events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 46-52, doi: 10.18060/22776 copyright © 2018 gina fe causin and chay runnels. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribuion 4.0 international license. events and tourism review volume 1 no. 1 student perceptions of engagement in a mandatory programmatic service learning gina fe causin stephen f. austin state university chay runnels stephen f. austin state university for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation causin, g. f., & runnels, c. (2018). student perceptions of engagement in a mandatory programmatic service learning. events and tourism review, 1(1), 46-52. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr causin, g. f., & runnels, c. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 46-52. 47 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 46-52, doi: 10.18060/22776 copyright © 2018 gina fe causin and chay runnels. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract in the hospitality industry, service-learning opportunities are particularly important for students seeking work in the meeting and event planning industry. faculty of a hospitality program at a regional university in east texas decided to investigate the benefits in embedding service learning activities to their hospitality courses. the study investigated student perceptions of their participation in compulsory service learning assignments were created and implemented. service learning assignment benefited the respondents personally; it benefited the sponsoring organization; it benefited the respondents’ career goals and their own individual awareness of community issues. keywords: hospitality, service-learning, community engagement, experiential learning, benefits of service learning introduction service learning and community engagement are examples of hands-on activities that hospitality students can do. faculty members indicated that service learning invigorates both their teaching and their students’ learning. by integrating course content with real-world experience, service learning has tremendous potential to meet faculty goals for student learning while making unique contributions to addressing critical community needs. it enables students to deepen comprehension of course content, integrate theory with practice, increase understanding of the complexity of social issues, and sharpen their abilities to solve problems creatively and collaboratively – all skills that are highly valued in the workplace (bart, 2012). in addition, community engagement is the process of building relationships with community members who will work side-by-side with an ongoing partner, in any and every way imaginable, building an army of support for the mission, with the end goal of making the community a better place to live (gottlieb, 2006). in the hospitality industry, service-learning opportunities are particularly important for students seeking to work in the meeting and event planning industry. o’halloran and o’halloran (1999) identified characteristics of service learning opportunities for hospitality students with great implications for learning experiences and client needs. in the fall 2015 semester, the faculty of a hospitality program at a regional university in east texas decided to investigate the benefits in embedding service learning activities to their hospitality courses. thus, study to investigate student perceptions in their participation in compulsory service learning assignments was created and implemented. the objectives of the study were the following: (1) to examine whether service-learning assignment personally benefitted the student. (2) to determine whether the student’s participation in service-learning assignment benefitted the sponsoring organization. (3) to determine whether the service-learning opportunities where beneficial to the student’s career goals. (4) to determine whether the service learning assignment increased the student’s awareness of community issue or events. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ causin, g. f., & runnels, c. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 46-52. 48 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 46-52, doi: 10.18060/22776 copyright © 2018 gina fe causin and chay runnels. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. literature review multiple studies have recommended that there is a need for hospitality and tourism educators to plan their teaching and learning activities so that student learning preferences are recognized, and the gap between educational practice and student learning is minimized (barron & arcodia, 2002; lashley, 1999; lashley & barron, 2006; lashley & shaw, 2002, stevens, kitterlin & tanner, 2012). numerous authors (hsu, smith, & finley, 1991; stevens, kitterlin & tanner, 2012) suggested that the action-oriented hospitality industry attracts creative problem solvers and individuals who are good at executing tasks that further recommends that hospitality students prefer to learn from action-based situations. furthermore, hospitality students prefer opportunities for practical activity and respond well to ‘hands-on’ teaching and learning styles (barron & arcodia, 2002; dale & mccarthy, 2006; lashley, 1999; stevens, kitterlin & tanner, 2012). lawson and lawson (2013) note that federal policymaking is driving decisions related to offering opportunities for students to engage more deeply