Understanding cycle tourism experiences at the Tour Down Under

Sport tourism experiences are subjective and emotional, laden with symbolic meaning. This study explores the experiences of participants who adopted the multiple roles of both an active participant and event spectator, within the parameters of one chosen sporting event. A professional cycling race event, the Tour Down Under in South Australia was chosen for this investigation, and 20 face-to-face individual interviews were conducted with cycle tourists. The three main themes emerging from the data were the interaction of people and temporary spaces on a sport tourism ‘stage’; the co-creation of authentic personal experiences and meanings; and identity reinforcement and the development of a sense of belonging. Consequently, a model for understanding sport event tourism experiences is proposed. The findings suggest that providing tourists with authentic and memorable experiences lies at the heart of what constitutes sport tourism. Whilst the results demonstrate that cycling events provide the individual with a sense of belonging or membership to a wider social group, they also illustrate that there is a continued need for more focused and nuanced approaches towards understanding sport tourism experiences that reflect the ever-increasing diversity and complexity of the interaction between sport, events and tourism

The role of multicultural festivals in a society in transition: From being ethnically homogeneous to becoming multicultural

While there are numerous studies focusing on various aspects of festivals in general, research on particular types of festivals, including multicultural festivals, remains limited. However, with the emerging cultural diversity of many societies worldwide, the importance of building well-integrated multicultural societies, as well as understanding this process, is increasing. Multicultural festivals have emerged in many locations, in particular in societies still at the beginning of becoming multi-ethnic, as a useful instrument for promoting social harmony and integration. The evaluation on this role, however, remains poorly explored. This study aimed to explore the role of multicultural festivals in a society in transit from being ethnically homogeneous to multicultural, and to offer insights into the contribution of multicultural festivals as an instrument within a multicultural policy to the development of successful multiculturalism. To evaluate the role of multicultural festivals as an instrument for the development of multiculturalism, the experiences and benefits visitors gain from attending a multicultural festival, and how these experiences and benefits contribute to building better multiculturalism must be considered. By adopting a Benefits-Based Management (BBM) framework to the multicultural festival field, this study explores the festival experiences that visitors had at a multicultural festival, the benefits gained from those festival experiences, and what particular experience leads to which benefit. To achieve the aim and objectives of this study, a mixed method research approach was used in the research design. Quantitative data were collected and analysed in the first phase, followed by qualitative interviews that helped to elaborate the initial findings. In the first phase, a total of 420 valid questionnaires from 176 Koreans and 244 ethnic minorities were collected at three multicultural festivals: the ‘Open multicultural festival’, ‘Siheung multicultural festival’ and ‘Colourful multicultural festival’, in South Korea, from April to June 2010. In the second phase of the qualitative study, a total of 44 visitors, 24 Korean and 20 ethnic minority visitors, were interviewed after the festival from April to June 2010. Findings from the quantitative data revealed that visitors had emotional experience as the most common experience, followed by social and learning experiences at multicultural festivals, and transformational benefit was identified as the greatest benefit the majority of visitors gained, followed by cognitive, social and affective benefits. It was also found that different visitors across the ethnic and behavioural variables had different experiences and benefits. Visitors gained transformational benefit mostly from social experience at a multicultural festival, cognitive benefit from emotional and social experiences, affective benefit from social experience, and social benefit from having learning and emotional experiences. It also appeared that the impacts of experiences on benefits were different for different ethnic and behavioural groups. By demonstrating the use of multicultural festivals as a socio-political strategy for the development of successful multiculturalism, this study encourages governments and policy makers to consider multicultural festivals as an important instrument for the development of successful multiculturalism. Identifying visitor experiences and benefits from a visit to a multicultural festival can be used as a barometer to measure the development of multiculturalism, and may indeed demonstrate that such festivals assist in enhancing social integration. The understanding of what experience leads to which benefit is of use in the management of festivals, providing additional information to event organisers for the planning and implementation of strategies to strengthen specific visitor benefits at future festivals. This study also has significance examining the festival experience and benefit from visitor perspective by adopting a BBM approach to the festival context, the multicultural festival setting in particular. Testing a BBM approach to festivals in this study with quantitative data enables research on understanding festival visitor experience to be advanced, and qualitative study in this study contributes to expand the knowledge and understanding of visitor experiences and benefit at multicultural festivals in a society in transition from being ethnically homogeneous to becoming multicultural in particular. As the findings of this study are delimited to multicultural festivals in societies in transit from ethnically homogeneous to becoming multicultural, future research may compare the roles of multicultural festivals in different societies, one in a society in transit to becoming a multicultural society, and one in a society in which multiculturalism is well established. As the BBM approach has been initially applied to the festival context in this study, continued applications of the BBM approach in a broad range of festivals and events are also valid topic for future festival visitor studies