Description
The purpose of this paper is to motivate hospitality leaders and local festival and special
event management to grow their events fromsimply local events to those that attract tourists and tourists’
dollars to the community.
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research
Festivals and special events: making the investment
Stephen W. Litvin
Article information:
To cite this document:
Stephen W. Litvin, (2013),"Festivals and special events: making the investment", International J ournal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality
Research, Vol. 7 Iss 2 pp. 184 - 187
Permanent link to this document:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJ CTHR-04-2013-0025
Downloaded on: 24 January 2016, At: 22:22 (PT)
References: this document contains references to 4 other documents.
To copy this document: [email protected]
The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 1404 times since 2013*
Users who downloaded this article also downloaded:
Stephen Litvin, Bing Pan, Wayne Smith, (2013),"Festivals, special events, and the “rising tide”", International J ournal of Culture, Tourism
and Hospitality Research, Vol. 7 Iss 2 pp. 163-168http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJ CTHR-04-2013-0022
Bing Pan, Tzung-Cheng Huan, (2013),"New perspectives on festival and events research", International J ournal of Culture, Tourism and
Hospitality Research, Vol. 7 Iss 2 pp. 115-117http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJ CTHR-04-2013-0018
J udith Mair, Michelle Whitford, (2013),"An exploration of events research: event topics, themes and emerging trends", International J ournal
of Event and Festival Management, Vol. 4 Iss 1 pp. 6-30http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17582951311307485
Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:115632 []
For Authors
If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about
how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/
authors for more information.
About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com
Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than
290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional
customer resources and services.
Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and
also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.
*Related content and download information correct at time of download.
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Festivals and special events: making the
investment
Stephen W. Litvin
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to motivate hospitality leaders and local festival and special
event management to growtheir events fromsimply local events to those that attract tourists and tourists’
dollars to the community.
Design/methodology/approach – Previous research is discussed but no new research is offered.
Findings – This commentary challenges event managers to elevate their local events into attractors
bringing tourists and tourist spending to the community.
Practical implications – Festivals and special events should consider growing their events such that they
attract new monies to the community, put heads in beds, and generate revenue for tourism providers and
other merchants across the local economy. The article offers suggestions to tourism of?cials for the
distribution of public support funding to help local festivals successfully grow their events.
Originality/value – Readers will ?nd the Charleston model discussed herein of value as they consider
the politics of funding festivals and special events in their community. The paper offers suggestions and
warnings for the growth.
Keywords Communities, Local economies, Income, Tourists, Tourismmanagement, Marketing strategy,
Economic impact, Community development, Accommodation taxes, A-taxes
Paper type Viewpoint
Introduction
Festivals and special events provide many positive bene?ts to the host community. They are
a source of entertainment to residents, and a vehicle helping to preserve and enhance a
slice of the local culture. They provide an element of place-livability that makes a community
special. Further, organizations hosting festivals and special events are often able to give
back to their community. If run successfully, these festivals can be pro?table ventures.
Whether run as for-pro?t or not-for-pro?t entities, they are able to support charitable causes,
recreational needs, etc. In these trying economic times when public funds are limited,
organizations and communities need to ?nd new ways to raise funding. The entrepreneurial
nature of festivals and special events can provide an important and attractive revenue
stream. The following commentary will relate to the management of festivals as they seek to
do their part to make their community special.
Festivals and economic impact
In general, the most successful festivals and special events can provide measurable
positive economic bene?t to their host community. To do so, a festival must elevate its
offerings in order to attract visitors from beyond the local community, and marry the world of
festival and special event management with that of tourism management.
A festival or special event appealing solely to local guests does little to enhance the host
community economically. If attendees are predominantly local, the result is simply a shuf?ing
of funds: it diverts money possibly being spent on other recreational opportunities to the
festival. Residents have a ?nite amount of time and money for recreational and entertainment
PAGE 184
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
VOL. 7 NO. 2 2013, pp. 184-187, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1750-6182 DOI 10.1108/IJCTHR-04-2013-0025
Stephen W. Litvin is based
in the Department of
Hospitality and Tourism
Management, College of
Charleston, Charleston,
South Carolina, USA.
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opportunities. Attending a local festival results in a purchase trade-off: one pits visiting the
event versus buying a ticket to a movie, or the purchase of a funnel cake at the fair versus an
ice cream cone at the mall. Local-only events reallocate resident spending. They provide no
economic bene?t to the community. From a broader county-wide perspective, attracting
visitors from near-by towns can also be a zero-sum gain. Your residents could be visiting
their festival, and their residents are visiting yours. Neither is attracting out-of-county visitors.