at the postsecondary level. the question of whether or not service learning increases student learning has been studied across disciplines. warren’s (2012) meta-analysis of the topic found that service learning has “positive benefits such as increased multicultural awareness and enhanced social responsibility.” further indications of benefits from service learning for both the students and the community include the building of the students’ relationships with community members beyond their own generation and backgrounds and the appreciation of their concern for the community (kirk & riedle, 2005). methodology the service-learning component was a required assignment as reflective in the syllabus. the students were required to complete and work three 2-hour events or two 3-hour events for a total of six hours. the sample of the study was students who were taking hospitality courses in the fall 2015 semester. a survey questionnaire was developed in qualtrics and was administered online. of the 92 responses received, 82 responses were usable. a five-point likert scale questionnaire was used where 1 represented strongly disagree, and 5 represented strongly agree. participation in the study was completely voluntary. respondents remained anonymous, and there was no identifiable information with regards to the respondents. spss was used to analyze the data. results and discussion this section revealed the profile of the respondents’ academic level and their majors. in addition, the information below indicated whether the objectives of the study were achieved. table 1 indicated that of the respondents, 41% were seniors, 24% were juniors, 18% were sophomores, and 16% were freshmen. majority or 72% of the respondents were students who majored in hospitality administration (hadm), 17% of the respondents were food, nutrition, and dietetics (fnd), 2.4 % were business management, 1.2% were fashion merchandising and the rest were business marketing, chemistry, family and consumer sciences, human development and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ causin, g. f., & runnels, c. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 46-52. 49 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 46-52, doi: 10.18060/22776 copyright © 2018 gina fe causin and chay runnels. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. family studies, history, international business, kinesiology, mass communication, multidisciplinary studies, psychology, theater and undecided. table 1. profile of the respondents variables frequency percentage (%) respondent’s academic level freshman 27 16.4 sophomore 30 18.2 junior 40 24.2 senior 68 41.2 total 165 100.0 respondent’s major of study business management 4 2.4 business marketing 1 .6 chemistry 1 .6 fashion merchandising 2 1.2 family and consumer sciences 1 .6 food, nutrition and dietetics 28 17.0 hospitality administration 119 72.1 human development & family studies 1 .6 history 1 .6 international business 1 .6 kinesiology 1 .6 mass communication 1 .6 multidisciplinary studies 1 .6 psychology 1 .6 theater 1 .6 undecided major 1 .6 total 165 100.0 table 2 revealed the respondents’ point-of-view in terms of the benefits of the service learning assignment to them personally, to the sponsoring organization, their career goals and their own individual awareness of community issues. all the respondents agreed (mean = 3.80) that the service-learning component benefited them personally. in addition, the respondents agreed (mean = 4.01) that their participation as volunteers benefited the sponsor or the organization who requested the hospitality program for student’s assistance. this clearly indicates that the respondents were able to help the organizations in whatever activities they had the respondents do for them. in terms of the benefit of the service learning assignment to the respondents’ career goals, they agreed that they got something out of their experiences. this established a network for them that could help them for their career once they graduate. furthermore, the respondents indicated (mean = 3.75) that participating in the service learning activity increased their awareness of what’s happening in the community. this made them more akin to the festivities or issues that the community is doing. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ causin, g. f., & runnels, c. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 46-52. 50 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 46-52, doi: 10.18060/22776 copyright © 2018 gina fe causin and chay runnels. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. table 2. descriptive statistics of the respondents’ point-of-view on the benefits of the service learning assignment personally, sponsor organization, career goals and awareness of community events research questions n mean std. deviation rq1: the service learning component benefited me personally 165 3.80 1.44 rq2: my participation in service learning was beneficial to the sponsor or organization where i volunteered 165 4.01 1.43 rq3: the service learning opportunities i participated in were beneficial to my career goals 165 3.30 1.64 rq4: my participation in this service learning component increased my awareness of community issues and events. 