COMMUNITY FESTIVALS: MEASURING COMMUNITY SUPPORT AND OPPOSITION Rick Rollins, Malaspina University College Tom Delamere, Acadia University Blain Sepos, Parksville-Qualicum Beach Tourism Association
Introduction The positive and negative impacts of tourism on host communities have been described extensively (Keough, 1989; Murphy, 1983; Murphy, 1994; Whelan, 1991; Butler, 1993; Archer & Cooper, 1994, Dearden & Harron, 1994). However, much of this research has focussed on the impacts of tourism "in general", rather than on the impact of a specific tourism event or facility, such as a new marina or a new festival. Perceived impacts of specific tourism activity may be very important for those communities wishing to exert more control over the type and extent of tourism activity in their communities. The purpose of this paper is to describe the impacts perceived by a community hosting a specific tourism event: the Parksville Sand Castle Festival. Parksville, a small community of 2,500 people on the east coast of Vancouver Island, has developed a significant tourism industry based on magnificent tidal beaches, which feature panoramic views and the opportunity to see marine mammals and birds. The Sand Castle Festival, involving as many as 40,000 participants, had been an annual event every summer for 10 years until 1997, when riots and vandalism, associated with the beer garden at the festival, led the City Council of Parksville to cancel future Sand Castle Festivals. This decision was made over the objections of festival organizers who maintained that the problems associated with the 1997 festival could be contained in the future, and that the advantages to the community of retaining the festival would outweigh the disadvantages. Since festival organizers and city politicians each felt they represented the wishes of the community at large, it was important to provide an accurate documentation of community attitudes. This study builds on previous research examining approaches to the measurement of tourism impacts (Lankford & Howard, 1994; Rollins, 1997: Delamere, 1998). In order to further the conceptualization of tourism impacts it is important to refine the instruments used to measure these effects. Issues of reliability and validity need to be addressed with survey instruments purporting to measure community attitudes. Hence two purposes were defined for this study: (1) to documents community attitudes regarding the festival; and, (2) to field test survey instruments for measuring community attitudes, extending previous tourism impacts research.
Methodology This study was conducted using the telephone survey techniques developed by Dillman (1979), and Salant & Dillman (1994), aimed at improving response rate and response quality. The questionnaire was patterned after the approaches described in the above references. Impact items were framed in the format of a Likert Scale in which respondents are asked to indicate if they agree or disagree with a number of statements reflecting possible positive and negative impacts of the Sand Castle Festival. A total of 16 positive impacts and 10 negative impacts were included in the questionnaire. The sample consisted of 248 randomly selected adults obtained from the Parksville telephone directory. Recognizing that the omission of unlisted telephone numbers may contribute to a sampling bias, we included demographic questionnaire items that could be compared with known demographic characteristics of the community. Comparing these characteristics revealed no significant differences between the sample and the population. The margin of error for a sample of this size is within plus or minus 6% at the 95% confidence level.
Results and Conclusions The positive impacts of the festival that received the strongest support were as follows: •
The festival provided opportunities for enjoyable meetings with festival participants (83%)
•
The festival was a celebration of the community (83%)
•
The festival enhanced community identity (82%)
•
The festival provided participants with a personal sense of pride and recognition (81%)
•
The festival provided the opportunity for community residents to experience new activities (74%)
The social interaction that occurs at the Parksville Sandcastle Festival is identified as the most meaningful social benefit. The community is often the focal point for the function of providing opportunities for social participation; as a means of providing these opportunities, festivals are often a prominent part of many communities. This is also a key aspect of community development, the unification of the one with the many, that helps to unify people and groups which are part of the community. The sense of "celebration" that communities and residents feel during the festival is often at the heart of a successful festival. Ensuring a genuine sense of celebration for community residents, while catering to the demands and motivations of tourists is often a difficult balancing act (Hindi & Delamere, 1993). The enhancement/establishment of community identity and pride is an important festival-related social benefit. This serves to underscore the significant contributions that festivals can make to civic pride and prestige, in terms of a community's sense of purpose and achievement in staging a successful festival. The staging of a festival also assists in the articulation or definition of the character or identity of a community. This community identity is prominent both inside and outside the community. It helps to provide a sense of place for local residents, a personal sense of pride and recognition, while at the same time providing the opportunity to show something special and unique to potential guests of the community. The negative impacts that received the greatest attention included the following:
•
The festival created too many incidents of rowdyism (82%)
•
The community was overcrowded during the festival (59%)
•
Motor vehicle traffic increased to unacceptable levels during the festival (59%)
•
The influx of festival visitors reduced privacy within the community (53%)
•
The festival was a disruption in the normal routines of community residents (50%)
Just as there are perceptions of positive social impacts, there are also perceptions of negative social impacts which may affect a community. Certainly the incidents of rowdyism that occurred at the 1997 Parksville Sandcastle Festival represent a key negative social impact that needs to be addressed by festival organizers, in order to foster renewed community support for the festival initiative. A study by the Province of British Columbia (1993) found vandalism and hooliganism to be an impediment to regular community life; a very apparent negative social impact that can accrue from a festival.
