Attendee satisfaction in festival activity: Innibos National Arts Festival

Abstract

Despite the growth in festival tourism in South Africa and the paucity and infrequent nature of festival research, very little research exists on addressing what classifies a festival as successful. Well organized, promoted and managed events have been linked to attendee satisfaction, resulting in a successful event. Similarly, there is a positive connection between customer satisfaction, loyalty and retention which underlines the importance for festivals to be successful and sustainable. This study employs an on-site survey of 500 visitors attending the Innibos National Arts Festival in Mbombela, South Africa. Eight constructs were investigated based on the SERVQUAL and Grönroos model to determine the overall satisfaction of the attendees. The statistical analysis was performed using the marginal distributions of variable and construct analysis based on the post data. This study aimed at determining the overall satisfaction levels of the between attendee’s at the festival.

Keywords

• Satisfaction
• service quality
• festivals
• events