165 3.75 1.39 valid n (listwise) 165 conclusions and implications conclusions based on the results of the study our objectives were achieved. overall, the service learning assignment was of personal benefit to the students, and at the same time, their participation was beneficial to the sponsoring organizations. furthermore, the service learning assignment enhanced the career goals of the students. and the best of all, the service learning assignments increased the student awareness of community issues and events. the results were consistent with kirk and riedle (2005) findings that there are reciprocal benefits to both the students and community. service learning provides students with opportunities to develop civic engagement skills. by working with community members, students can enhance their communication, organizational and interpersonal skills. they also can gain important experience working with diverse members of the community (starting point, 2018; retrieved from https://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/service/why.html) implications respondents’ benefits of service learning include enhanced opportunities for learning and personal and social skill development. in addition, students gain increased knowledge of academic materials, their communities, and themselves. furthermore, respondents can gain a better understanding of themselves as they explore and develop ways to contribute to their communities. they can also develop self-confidence and an enhanced commitment to public service. recommendations the following recommendations are vital: ● continue using service learning as a programmatic assignment of the hospitality administration courses. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/service/why.html causin, g. f., & runnels, c. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 46-52. 51 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 46-52, doi: 10.18060/22776 copyright © 2018 gina fe causin and chay runnels. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. ● continue collecting data from the students to see if there are trends that will stand out about the assignment. ● nurture the relationships with the organizations so they will keep requesting students to help them with their events or activities. limitations and future research this study is limited within the scope of the students who are taking courses in the hospitality administration program in a regional university in texas. results cannot be generalizable beyond this population. however, other schools can do a similar assignment if the faculty wants to adopt the service learning activity. based on the results and similar findings from this study, the researchers will continue the service learning assignment to extend data to develop a longitudinal study. a study to determine the satisfaction of the sponsors or requesting organizations should be undertaken. references barron, p. and arcodia, c. (2002). linking learning style preferences and ethnicity: international students studying hospitality and tourism management in australia. journal of hospitality, leisure, sport and tourism education, 1(2), 1-13. bart, m. (2012, october). six steps to designing effective service-learning courses. office of community engagement. retrieved on october 12, 2012 from www.uhd.edu/community_engagement/article2.htm dale, c. and mccarthy, p. (2006). i like your style: the learning approaches of leisure, tourism and hospitality students studying generic modules. journal of hospitality, leisure, sport and tourism education, 5(2), 48-58. gottlieb, h. (2006). the 3 most effective tools for community engagement. resolve, inc. retrieved on october 12, 2012 from www.help4nonprofits.com hsu, c., smith, f., and finley, d. (1991). restaurant managers’ learning styles and their implications. international journal of hospitality management, 10(1), 81-93. kirk, r. and riedle, l. (2005). creating lifelong learners and lifelong givers. delta kappa gamma bulletin, 71(4), 32-36. lashley, c. (1999). on making silk purses: developing reflective practitioners in hospitality management education. international journal of contemporary hospitality management, 11(4), 180-185. lashley, c. & barron, p. (2006). the learning style preferences of hospitality and tourism students: observations from an international and cross-cultural study. international journal of hospitality management, 25(4), 552-569. lashley, c. & shaw, m. (2002). the effects of learning styles on student achievement in he and the implications for curriculum design, development, and delivery. european learning styles information network conference proceedings. ghent, belgium: university of ghent. lawson, m. a., & lawson, h. a. (2013). new conceptual frameworks for student engagement research, policy, and practice. review of educational research, 0034654313480891. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://www.uhd.edu/community_engagement/article2.htm http://www.help4nonprofits.com/ causin, g. f., & runnels, c. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 46-52. 52 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 46-52, doi: 10.18060/22776 copyright © 2018 gina fe causin and chay runnels. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. starting point. (2018, may 21). teaching entry level geoscience: why use service learning? retrieved on december 17, 2018 from https://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/service/why.html stevens, d. p., kitterlin, m. and tanner, j. r. (2012). assessing the impact of learning styles for hospitality students. consortium journal of hospitality and tourism, 17, 6-28. o’halloran, r. m & c. s. o’halloran (1999) service learning in the hospitality and tourism business environment. journal of hospitality and tourism education. 