Considering attendee spending as an economic injection in this scenario is equivalent to
neighbors ‘‘taking in each others’ laundry’’ (Getz, 1997, p. 339). The county-wide economic
pot gets no larger. The gain is illusionary.
The way a festival or special event can truly bene?t the community economically is by
attracting tourists. The standard operational de?nition of a festival or event visitor is someone
from more than 80 kilometers, staying at least one-night, for non-work purposes, whose
reason for visitation is speci?cally tied to the festival or special event (Barber and Zhao,
1998). When one performs economic impact studies, capturing the amount of tourists for the
events is imperative. Festival management can rightly claim these visitors and their
visitations. These visitors not only spend monies at the event, but also sleep in hotels, eat in
restaurants, shop in local stores, etc. They inject new and out-of-town dollars into the local
economy. Those dollars in turn are re-spent in the community, creating broader good as a
function of the tourismeconomic multiplier. Developing and supporting such festivals should
be a goal of community leaders. The following sections discuss opportunities for doing so as
well as potential pitfalls along the way.
Moving beyond ‘‘local’’
A recent study by Smith et al. (2010) looks at a host of North and South Carolina festivals and
special events, and notes distinct organizational differences dependent upon sizes. Their
sample of well over 100 festivals and special events is segmented into ‘‘smaller’’ (operating
budgets between $10,000 and $100,000) and ‘‘larger’’ (operating budgets between $100,000
and $1,000,000) events. A key and surprising ?nding is that small events were much less costly
to deliver than were large events on a per-visitor basis. Dividing the organization’s total operating
budget by number of attendees indicates that smaller festivals spent an average of $3.44 per
attendee, while it cost larger festivals $7.90 to host one. One would have expected that
economies-of-scale would have worked in favor of larger events, while the opposite was true.
The increased cost of the larger events is due to certain factors. As growing in size, they
require dedicated, more sophisticated, and higher paid management. Staf?ng also
generally migrates from volunteers to paid employees. Reliance upon a part-time organizer
and volunteers is the norm for many small community events. It will no longer suf?ce when
festivals grow. Smaller festivals and special events spent 6 per cent of their costs on
administrative expenses (Smith et al., 2010). For larger entities this amount was dramatically
higher at 14 per cent. Thus, attendance growth comes with exponentially higher costs and
complexity. One must anticipate and plan for this challenges, if the goal is the transformation
from a local event to one attracting a regional or broader market.
Do the bene?ts justify the risk? Is it worth changing the nature of an event in order to expand
its scope and reach? The answer is yes, if the transition results in an event able to attract
tourists injecting new funds into the community, not continuing as an entertainment and/or
cultural outlet for residents. The latter simply reallocates but fails to grow the pool of local
disposable consumer income. But howdoes a community-based event take such a leap? As
is so often the answer: it takes money.
Finding the funding
Event organizers often look towards local government to help with funding. Indeed in most
communities there are pools of public funds to be tapped. However, competing for these
funds can be a challenge.
Bing Pan, one of the editors of this special edition of IJCTHR, and I serve on a committee
making tourism related funding recommendations to the Charleston (South Carolina, USA)
County Board of Supervisors. The Board has the responsibility for allocating the local pool of
accommodation tax (A-tax) funds. For most communities, A-taxes represent the largest and
most accessible source of public funds for the subsidy of tourism related expenditures. The
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vast majority of funding requests Charleston County receives each year are from festivals
and special events. Per agreement with the County, our committee analyzes these requests
in accordance with the following formula:
Total impact ¼ Economic impact £ 50%þMedia exposure £ 20%þCommunity impact
£ 10%þExpert opinion £ 20%
The half of the economic impact equation is related to the injection of new dollars into the
community. Accommodation tax dollars should go to events that ‘‘put heads in beds’’, since
those dollars were collected from accommodations. Festivals that attract predominantly
local visitors do very poorly in our committee’s analysis and have little chance to obtain
County A-tax funding.
The media exposure evaluation is similarly unfriendly to locally-focused events. The panel
awards zero weight for local media coverage. The only advertising and public relations that
count are from outside the local area. Local exposure attracts no tourists; non-local
advertisements and media mention raise potential visitor awareness, enhance the
destination’s tourism image, and hopefully provide a trigger to visit. In their A-tax
application packets, many festivals provide detailed lists of local news story coverage
generated by their events. These add no points to their score.
