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

deep cultural meaning of an ‘aesthetic, intellectual, emotional or psychological nature’ (Reisinger, 1994, p.24). Thus Festival
Tourism has become a key issue in cultural studies research particularly the idea of cultural authenticity, innovation and the
commodification of culture (Quinn, 2006).
Festival and Event tourism however is not, in itself a sustainable process and it must be related to a more significant development
plan encompassing leisure, social and employment activity of visitors and local residents, respectively. This has to be seen as part
of a developing and collegiate narrative of destination image change and value (Varley and Crowther, 1998; Govers and Go, 2003;
Robertson and Wardrop, 2004). The Edinburgh economic impact survey 2004-05 estimated the economic contribution of the
summer festivals to be in the region of ₤127m of new expenditure or output into Edinburgh and ₤31m of income. In addition, 2,500
full time equivalent jobs were supported by the festivals (Edinburgh City Council, 2005). Moreover It is concluded that there is a
clear gap between the awareness of the importance of the use of image of Edinburgh’s Festivals as a strategic destination
management tool (Hankinson, 2000), and how valuable any given attempt to change the image of a destination is when measured
against the aims and outcomes of the development strategy from which it was based, i.e., the measurability of its effects.
What is clear from the above is that more longitudinal and retrospective research of the dynamic elements of events tourism is
needed. Beverland, Hoffman and Rasmussen’s (2001) event life cycle is a significant temporal theme, that to date has received
little interest from researchers, yet it is an important part of framing the debate about event tourism’s contribution to the
development of the destination. Getz’s (2000) detailed analysis of articles in Festival and Event Management revealed the key
areas of recent studies to be: economic impacts; event marketing and sponsorship, general management and marketing including
motivation and segmentation. A study by Harris et al. (2001) a year later highlighted the following areas of concern within the