10:4. solnet, r, robinson, r. & copper, c. (2007) an industry partnership approach to tourism education. journal of hospitality, leisure, sport and tourism education. 6:1. warren, j. l. (2012). does service-learning increase student learning?: a meta-analysis. michigan journal of community service learning, 18(2), 56-61. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://serc.carleton.edu/introgeo/service/why.html events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 26-31, doi: 10.18060/24220 copyright © 2020 ijada jackson-macon & godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribuion 4.0 international license. events and tourism review june 2020 volume 3 no. 1 generation y and z destination attractiveness attributes ijada jackson-macon indiana university purdue university indianapolis godwin-charles ogbeide purdue university northwest for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation jackson-macon, i. & ogbeide, g-c. (2020). generation y and z destination attractiveness attributes. events and tourism review, 3(1), 26-31. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr jackson-macon, i. & ogbeide, g-c. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 26-31. 27 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 26-31, doi: 10.18060/24220 copyright © 2020 ijada jackson-macon & godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract the purpose of this study was to explore generation y and z perceptions of destination attractiveness (da) and their propensity to visit a destination. the objectives of this research include examining which destination attractiveness factors are critical to generation y, and z tourists, and to compare and contrast generation y and z attractiveness factors to other tourists. college students and recent graduates from multiple universities in the usa were surveyed for this study. the results of this study will contribute to the existing knowledge in the areas of destination marketing and management. keywords: destination attractiveness, cultural and heritage resources, natural resources, general infrastructure, hospitality, generation y and z introduction destination attractiveness and competitiveness factors are very critical for tourism development (crouch & ritchie, 1999; dwyer & kim, 2003). the sample for most of the past studies on destination attractiveness and competitiveness includes tourists (mostly middle-aged adults) who have visited the specific destinations or both local and national tourists who visited the area. the aforementioned tourists usually respond to questionnaires regarding the destination competitiveness indicators chosen for the study (cracolici & nijkamp, 2008; crouch 2011; gupta & singh, 2015; law & lo, 2016). based on previous studies, it could be surmised that there is a critical need to identify the destination attractiveness factors to attract “future” tourists (generation y and z) to destinations. literature review there are many factors in various research models used to explore destination attractiveness and competitiveness (crouch, 2011; dwyer & kim, 2003). some of the popular factors consist of core resources, culture, demand conditions, destination management, natural resources, and infrastructure (crouch, 2011; dwyer et al., 2004; gupta & singh, 2015; hassan, 2009; hong, 2009). some researchers indicated that natural resources and cultural/heritage resources are some of the best resources and destination competitive indicators for attracting tourists (crouch, 2011; dwyer et al., 2004; gupta & singh, 2015; hong, 2009; law & lo, 2016). some of the core resources such as shopping, entertainment, and the domestic environment of a destination were not so important for destination competitiveness (gupta & singh, 2015; hong, 2009). however, generation y tends to be attracted to meetings and events through entertainment (ogbeide et al., 2013). thus, there is a need to determine the factors that attract generation y and z to destinations. purpose and objectives the purpose of this study was to explore generation y and z perceptions of destination attractiveness. the objectives of this study include the following: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ jackson-macon, i. & ogbeide, g-c. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 26-31. 28 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 26-31, doi: 10.18060/24220 copyright © 2020 ijada jackson-macon & godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 1. determine generation y and z critical destination attractiveness factors 2. compare and contrast generation y and z’s attractiveness factors to other tourists methodology population and sample selection the target population for this study was generation y and z potential travelers in the midwestern part of the usa. the instrument for this study was adapted from literature (gomezelj & mihalic, 2008; gupta & singh, 2015). all the questions, except the demographic and psychographic questions, were based on a 7-point likert scale instrument. the survey questions intended to measure how much each participant agreed or disagreed with the extent to which each statement represented his/her perception of destination attractiveness and propensity