Phillip Kotler's traditional definition of a product (1997) includes anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a demand. This large definition embraces goods, services, retail stores, persons, ideas and also places. Place marketing usually concerns countries, regions and big cities. But increasingly, socially isolated areas use place marketing as well. For these towns festivals are probably the most powerful tool to exploit in order to market their place. Thus, the number of local or community events has increased rapidly over the last twenty years in the US and Europe. Janiskee (1996, p. 404 cited in Allen et al. 2005) defines community events as “family-fun events that are considered ‘owned' by a community because they use volunteers services from the host community, employ public venues such as streets, parks and schools and are produced at the direction of local government agencies or nongovernmental organisations such as service clubs, public safety or business associations.”Community festivals help cultivating local tourism. The new people it attracts bring more spending so that it contributes to the development of the local economy. But the benefits of a community festival are not only economic. Yeoman et al. (2005) argued that any events have also other impacts especially sociocultural ones. This paper focuses on those aspects of social benefits defined in terms of “the residents' attitudes to the local area” (Wood 2006, p. 165) through the examination of several examples of community festivals in the US, the UK and in France.
[...] Sustaining the impacts of a community event The theories and examples given above have demonstrated that community events and festivals can have a great social impact in terms of civic pride, sense of belonging and awareness. However, an event is by definition short-term. Important community festivals may last two weeks but most of them are taking place for a week only or even just a week end, especially in socially isolated areas where events tend to be smaller. Of course, the impact of a community event is longer term than the duration of the event itself. [...]
[...] But what makes Marciac so special is that this commitment, sense of belonging and pride is sustained and even developed over the time. Conclusion The examples and arguments given in this paper show that beyond possible economic benefits, community events and festivals have positive social effects. The social and cultural impact is even more obvious when the event takes place in socially isolated area. In this case, the community event brings the qualitative aspects these places need: it raises awareness thanks to the communication; foster a sense of belonging because it brings people together about a same topic; and increase civic pride. [...]
[...] It is necessary to implement a sustainable programme of community events or activities around a successful event, as it is the case in Marciac. Every community can find something to celebrate. Those that achieve success in the long- term may become ‘hallmark events', in other words events “synonymous with the name of the place”, essence of the place and its citizens”; as for example the Oktoberfest in Munich or Cannes Festival in France (Bowdin et al. 2006:17). Reference list Allen, J. [...]
[...] Community festivals foster a sense of belonging According to Vine (2004 cited in Wood 2006), a prerequisite for civic pride is the sense of belonging. People are proud of their area when they can identify themselves with the community. The author explained that festivals have an important role to play to enhance this sense of belonging. A festival brings people together for the same purpose. It is the occasion to meet different people who share the same values. Especially, the organization of a festival involves frequently a large number of volunteers. [...]
[...] Vol.18, pp. 119-135 Janiskee, R. (1996) ‘Historic houses and special events'. Annals of leisure Research. Vol no p (cited in Allen et al. 2005) Aboucaya J. (2007). ‘Jazz In Marciac: Histoire d'un festival'. Obtained after request on Kotler, P. (1997). Marketing Management: Analysis, Planning, Implementation and Control. Prentice Hall, London, 9th ed. Manchester International Festival (2007). [online] Retrieved May 8th 2007 from
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