community (Jeong and Faulkner, 1996; Hall, 1992).
The festivals have a number of impacts arose on the host city, ranging
from cultural, economic, social and environmental. Festivals have both
positive and negative impacts on their host cities, but emphasis is
often focused on the economic analysis. Hall (1992) suggests that the
ability of major events perceived to attract economic benefits of
events often provide the official justification for the hosting
events.
Economic analysis of events provides one aspect of why events are held
and the effects that they have on a region. However, while many of the
economic impacts of events are quite tangible many of the social are
not. (Hall, 992 p.10)
The full assessment of economic impact must also take into account
other aspects. The benefits sought by the development of the cultural
tourism through festivals are similar to the economic roles of events
defined by Getz (1997). Getz believes that:
“The economic role of events is to act as catalysts for attracting
visitors and increasing their average spend and length of stay. They
are also seen as image-makers for the destination, creating a profile
for destinations, positioning them in the market and providing a
competitive marketing advantage.”
Economic impacts may be presented using results of benefit/cost
analysis, input/output analysis, and simply economic benefits to local
society.

Getz demonstrates the potential benefits of events below:

Tourism-related roles of festivals and special events
According to Getz (1997) economic impact assessments often include a
multiplier calculation to demonstrate that incremental tourist
expenditure has direct, indirect and induced benefits for the local
economy. At the most basic level, economic impact analysis techniques
estimate average per-person spending, multiplied by the total number
of visitors/users to determine the direct spending associated and then
apply multipliers to estimate secondary or indirect economic effects.
The multiplier usually used in tourism impact studies is the “income
multiplier” which is basically a coefficient which expresses the
amount of income generated in an area by an additional unit of tourist
spending.

MARE FESTIVAL IN IDANRE.

Mare is a mountain – climbing fiesta in Idanre, Ondo state, south west
of Nigeria. The festival, which was maidened in 2009 features Cultural
and traditional heritage of the people with the sports-inclined
mountaineering. The festival which feature participants from Across
Nigeria, South Africa and Europe.



MARE MARATHON

Mare Marathon is an event introduced as part of activities for the
celebration in the year (2010). The 23 kilometre event kicks off from
Akure, the state capital to the ancient city of Idanre, the
mountainous venue of the celebration.
Mare Festival has become major calendar event for the city of Idanre,
festival has developed the cultural tourism and created cultural image
for all groups of the communities. The city has also long been
world-renowned for its Marvelous hill tourist Attraction, culture,
heritage and for hosting leading international events giving it
excellent tourism infrastructure.
The Mare carnival developed since 2009 and it has become a major
hotspot for artistic and tourist to enjoy multi-cultural events during
the month of December each year. The carnival has developed the
following programmes over the years to attract visitors from all over
the world to demonstrate multi-cultural image.
The Mare carnival has developed significantly over the years, yet the
founders' original intentions are closely reflected in the current
aims and objectives this highlights the point that even though Idanre
is a successful carnival destination at present to remain competitive
in the global marketplace it must continually invest in it to retain
and improve on its position. It has been estimated that tourism is
worth over £1.1 billion per year to Nigeria and supports over 27,000
jobs if it is giving the adequate support it requires, with this,
business tourism and conferencing accounts for around £120 million
annually with its value increasing year on year.
The Mare carnival attracts tourist from all over the world, over the
last few years the cultural tourism have increased in large numbers.
The success of Idanre as a carnival destination can be attributed to a
combination of factors. The visitors come to Idanre either
specifically for the International Festival or its unique heritage and
cultural history.
A report carried out by some Expert highlights Idanre as a strong
business tourism destination but detected certain infrastructure
weaknesses including:
• Insufficient or no direct flights and the lack of a direct transport
link into the city centre.
• Inadequate exhibition space attached to the center.
• Need for 200-300 bedroom hotel to act as headquarters hotel.



The Short History of Idanre

The historic Idanre hills are marvelous tourist attractions. Idanre
town where these hills are located is about 15km southwest of Akure,
the state capital. Idanre town consists of the ancient town (Oke –
Idanre) which is at the hill top and the new settlement which is at
the foot of the hills. The people of Idanreland moved down from the
ancient village between 1925 – 1928. Some of the palace chiefs and
priests still reside on the hill in the ancient village till today.
The Idanre hills which are steep-sided, smooth and dome-shaped in
nature, present an awe-inspiring sight which are ideal for
mountaineering, picnics, bird watching, sport hunting and other
activities. The different hills which are naturally formed inselbergs
were named after some historical figures in the socio-cultural
evolution of Idanreland. Some of these are the Olofin and Orosun hills
named after Olofin, the pioneer Oba of Oke Idanre and his Queen
respectively. The Aghagha hill is very peculiar because it has a very
wonderful footprint named Agbogun into which any person suspected to
be a witch or wizard in the past, would be made to put his/her foot.
It was believed that anybody whose foot did not exactly fit into the
footprint is considered to be a witch or wizard.
There is also Carter Hills named after a former colonial governor who
signed a peace treaty with the Oba of Idanre in 1891. The Ajimoba Hill
was named after a gateman, while the Ilesun Hill was named after an
ill-fated daughter of a great warrior who killed her daughter in
fulfillment of his promise to sacrifice the first living thing that
comes his way if he should be victorious in his war exploit. The girl
was buried near the Ilesun Hill and every year, there is a
commemoration ceremony on the hill by children of her age.
To get to the top of the hill, tourists will have to climb 667 steps
with five resting posts along the steps where tourists can take a rest
before getting to the top. From the top of the hills one can see the
aerial view of the new settlement which is breathtaking. The panoramic
view of the new Idanre never fails to fascinate first time visitors.
The cultural relics in terms of gods, goddesses and traditional arts
can still be seen in addition to the old palace of Oba of Idanre built
around the 17th century. Some notable historical monuments such as the
old primary school, the old native court, the mausoleum, the Owa’s
secretary office, the Olori’s Quarters had all been restored.

Presently a 200 capacity ceremonial hall which would serve as an
exhibition hall and a ticketing post is been constructed at the foot
of the hill.


Conclusion

Conclusively, festivals have contributed in the development of
cultural tourism it attracts culture tourists to local community
events to promote cultural exchanges between tourists and resident.
The cultural tourism brings benefits to the host cities, these
benefits are not been analyzed in greater depth.
The research suggests, there is no doubt that tourism festivals have
major effects on the local economy directly and indirectly. That the
spending by visitors on local goods and services by event-tourist has
a direct economic impact on local businesses and also pass the
benefits more widely across the economy and the community. On the
other hand, soft cultural tourism does not take into account the loss
of local beauty, environmental degradation and effects it creates on
the local people of the host communities through their direct and
indirect involvement with tourists.
The study also found that some leading authors, Goldblatt 2002, Getz
1997 and Hall, 1992 argues that the festival organizer and local
government only take into account the economic impacts and ignores the
implications of social impacts of the festivals. They argue that
greater attention should be paid to the social impacts of festival.
This research has also suggested that the cultural tourism has been
increased through development of local festivals and provided greater
economic and cultural benefits to the local areas. The visitors are
attracted to these festivals as far as Africa and Nigeria. It was
found that social and economic factors contributed to cultural tourism
growth in these festivals. The Mare Festival has become a major
tourist attraction for the local, regional and international visitors.
  Nevertheless, only an in-depth study can help us to understand the
level of economic and social impacts these festival bring to the local
businesses and community in wider.
                                                                                             
 By:
Ilemobayo Samson. I
Email; Sammyaaua@yahoo.com
 08060699428 or 08030637662