OECD Culture and Local Development.pdf - PACA

2. LOCAL DEVELOPMENT BASED ON ATTRACTING VISITORS AND TOURISTS
this spending could well amount to 333,000 Irish pounds. They conclude, then, that
the festival attracts a significant flow of foreign tourists to Wexford and to Ireland, as
well as drawing large numbers of Irish tourists to a region that is in economic decline,
and that it helps to spread this activity over the year, since the festival is held outside
the high tourist season. Finally, they stress that the subsidies the festival receives
are low in comparison with other opera festivals in Europe, which means that the positive
economic impact is even greater.
Achieving a lasting effect from festivals
These studies suggest that festivals probably have a less significant impact than
is generally claimed. If festivals are to be a source of local development, it will be because:
• They spark the creation of training, archiving and entertainment facilities.
• They lead to the development of markets of a size and frequency that foster
development.
Piggybacking a temporary event onto permanent activities
• As an example of the first point, we may consider the Recontres Internationales de
la Photographie at Arles, a weeklong photography fair and exhibition that attracts
some 150,000 visitors from outside the territory at the beginning of July (a figure
that may be inflated by double counting, and that should probably be divided
by three). The impact is limited and, in the opinion of some local observers,
has no appreciable effect on tourist numbers in Arles. On the other hand, this
event has over time created a training cycle that extends right through the summer:
the National Photography School is now permanently ensconced, and employs
40 people full-time. In addition, the Musée Reattu now has a special fund that
allows it to mount temporary exhibitions throughout the year. In other words,
the festival’s impact comes not so much from its own brief presence on the scene
as from the activities that it generates directly or indirectly throughout the
year. The spin-offs from the Arles Lyric Arts Festival relate primarily to the
permanent costume and decor studios that it supports, and that work throughout
the year for various markets, regional, national or international.
• An even more convincing case is the comic strip festival, the Salon de la Bande
Dessinée, at Angoulême. For nearly 10 years now, thousands and then tens of
thousands of visitors have flocked to this event, a local initiative that does not
even have a truly specific focus. Little by little, local people, and not just those
from the arts world, have come to see these new forms of artistic expression as
the foundation of a true cultural industry, for a territory whose traditional
processing and engineering industries are in decline. A Centre de la Bande Dessinée
78 CULTURE AND LOCAL DEVELOPMENT - ISBN 92-64-00990-6 - © OECD 2005