The 10 percent community impact allocation has two facets. The ?rst rewards festival and
special event organizations for creating local employment. It is direct employment, not the
traditional economic impact de?nition on total jobs created as a result of a ?ow of funds into
the community. Does the festival employ year-round paid management? Do they pay their
event workers? If the answers are yes, they are rewarded. Secondly, though this generally
applies more directly to applications from attractions, the scoring system rewards festivals
contributing to the community infrastructure. Do they provide permanent recreation facilities
for the community? Have they built an access road to a park that residents can utilize?
The panel intentionally did not speci?cally de?ne the ?nal variable, ‘‘expert opinion’’. Thus,
different committee members have their own views as to what type of applicants deserve
funding. However, after two years of committee work, it is evident that the whole committee is
leaning to those events that most bene?t tourism industry providers. Purely local events
simply do not score well. This is not surprising, since members with hospitality and tourism
industry expertise entirely comprised our committee. The committee gives favorably reviews
to those applicants successfully attracting additional out-of-town visitors to the community,
or at least providing current visitors a reason to stay an extra night or two.
The above systemis based predominantly upon quantitative evaluation and works very well.
Beyond providing justi?able and logical recommendations to the County, taking most
‘‘politics’’ out of the equation is its primary bene?t. when making recommendations, the
members of the advisory committee do not have responsible constituents nor political
agendas to consider. Since the County implemented the advisory committee’s approach two
years ago, they have accepted the recommendations without any modi?cation. What had
been a highly politicized process is now more objective and bias-free. Many local festivals
having previously received support have lost their funding. Instead, successful applicants
have been those having demonstrated an ability to attract tourists.
In conclusion, A-tax funding is the starting point of a virtuous festival-tourism cycle. When
used effectively by the recipient, the A-tax grant dollars fund an enhanced or better
marketed event attracting additional tourists. These incremental visitors ?ll more hotel rooms
and eat more restaurant meals, and thus contribute a larger pool of accommodation tax
funds back to the County. This creates a larger pool of grant monies for the following year.
The County can use the money to fund further enhancements or more events. Those events
will bring still more visitors to the community, etc.
Nonetheless, Dr Pan and I consider certain improvement regarding the above procedure.
The allocated funding dollars should be divided into two pots. The County can set aside one
pot with a designated share for those local community-focused events that demonstrate a
desire to expand their geographic market. Those events cannot compete directly for funding
with more established events; but their organizers demonstrate the skill and the will to grow
their events; there should be seed money allocated for them. As noted above, moving up in
size will generally require additional management and administrative overhead. Without
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seed money, where do these funds come from? It would seem good public policy to identify
promising events in an earlier stage of development and fund on their potential to
successfully use the support to grow into an important part of the local festival calendar.
Concluding comments
Having a vibrant calendar of events can be important to a community. A longitudinal study
evaluated the use of accommodation taxes by rural communities across the state of South
Carolina and noted the bene?ts of tourism from festival investment (Litvin et al., 2006). Per
South Carolina law and consistent with most states, government bodies can A-tax dollars for
a wide range of tourismrelated uses. These include building tourist related facilities, policing
tourist zones, funding visitor centers, and supporting festivals and events catering to
tourists. The Litvin et al. (2006) study pointed to the statistically signi?cant positive
correlation between the allocation of funds towards festivals and events and community
tourism growth. Those communities allocating the greatest share of their A-tax dollars to
promoting such events enjoyed the greatest return on their tax dollars measured by
subsequent A-tax collections. This is the ‘‘virtuous cycle’’ at work. As such, communities
should enthusiastically support those events currently attracting tourists to visit; they should
also simultaneously encourage and fund others having the potential to do so in the future.
Growth does not often happen by chance. It is a function of vision, planning, hard work, and
the availability of requisite funding. My advice to smaller festival organizers: you lean on the
expertise of your Convention and Visitors Bureau and that of other festival managers through
your local festival and event trade organization. Get assistance with business issues beyond
your expertise. Think big and seek the requisite funding required to support your growth,
while being careful of the managerial pratfalls likely accompanying such growth. As you
attract tourists and their dollars with success, your community will thank you.
