Bernadette Quinn

Problematising ‘Festival Tourism’: Arts Festivals and Sustainable Development in Ireland

This paper problematises the term ‘festival tourism’. It conceptualises festivals as socially sustaining devices and argues that while they frequently function as tourist attractions, their social significance extends far beyond tourism. Using empirical material gathered in two case study arts festivals in Ireland, the paper demonstrates how festivals can contribute to arts development by inter alia creating demand for the arts, enhancing venue infrastructures, encouraging local creativity and animating local involvement. The paper contends that arts festivals, irrespective of their initial objectives almost inevitably develop tourist profiles over time and it proceeds to examine how changing tourism priorities in the two festivals studied impact upon sustainable festival practices. The findings suggest that tourism emerged as a key force promoting festival growth and expansion. It was found to be associated with increased revenue flows but also with increased arts activity on a year-round basis and with an improved venue infrastructure in both places. However, problems were identified with respect to the quality of the relationship forged between the festivals and local populations in the respective places. The paper concludes by arguing that festivals’ engagement with tourism needs to be carefully managed in the interests of promoting the socially sustaining function of festivals and of encouraging sustainable approaches to tourism development.

Changing festival places: insights from Galway

This paper focuses on cultural reproduction in arts festival settings. It begins by conceptualizing festival settings as places whose characters derive from a combination of both internally derived traits and a diverse series of interactions with other places. Drawing on case study research conducted in an arts festival setting in Galway in the Republic of Ireland, the discussion identifies how elements indigenous to the place connect and engage with external forces. The study found the process of interacting with other places to be complex, involving much negotiation and adaptation as locales became contexts for re-working an array of often conflicting ideals and influences. The paper concludes that while inevitable difficulties are faced as festivals negotiate the potentially standardizing forces of homogenization, it is only through continuous interaction with other places that local contexts realize their full potential.

Arts festivals, urban tourism and cultural policy

Arts festivals, framed within an array of neo‐liberal, culture‐led urban regeneration strategies, are now a mainstay of urban tourism and urban policy‐making. As such, they face growing competitive pressures and competing agendas, and the need for a set of coherent goals and policy frameworks is vital. While a review of the literature clearly shows that arts festivals can deliver a series of benefits that separately meet cultural policy and urban tourism policy objectives, there is little to suggest that cities normatively engage in comprehensive, integrated policy‐making for urban arts festivals. With a particular focus on recent developments in Ireland, this paper critically reviews a range of literature to investigate how arts festivals further cultural policy and tourism policy objectives in urban contexts. It argues that current conceptualisations of arts festivals within urban policy frameworks are imbalanced. While the proliferation of arts festivals signals expansion for the sector, the ready transferability of arts festivals into tourist attractions and city image‐makers raises the prospect of a new dichotomy within a city’s supply of artistic offerings, with the visible and instantly appealing, being more likely to prosper through a variety of public funding, public–private ventures and private sponsorship arrangements, than other cultural organisations with less potential for spectacle. The paper concludes, by arguing, that common bases for collaboration need to be identified between the arts festivals and tourism sectors, and that these need to be conceptualised within the broader cultural and urban policy arenas in which arts festivals are now firmly implicated.

The Dynamic Role of Entrepreneurs in Destination Development

This article explores the significant role that entrepreneurs play in destination development. It contends that while the influence of entrepreneurs is discussed in the literature, scant attention has been paid to the dynamic, catalytic and longstanding nature of this influence. This research shows that entrepreneurial activity is dynamic and creative, and has the ability to influence the creation of a culture for tourism that underpins tourism development over long periods of time. Employing a qualitative case study approach, the research investigates Killarney, County Kerry, a developed tourism area in Ireland. It identifies not only the way in which entrepreneurs can shape development at a tourism destination at a particular time but also how this influence can continue long after the original entrepreneur is involved. These entrepreneurs are acknowledged as key “tourism influentials” that underpin the initial and continued development of tourism through their actions.

Key Concepts in Event Management

Introduction Authenticity Bidding Community Festivals Definitions Economic Impact Emerging Economies European City of Culture Evaluation Event Management Experience Festival Identity Innovation Leveraging Marketing MICE /MEEC Motivation Olympic Games Place Marketing Planning Policy Power and Politics Regeneration Regional Development Risk Management Service Quality Social Capital Social Function Social Impact Sponsorship Sports Events Stakeholders Sustainable Events Tourism Volunteering

The benefits of holidaying for children experiencing social exclusion: recent Irish evidence

