The Role of Niche Tourism Products in Destination - Repository ...

events to be viewed as ‘white elephants’, exposing destinations to huge financial risk and not fully utilising the additional
infrastructure developments, however this was not the case in Manchester (Getz, 1997). It was clear from the start of the planning
for the Manchester Commonwealth Games that the key themes of the organisers and management team were economic
regeneration and the enhancing of the image of Manchester. Through the use of educational, environmental, social and community
programmes the games facilitated not only the economic regeneration of a deprived area of the city but provided world class
sporting facilities for future events and helped to develop a cultural legacy with little ongoing costs to the local residents (Carlsen
and Taylor, 2003).
Moving away from mega events to smaller niche market, or special interest, festivals 3 , research is limited. The work of Frew (2006)
examines the role of these festivals in establishing and developing tourism at destinations, and the vital role they play in developing
repeat visitation. The anticipation of Reisinger’s (1994) deep cultural experience during the festival may act as a key differentiator
for the festival destination. Festivals have been described by Hughes (2000) as special events where activities are concentrated
over a short time frame and tend to have a more cultural focus. There is a substantial body of work around the area of ‘Festival
Tourism’ (Formica and Uysal, 1998; Robinson, Picard and Long, 2004; McKercher et al., 2006), often revealing a lack of concern
for tourism development, customer needs and commercial realities. Frew (2006) discusses the characteristics of niche market
festivals, linking them to Stebbins (1996) serious tourism to explain attendance and satisfaction levels. Prentice and Anderson
(2003) also suggest that serious leisure consumers represent a distinct niche market of the visitors to the Edinburgh Festivals that
they examined. Reisinger links the concept of cultural tourism to niche market festival consumers as they are often looking for a
3 A niche market festival is ‘one with a highly specialised content which appeals to particular aficionados and/or connoisseurs and requires a certain level of
expertise, knowledge or skill to fully appreciate the festival’ (Frew, 2006, p.75).