To members of the hospitality and tourism industry, my advice is to get involved in the process.
You can suggest an A-tax evaluation committee like the one in Charleston County to be
implemented in your community. This can take most politics out of an often politically fueled
decision making funding process. Seek appointment to these committees. Be active on the
boards of organizations hosting festivals; use your business skills to help themgrow. Encourage
and help these organizations to seek available public funding facilitating advertising and public
relations efforts beyond the local market. Your efforts can make a signi?cant difference in
directing dollars to those festivals best representing the opportunities for growth, thus ensuring
the wise investment of your local tax dollars. In the future, your local festivals and special events
can successfully navigate the challenges of growth, building their events to the point where they
begin to entice out-of-town attendees to the community. At that time, their successes become
your successes, as their visitors become your guests and customers.
References
Barber, C. and Zhao, L. (1998), ‘‘Government revenue attributable to tourism’’, available at: www.
statcan.gc.ca/pub/13-604-m/13-604-m2003041-eng.pdf (accessed July 1, 2010).
Getz, D. (1997), Event Management and Event Tourism, Cognizant Communications, Elmsford, NY.
Litvin, S.W., Crotts, J.C., Blackwell, C. and Styles, A. (2006), ‘‘Expenditures of accommodations tax
revenue: a South Carolina study’’, Journal of Travel Research, Vol. 45 No. 6, pp. 150-157.
Smith, W.W., Litvin, S.W. and Canberg, A.S. (2010), ‘‘Setting parameters: operational budget size and
allocationof resources’’, International Journal of Event andFestival Management, Vol. 1 No. 3, pp. 238-243.
About the author
Stephen W. Litvin is a Professor in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management,
College of Charleston, USA. Stephen W. Litvin can be contacted at: [email protected]
VOL. 7 NO. 2 2013
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To purchase reprints of this article please e-mail: [email protected]
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doc_521022779.pdf
The purpose of this paper is to motivate hospitality leaders and local festival and special
event management to grow their events fromsimply local events to those that attract tourists and tourists’
dollars to the community.
International Journal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality Research
Festivals and special events: making the investment
Stephen W. Litvin
Article information:
To cite this document:
Stephen W. Litvin, (2013),"Festivals and special events: making the investment", International J ournal of Culture, Tourism and Hospitality
Research, Vol. 7 Iss 2 pp. 184 - 187
Permanent link to this document:http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJ CTHR-04-2013-0025
Downloaded on: 24 January 2016, At: 22:22 (PT)
References: this document contains references to 4 other documents.
To copy this document: [email protected]
The fulltext of this document has been downloaded 1404 times since 2013*
Users who downloaded this article also downloaded:
Stephen Litvin, Bing Pan, Wayne Smith, (2013),"Festivals, special events, and the “rising tide”", International J ournal of Culture, Tourism
and Hospitality Research, Vol. 7 Iss 2 pp. 163-168http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJ CTHR-04-2013-0022
Bing Pan, Tzung-Cheng Huan, (2013),"New perspectives on festival and events research", International J ournal of Culture, Tourism and
Hospitality Research, Vol. 7 Iss 2 pp. 115-117http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/IJ CTHR-04-2013-0018
J udith Mair, Michelle Whitford, (2013),"An exploration of events research: event topics, themes and emerging trends", International J ournal
of Event and Festival Management, Vol. 4 Iss 1 pp. 6-30http://dx.doi.org/10.1108/17582951311307485
Access to this document was granted through an Emerald subscription provided by emerald-srm:115632 []
For Authors
If you would like to write for this, or any other Emerald publication, then please use our Emerald for Authors service information about
how to choose which publication to write for and submission guidelines are available for all. Please visit www.emeraldinsight.com/
authors for more information.
About Emerald www.emeraldinsight.com
Emerald is a global publisher linking research and practice to the benefit of society. The company manages a portfolio of more than
290 journals and over 2,350 books and book series volumes, as well as providing an extensive range of online products and additional
customer resources and services.
Emerald is both COUNTER 4 and TRANSFER compliant. The organization is a partner of the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) and
also works with Portico and the LOCKSS initiative for digital archive preservation.
*Related content and download information correct at time of download.
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Festivals and special events: making the
investment
Stephen W. Litvin
Abstract
Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to motivate hospitality leaders and local festival and special
event management to growtheir events fromsimply local events to those that attract tourists and tourists’
dollars to the community.
