Tourism Today - College of Tourism and Hotel Management

Organising folklore festivals: the case of Ismailiaversity is established. Ismailia city is approximately 120 km from Cairo. It was indicated bythe Public Relations Manager that the city has been credited by hosting the festival:“I think Ismailia is now well known internationally because of this festival, we have been tryingto show that the city has a number of attractions; we used to organise trips for the gueststo show the diverse tourism product”.Cities and villages have been competing in attracting festivals and special events as it facilitatescommunication and is an opportunity to share the culture between visitors and the hostcommunity (Okech, 2011). Yu et al. (2012) indicated that successful special events shouldinvolve promoting the host destination to enhance its image among visitors. Although it wasconfirmed by another respondent that the festival helped in promoting the city of Ismailia“Ismailia is a small city, however, IIFAF made it well known in the events and festivalsworld”, it was highlighted later in the interviews with all respondents that some festival dancersbooked holidays after finishing the festival in other places in Egypt (e.g. Cairo, SharmElshiekh and Hurgada). There was little evidence that visitors and tourist numbers to thecity of Ismailia increased. The IIFAF Chairman highlighted another crucial issue during theinterview which is related to the safety of dancers during the festival:“A major problem accompanying securing the group safety, despite the police being in thepresence of such groups, is the belief that Ismailia is not a safe PLACE and therefore policemembers have to be there to protect them everywhere they go. Guests used to have limitedfreedom in going out by themselves without police protection which affected their enjoymentof the festival.”The respondent argues that in IIFAF, excessive security instructions and practices are negativelyaffecting visitors’ image about the city of Ismailia and perhaps Egypt generally. Otherrespondents also emphasised that dancers have previously expressed their discomfort in relationto being continuously accompanied by the police. This also seems to be limiting theirchances to communicate with the local community and learn about the Egyptian culture.Carlsen et al. (2010) discuss how festival organisers need to be innovative in relation to managingdifferent aspects of their festival in order to attract visitors to the host city and remainviable. Organisers are not under pressure to be innovative in order to generate extra revenue,for example, encourage visitors to extend their stay in the local area. It was clear during theinterviews that organisers have previously found it difficult to manage the number of dancerscontributing in festivals. The lack of proper planning also leaves organisers under pressure togetting enough spaces to accommodate dancers and manage issues related to their short stayduring the time of the festival. While on the one hand international attendance will sustaineconomic revenue for the host city, on the other hand, scarce resources tend to be a problemparticularly when the host city is still under tourism development and has little resourcesto accommodate the large numbers of tourists. Indeed, there is an urgent need to recognizea potential range of motivations for visitors to the festival, and also the range of resourcesavailable for them. In addition, the city of Ismailia needs to carefully look at the position ofTourism Today - Fall 2012 - Full Paper17