There is a general assumption in contemporary society that holidaying is beneficial in many ways. Yet, even in affluent societies, access to holidaying opportunities continues to be constrained by a variety of factors relating to inter alia income, gender, health and race. This is problematic because it means that sizeable minorities within advanced societies are being denied the benefits that researchers have attributed to the practice of holidaying. Recently, there has been a renewed interest in problematising the exclusionist nature of holidaying with researchers arguing that a lack of holiday opportunities may compound social deprivation, reinforce social problems and heighten social exclusion. A number of knowledge gaps have been identified including the extent to which holidaying benefits children and youth and those experiencing social exclusion. This paper aims to redress this knowledge deficit by reporting the findings of a study that examined the benefits of holidaying accruing to a group of children, and their families, experiencing social exclusion in Dublin. Using a variety of qualitative methods, the study found that access to holidaying opportunities contributed to quality of life and enhanced well‐being for the children studied. The benefits of the holiday extended beyond the time period of the holiday itself, and also extended beyond the children themselves into the wider family unit. A number of avenues for further research are identified.

Care-givers, leisure and meanings of home: a case study of low income women in Dublin

This article seeks to contribute to the literature on the meanings of domestic spaces by furthering understandings of the sorts of roles that space plays in shaping womens leisure experiences. The study researched a group of 15 women who live in disadvantaged areas of Dublin city and care for dependent children. Focus groups and structured conversations revealed the poverty of the spatial capital available to these women, depicting local environments as difficult and stressful, and to be endured rather than enjoyed. They further revealed the extent to which the womens lives were shaped by their obligations as care-givers. Within the home itself, private domestic spaces were found to be deeply embedded with powerful ideologies of motherhood that did not necessarily evaporate in the simple absence of obligations imposed by children. Instead, they tended to serve as constant reminders of how things ‘should be’, consequently constraining some womens abilities to divest themselves of care-giving duties and engage in self-focused recreation. Some of the women studied were able to move beyond obligation, and for them leisure represented modest yet significant opportunities to self-determinedly relax, reclaim and even luxuriate in certain spaces within their homes. Similarly, once relieved of child-caring responsibilities, leisure encounters within the local environment afforded some women new insights into familiar spaces.

Performing tourism in Venice: local residents in focus

In contrast to the growing literature on tourist mobility as a performed art, relatively little attention has been paid to resident mobility in tourism places. This paper examines how residents encounter tourists using the concept of tourism as a performance. Drawing on the case of the historic city-centre of Venice, in north-eastern Italy, it explores the spatialities produced through the embodied practices of local movements. The paper found that local residents’ movements demonstrated a marked degree of agency. It concludes by arguing that the concept of tourism as performance affords useful insights into how local residents are proactively and intricately involved in reconfiguring relationships and mobilities with and within tourism places.

Festival connections: people, place and social capital

Festivals are premised on social interaction. The word ‘festival’ derives from the Latin ‘festum’, meaning feast (Isar 1976), and collective, participatory celebration is central to its meaning. To date, while some researchers have investigated the nature of social inter-relationships evident in festival settings, the literature on the social dimensions of festival activity is under-developed. While Deery and Jago (2010) suggest that social impact literature in particular has come of age, it can be argued that in general, the literature on social connections in festival settings is quite disparate and uneven in terms of disciplinary underpinnings, theoretical references, research questions and methodological approaches. Acknowledgement of these difficulties has prompted some researchers to search for alternative theoretical frameworks to underpin a comprehensive enquiry into social connections in festival settings. Social capital is starting to emerge as a theory which shows real potential. Drawing on the findings of two exploratory studies, one in Ireland and one in England, this paper considers the diverse sets of social relationships at the heart of festival activity, whilst taking account of the role that place plays in these interactions.

Tour Guides and the mediation of difficult memories: the case of Dublin Castle, Ireland

This research seeks to furthering understandings of how Tour Guides interpret memories at heritage sites when the memories at issue are difficult yet subtle and not always apparent to tourists. Specifically, it explores how Dublin Castle, formerly the seat of British rule in Ireland, is captured in narratives presented to tourists that often include Britons. Representing the site is made challenging because some visitors have little knowledge of the sites history, while others are well informed and hold strong political views. The findings show that Guides select largely depoliticized narratives, strongly influenced by their personal interests and experiences. Some hint at underlying tensions that only tourists alert to the complexities of the site might capture. Dominant narratives can be challenged by tourists with an interest in, or allegiance to, particular historical or political beliefs, leading to emotional engagements. Some tourists, unaware of the complexities of the site, can encounter a more multi-layered and complex experience than perhaps envisaged. The study affirms the co-production evident in Tour Guiding narratives and points to the need for further research into how the variously empowered agencies of both the Guide and the tourist produce a constant shifting and re-working of memory.