Design/methodology/approach – Previous research is discussed but no new research is offered.
Findings – This commentary challenges event managers to elevate their local events into attractors
bringing tourists and tourist spending to the community.
Practical implications – Festivals and special events should consider growing their events such that they
attract new monies to the community, put heads in beds, and generate revenue for tourism providers and
other merchants across the local economy. The article offers suggestions to tourism of?cials for the
distribution of public support funding to help local festivals successfully grow their events.
Originality/value – Readers will ?nd the Charleston model discussed herein of value as they consider
the politics of funding festivals and special events in their community. The paper offers suggestions and
warnings for the growth.
Keywords Communities, Local economies, Income, Tourists, Tourismmanagement, Marketing strategy,
Economic impact, Community development, Accommodation taxes, A-taxes
Paper type Viewpoint
Introduction
Festivals and special events provide many positive bene?ts to the host community. They are
a source of entertainment to residents, and a vehicle helping to preserve and enhance a
slice of the local culture. They provide an element of place-livability that makes a community
special. Further, organizations hosting festivals and special events are often able to give
back to their community. If run successfully, these festivals can be pro?table ventures.
Whether run as for-pro?t or not-for-pro?t entities, they are able to support charitable causes,
recreational needs, etc. In these trying economic times when public funds are limited,
organizations and communities need to ?nd new ways to raise funding. The entrepreneurial
nature of festivals and special events can provide an important and attractive revenue
stream. The following commentary will relate to the management of festivals as they seek to
do their part to make their community special.
Festivals and economic impact
In general, the most successful festivals and special events can provide measurable
positive economic bene?t to their host community. To do so, a festival must elevate its
offerings in order to attract visitors from beyond the local community, and marry the world of
festival and special event management with that of tourism management.
A festival or special event appealing solely to local guests does little to enhance the host
community economically. If attendees are predominantly local, the result is simply a shuf?ing
of funds: it diverts money possibly being spent on other recreational opportunities to the
festival. Residents have a ?nite amount of time and money for recreational and entertainment
PAGE 184
j
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF CULTURE, TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY RESEARCH
j
VOL. 7 NO. 2 2013, pp. 184-187, Q Emerald Group Publishing Limited, ISSN 1750-6182 DOI 10.1108/IJCTHR-04-2013-0025
Stephen W. Litvin is based
in the Department of
Hospitality and Tourism
Management, College of
Charleston, Charleston,
South Carolina, USA.
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opportunities. Attending a local festival results in a purchase trade-off: one pits visiting the
event versus buying a ticket to a movie, or the purchase of a funnel cake at the fair versus an
ice cream cone at the mall. Local-only events reallocate resident spending. They provide no
economic bene?t to the community. From a broader county-wide perspective, attracting
visitors from near-by towns can also be a zero-sum gain. Your residents could be visiting
their festival, and their residents are visiting yours. Neither is attracting out-of-county visitors.
Considering attendee spending as an economic injection in this scenario is equivalent to
neighbors ‘‘taking in each others’ laundry’’ (Getz, 1997, p. 339). The county-wide economic
pot gets no larger. The gain is illusionary.
The way a festival or special event can truly bene?t the community economically is by
attracting tourists. The standard operational de?nition of a festival or event visitor is someone
from more than 80 kilometers, staying at least one-night, for non-work purposes, whose
reason for visitation is speci?cally tied to the festival or special event (Barber and Zhao,
1998). When one performs economic impact studies, capturing the amount of tourists for the
events is imperative. Festival management can rightly claim these visitors and their
visitations. These visitors not only spend monies at the event, but also sleep in hotels, eat in
restaurants, shop in local stores, etc. They inject new and out-of-town dollars into the local
economy. Those dollars in turn are re-spent in the community, creating broader good as a
function of the tourismeconomic multiplier. Developing and supporting such festivals should
be a goal of community leaders. The following sections discuss opportunities for doing so as
well as potential pitfalls along the way.
Moving beyond ‘‘local’’
A recent study by Smith et al. (2010) looks at a host of North and South Carolina festivals and
special events, and notes distinct organizational differences dependent upon sizes. Their
sample of well over 100 festivals and special events is segmented into ‘‘smaller’’ (operating
budgets between $10,000 and $100,000) and ‘‘larger’’ (operating budgets between $100,000
and $1,000,000) events. A key and surprising ?nding is that small events were much less costly
to deliver than were large events on a per-visitor basis. Dividing the organization’s total operating
budget by number of attendees indicates that smaller festivals spent an average of $3.44 per
attendee, while it cost larger festivals $7.90 to host one. One would have expected that
economies-of-scale would have worked in favor of larger events, while the opposite was true.