Festivals also represent an intrusion to the citizens of a community not only during the festival, but also in the weeks preceding and following the festival. Changes in traffic patterns (vehicular and pedestrian), crowding, the reduction of privacy, noise, and the inflow and outflow of large numbers of people place distinct pressures on host communities. Additionally, the normal routines of community residents are disrupted, resulting in a sense of amenity loss locally, such as not being able to use recreation facilities and sites as they might normally due to the festival taking precedence. The intrusiveness of the festival runs counter to the notion of a festival as a celebration of community. At what point does the festival stop being a celebration of community and, more importantly, when does it become merely entertainment for visitors? Finally, the totality of the social disbenefits from festivals represents a drain on the community, a drain on the spirit or collective psyche of the community and a general sense of exhaustion experienced by individuals and groups within the community. These results indicate that residents of Parksville feel the Sand Castle Festival provides significant positive contributions to the community, as well as some significant problems, although the problems for the most part do not seem to be as strongly perceived as the benefits. However, when people were asked if they supported the decision to cancel the festival, 25% were supportive, 68% were opposed, and 7% were undecided. People who were opposed to the cancellation of the festival viewed the possible benefits more positively (higher levels of agreement with benefits statements), and viewed the possible negative impacts less seriously (lower levels of agreement). A total score for the Likert scale was computed for each subject by summing responses to each questionnaire item. People who opposed the festival cancellation had higher scale scores (more positive attitudes) than people who supported the festival cancellation. This result provided a measure of predictive validity for the festival impact scale. Convergent validity was demonstrated with a 10 item semantic differential scale. People who scored high on the semantic differential scale (positive attitude to the festival) also tended to score high on the festival impact scale. Reliability of the festival impact scale was computed with Crombach's alpha. Alpha scores can vary from 0 to 1, where 1 represents perfect reliability. The alpha score for the festival impact scale was 0.87, which is very strong. Hence the festival impact scale has high reliability and validity. Item analysis suggested that deletion of any questionnaire item in the scale would not contribute appreciably to improving the validity or reliability of the scale. Replication studies such as this extend the credibility of the festival impact scale used here and in previous studies. At a practical level, the results of this survey provided festival organizers and civic officials with important community perceptions that will be taken into account as decisions to reinstate the festival are considered.
References Archer, B., & Cooper, C. (1994). The positive and negative impacts of tourism. In W. Theobald (Ed.), Global tourism: The next decade (pp. 73-91). Toronto: Elsevier. Butler, R. (1993). Tourism An evolutionary perspective. In J. Nelson, R. Butler, & G. Wall (Eds.), Tourism and sustainable development (pp. 27-44). Waterloo, ON: University of Waterloo. Dearden, P., & Harron, S. (1994). Alternative tourism and adaptive change. Annals of Tourism Research, 21, 103-120. Delamere, T.A. (1998). Development of a scale to measure local resident attitudes toward the social impact of community festivals. Unpublished doctoral thesis. Edmonton, AB: University of Alberta.
Dillman, D.A. (1978). Mail and telephone surveys: The total design method. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Hinch, T.D., & Delamere, T.A. (1993). Native festivals as tourism attractions: A community challenge. Journal of Applied Recreation Research, 18(2), 131-142. Keogh, B. (1989). Social impacts. InG. Wall (Ed.), Outdoor Recreation in Canada (pp.231-275). Toronto: Wiley. Lankford, S.V., & Howard, D.R. (1994). Developing a tourism impact scale. Annals of Tourism Research. 77(4), 121-139. Murphy, P. (1983). Tourism in Canada: Selected Issues and Options. Victoria, BC: Western Geographic Series, University of Victoria. Murphy, P. (1994). Tourism and sustainable development. In W. Theobald, (Ed.), Global tourism: The Next Decade. Toronto: Elsevier. Province of British Columbia. (1993). Policy report. Festival Management and Event Tourism. 1,1986. Rollins, R. (1997). Validation of the TIAS as a tourism tool. Annals of Tourism Research, 24(3), 740742. Salant, P., & Dillman, D.A. (1994). How to Conduct Your Own Survey. New York: John Wiley and Sons. Whelan, T. (1991). Nature Tourism. Covelo.CA.: Island Press. Contact Information: Rick Rollins, Department of Recreation and Tourism, Malaspina University College, 900 Fifth St., Nanaimo, BC, V9R 5S5. E-mail:
[email protected] Phone (250) 753-3245, ext. 2415, Fax: (250) 741-2185
ABSTRACTS of Papers Presented at the Ninth Canadian Congress on Leisure Research May 12 -15,1999 Acadia University, Wolfville, Nova Scotia
Editor: Paul Heintzman Assisted by: Karen Naugler and Sean Smith Printed and bound by Acadia University Printing Services Copyright © 1999 Canadian Association of Leisure Studies
Organizing Team for the Ninth Canadian Congress on Leisure Research: Glyn Bissix Tom Delamere Paul Heintzman Scott Hennigar Susan Markham-Starr Heidi McKinnon Neil Munro Karen Naugler Brenda Robertson Jerry Singleton
