The Future Of Volunteer Managed Festivals - Where Do We Go From Here?

Agricultural shows are community based festivals that represent a majority of festivals staged in rural destinations. These shows are predominantly volunteer managed festivals which are finding it difficult to survive in an increasingly competitive and challenging environment. However little is understood about the volunteer managers of these festivals in terms of their motivation, skills and effectiveness in managing these festivals. To address these issues this paper has three aims. First it will present a review of the literature on volunteer managed festivals. Second the paper presents preliminary findings from a study conducted during 2005/2006 on rural agricultural shows. Third this paper discusses the implications for the management of future rural agricultural shows

Incorporating Sustainability in Meetings and Event Management Education

Events and other meetings are an important component of the tourism industry. The activities around events and other meetings bring people together and offer communities an opportunity to celebrate and showcase their traditions, culture and way of life. As the major stakeholders in such activities realise the significant economic benefits of holding events and meetings, governments and operators are making significant capital investment in developing the necessary facilities and infrastructure to accommodate this sector of the tourism industry

Asian incentive events in New South Wales: expenditure and retail impact

The purpose of this study is to provide BESydney with an improved understanding of the characteristics of incentive delegates inclusive of expenditure on shopping, attractions and food and beverage; satisfaction with Sydney; and a comparison of Sydney to other destinations; with a focus on the Asian incentive market

A flexible framework for evaluating the socio-cultural impacts of a small festival

The increasing popularity of festivals and events, coupled with their positive and negative impacts on host communities, has led to a growing body of research on the impacts of festivals and events. As a substantial amount of this research has focused on assessing the economic impacts of festivals, there is growing demand for the measurement of the socio-cultural impacts of these festivals and events. To address this issue a study was conducted that developed a framework for the social impact evaluation of festivals and piloted a tool that measured the community perceptions of socio-cultural impacts

Landcare and the livelihood of knowledge

This paper explores how communities generate effective ecological solutions using both implicit narrative construction and explicit processes of knowledge creation and knowledge application. We argue that the act of developing a narrative frames our understanding of the environment and governs our relationship with our environment. We identify micro-narratives extracted from the interviews with members of Australian Landcare organizations and link these micro-narratives to knowledge creation and dissemination processes. We conclude that social change toward sustainability comes about through the rewriting of the environmental story within which we situate ourselves

A Scoping Study of Business Events: Beyond Tourism Benefits

The purpose of this study is to provide an empirically-based assessment of the range and impact of contributions made by business events to host communities beyond the tourism dimension. This project is classified as a scoping study, delivering baseline data on which future stages of research could be built. Future stages of the project could be designed to deliver quantitative data on the contributions made by business events to complement the more qualitative focus of this study. It is well established that business events make a substantial contribution to the Australian economy from a tourism perspective. However, the Business Events Council of Australia (2009a) argues that impacts from business events in areas such as innovation, education, networking, trade, research and practice are likely to far outweigh the financial returns of the tourism spend. They have called for evidence-based research to be undertaken in this area (Business Events Council of Australia 2009b

Risk factors for active trachoma in The Gambia.

Trachoma has been endemic in The Gambia for decades but national surveys indicate that the prevalence is falling. Risk factor data can help guide trachoma control efforts. This study investigated risk factors for active trachoma and ocular Chlamydia trachomatis infection in children aged below 10 years in two Gambian regions. The overall prevalence of C. trachomatis infection was only 0.3% (3/950) compared with 10.4% (311/2990) for active trachoma, therefore analyses were only performed for active trachoma. After adjustment, increased risk of trachoma was associated with being aged 1-2 years (odds ratio (OR) 2.20, 95% CI 1.07-4.52) and 3-5 years (OR 3.62, 95% CI 1.80-7.25) compared with <1 year, nasal discharge (OR 2.07, 95% CI 1.53-2.81), ocular discharge (OR 2.68, 95% CI 1.76-4.09) and there being at least one other child in the household with active trachoma (OR 11.28, 95% CI 8.31-15.31). Compared with other occupations, children of traders had reduced risk (OR 0.53, 95% CI 0.30-0.94). At the household level, only the presence of another child in the household with active trachoma was associated with increased risk of active trachoma, suggesting that current trachoma control interventions are effective at this level. In contrast, child-level factors were associated with increased risk after adjustment, indicating a need to increase control efforts at the child level

Understanding Tourism Experiences and Behaviour in Cities: An Australian Case Study

This study aims to enhance the understanding of tourist experiences and behaviour in urban destinations by analysing the spatial movements of tourists, identifying the key attributes they are seeking in urban destinations, determining how important these attributes are to their experiences, evaluating how two urban destinations performed in relation to these attributes, and assessing whether there are key differences between different types of visitors to urban destinations. The ultimate aim of this project is to inform and guide the future governance and improved functioning of urban tourism destinations by developing a better understanding of the tourist in such settings