The increased cost of the larger events is due to certain factors. As growing in size, they
require dedicated, more sophisticated, and higher paid management. Staf?ng also
generally migrates from volunteers to paid employees. Reliance upon a part-time organizer
and volunteers is the norm for many small community events. It will no longer suf?ce when
festivals grow. Smaller festivals and special events spent 6 per cent of their costs on
administrative expenses (Smith et al., 2010). For larger entities this amount was dramatically
higher at 14 per cent. Thus, attendance growth comes with exponentially higher costs and
complexity. One must anticipate and plan for this challenges, if the goal is the transformation
from a local event to one attracting a regional or broader market.
Do the bene?ts justify the risk? Is it worth changing the nature of an event in order to expand
its scope and reach? The answer is yes, if the transition results in an event able to attract
tourists injecting new funds into the community, not continuing as an entertainment and/or
cultural outlet for residents. The latter simply reallocates but fails to grow the pool of local
disposable consumer income. But howdoes a community-based event take such a leap? As
is so often the answer: it takes money.
Finding the funding
Event organizers often look towards local government to help with funding. Indeed in most
communities there are pools of public funds to be tapped. However, competing for these
funds can be a challenge.
Bing Pan, one of the editors of this special edition of IJCTHR, and I serve on a committee
making tourism related funding recommendations to the Charleston (South Carolina, USA)
County Board of Supervisors. The Board has the responsibility for allocating the local pool of
accommodation tax (A-tax) funds. For most communities, A-taxes represent the largest and
most accessible source of public funds for the subsidy of tourism related expenditures. The
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vast majority of funding requests Charleston County receives each year are from festivals
and special events. Per agreement with the County, our committee analyzes these requests
in accordance with the following formula:
Total impact ¼ Economic impact £ 50%þMedia exposure £ 20%þCommunity impact
£ 10%þExpert opinion £ 20%
The half of the economic impact equation is related to the injection of new dollars into the
community. Accommodation tax dollars should go to events that ‘‘put heads in beds’’, since
those dollars were collected from accommodations. Festivals that attract predominantly
local visitors do very poorly in our committee’s analysis and have little chance to obtain
County A-tax funding.
The media exposure evaluation is similarly unfriendly to locally-focused events. The panel
awards zero weight for local media coverage. The only advertising and public relations that
count are from outside the local area. Local exposure attracts no tourists; non-local
advertisements and media mention raise potential visitor awareness, enhance the
destination’s tourism image, and hopefully provide a trigger to visit. In their A-tax
application packets, many festivals provide detailed lists of local news story coverage
generated by their events. These add no points to their score.
The 10 percent community impact allocation has two facets. The ?rst rewards festival and
special event organizations for creating local employment. It is direct employment, not the
traditional economic impact de?nition on total jobs created as a result of a ?ow of funds into
the community. Does the festival employ year-round paid management? Do they pay their
event workers? If the answers are yes, they are rewarded. Secondly, though this generally
applies more directly to applications from attractions, the scoring system rewards festivals
contributing to the community infrastructure. Do they provide permanent recreation facilities
for the community? Have they built an access road to a park that residents can utilize?
The panel intentionally did not speci?cally de?ne the ?nal variable, ‘‘expert opinion’’. Thus,
different committee members have their own views as to what type of applicants deserve
funding. However, after two years of committee work, it is evident that the whole committee is
leaning to those events that most bene?t tourism industry providers. Purely local events
simply do not score well. This is not surprising, since members with hospitality and tourism
industry expertise entirely comprised our committee. The committee gives favorably reviews
to those applicants successfully attracting additional out-of-town visitors to the community,
or at least providing current visitors a reason to stay an extra night or two.
The above systemis based predominantly upon quantitative evaluation and works very well.
Beyond providing justi?able and logical recommendations to the County, taking most
‘‘politics’’ out of the equation is its primary bene?t. when making recommendations, the
members of the advisory committee do not have responsible constituents nor political
agendas to consider. Since the County implemented the advisory committee’s approach two
years ago, they have accepted the recommendations without any modi?cation. What had
been a highly politicized process is now more objective and bias-free. Many local festivals
having previously received support have lost their funding. Instead, successful applicants
have been those having demonstrated an ability to attract tourists.
In conclusion, A-tax funding is the starting point of a virtuous festival-tourism cycle. When
used effectively by the recipient, the A-tax grant dollars fund an enhanced or better
marketed event attracting additional tourists. These incremental visitors ?ll more hotel rooms
and eat more restaurant meals, and thus contribute a larger pool of accommodation tax
funds back to the County. This creates a larger pool of grant monies for the following year.
The County can use the money to fund further enhancements or more events. Those events
will bring still more visitors to the community, etc.
Nonetheless, Dr Pan and I consider certain improvement regarding the above procedure.
The allocated funding dollars should be divided into two pots. The County can set aside one
pot with a designated share for those local community-focused events that demonstrate a
desire to expand their geographic market. Those events cannot compete directly for funding
with more established events; but their organizers demonstrate the skill and the will to grow
their events; there should be seed money allocated for them. As noted above, moving up in
size will generally require additional management and administrative overhead. Without
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seed money, where do these funds come from? It would seem good public policy to identify
promising events in an earlier stage of development and fund on their potential to
successfully use the support to grow into an important part of the local festival calendar.
Concluding comments
Having a vibrant calendar of events can be important to a community. A longitudinal study
evaluated the use of accommodation taxes by rural communities across the state of South
Carolina and noted the bene?ts of tourism from festival investment (Litvin et al., 2006). Per
South Carolina law and consistent with most states, government bodies can A-tax dollars for
a wide range of tourismrelated uses. These include building tourist related facilities, policing
tourist zones, funding visitor centers, and supporting festivals and events catering to
tourists. The Litvin et al. (2006) study pointed to the statistically signi?cant positive
correlation between the allocation of funds towards festivals and events and community
tourism growth. Those communities allocating the greatest share of their A-tax dollars to
promoting such events enjoyed the greatest return on their tax dollars measured by
subsequent A-tax collections. This is the ‘‘virtuous cycle’’ at work. As such, communities
should enthusiastically support those events currently attracting tourists to visit; they should
also simultaneously encourage and fund others having the potential to do so in the future.
Growth does not often happen by chance. It is a function of vision, planning, hard work, and
the availability of requisite funding. My advice to smaller festival organizers: you lean on the
expertise of your Convention and Visitors Bureau and that of other festival managers through
your local festival and event trade organization. Get assistance with business issues beyond
your expertise. Think big and seek the requisite funding required to support your growth,
while being careful of the managerial pratfalls likely accompanying such growth. As you
attract tourists and their dollars with success, your community will thank you.
To members of the hospitality and tourism industry, my advice is to get involved in the process.
You can suggest an A-tax evaluation committee like the one in Charleston County to be
implemented in your community. This can take most politics out of an often politically fueled
decision making funding process. Seek appointment to these committees. Be active on the
boards of organizations hosting festivals; use your business skills to help themgrow. Encourage
and help these organizations to seek available public funding facilitating advertising and public
relations efforts beyond the local market. Your efforts can make a signi?cant difference in
directing dollars to those festivals best representing the opportunities for growth, thus ensuring
the wise investment of your local tax dollars. In the future, your local festivals and special events
can successfully navigate the challenges of growth, building their events to the point where they
begin to entice out-of-town attendees to the community. At that time, their successes become
your successes, as their visitors become your guests and customers.
References
Barber, C. and Zhao, L. (1998), ‘‘Government revenue attributable to tourism’’, available at: www.
statcan.gc.ca/pub/13-604-m/13-604-m2003041-eng.pdf (accessed July 1, 2010).
Getz, D. (1997), Event Management and Event Tourism, Cognizant Communications, Elmsford, NY.
Litvin, S.W., Crotts, J.C., Blackwell, C. and Styles, A. (2006), ‘‘Expenditures of accommodations tax
revenue: a South Carolina study’’, Journal of Travel Research, Vol. 45 No. 6, pp. 150-157.
Smith, W.W., Litvin, S.W. and Canberg, A.S. (2010), ‘‘Setting parameters: operational budget size and
allocationof resources’’, International Journal of Event andFestival Management, Vol. 1 No. 3, pp. 238-243.
About the author
Stephen W. Litvin is a Professor in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management,
College of Charleston, USA. Stephen W. Litvin can be contacted at: [email protected]
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