to visit a destination. a section of the instrument focused on the demographic and psychographic characteristics of the participants. the validity of the instrument was based on a panel of experts, and cronbach’s alpha coefficient was used to justify its reliability. data were collected online, and the statistical package for social sciences (spss) version 24 for windows, a product of spss, inc. was used for data analysis. other tourist destination attractiveness factors were based on the literature review. result and discussion the results of this study indicated the top 15 destination attractiveness attributes (table 1). the results also indicated eight critical destination attractiveness factors and their mean ranking (table 2). the similarities and differences within the findings of this study as compared to previous studies indicated eight destination attractiveness factors for us generation y and z, domestic indian tourists, and international tourists to india. these findings showed that “cultural and heritage resources” are the most important destination attractiveness factors. other important factors between the three groups are cultural and heritage resources, hospitality, and general infrastructure. the least important factor between the three groups is entertainment. other interesting observations from this study are generation y and z’s interest in local foods/authentic cuisines. local foods and authentic cuisines were highly ranked attributes in this study and in previous studies about destination attractiveness and competitiveness. conclusion and implication cultural dispositions may affect generation y and z’s, and other tourists’, destination attractiveness factors. for example, natural resources serve as critical destination attractiveness factors to tourists in india, but not generation y and z in the us. similarly, tourism infrastructure is a critical destination attractiveness factor to generation y and z in the us, but not to tourists in india. also, shopping is a critical destination attractiveness factor to generation y and z within the us, but not to tourists in india. the findings of this study have critical policy implications for the authorities responsible for tourism development. they should pay more attention to enhancing the following three factors: cultural and heritage resources, hospitality, and general infrastructure in their https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ jackson-macon, i. & ogbeide, g-c. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 26-31. 29 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 26-31, doi: 10.18060/24220 copyright © 2020 ijada jackson-macon & godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. communities to attract future tourists. these three factors were found to be important destination attractiveness factors (table 2).. besides, dmo’s should showcase the above factors in their campaign endeavors for attracting the attention of different market segments in the global tourism market. table 1. top destination attractiveness attributes destination attractiveness attributes n mean std. deviation factor classification personal safety and security 362 4.62 0.681 general infrastructure affordable place to visit 361 4.54 0.767 shopping/affordability availability of local foods and authentic cuisines 363 4.49 0.756 cultural and heritage resources good opportunities to experience the unique culture of the area 360 4.47 0.753 cultural and heritage resources availability of natural attractions/scenery (e.g., mountains, beaches, lakes etc.) 364 4.45 0.775 natural resources cleanliness and sanitation of the destination 362 4.42 0.774 natural resources good lodging facilities 364 4.38 0.774 tourism infrastructure positive word-of-mouth from friends/family 358 4.26 0.873 hospitality personal income or the availability of financial resources 360 4.25 0.972 shopping/affordability good destination image/perception 358 4.22 0.905 hospitality good telecommunication systems in place (e.g., wi-fi, internet, and cell phone towers) 364 4.16 1.002 general infrastructure good culinary “foodie” destination 364 4.16 0.901 tourism infrastructure climate for summer-based activities (e.g., camping, beach, swimming etc.) 364 4.09 0.975 natural resources access to online and/or mobile travel booking 359 4.08 0.998 hospitality good local transportation systems in place (e.g., taxis, uber, rental cars and metro) 364 4.05 0.942 general infrastructure one of the important and relevant components of this study is the noticeable difference in some of the destination attractiveness factors between generation y and z within the us and other tourists. hence, dmos should be mindful of all these destination attractiveness indicators and differences and utilize the knowledge to create appropriate marketing strategies to attract generation y and z and other future tourists to their communities. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ jackson-macon, i. & ogbeide, g-c. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 26-31. 30 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 26-31, doi: 10.18060/24220 copyright © 2020 ijada jackson-macon & godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. table 2. eight critical destination attractiveness factors and ranking destination attractiveness factors us generation y and z domestic indian tourists’ international tourists to india mean rank mean rank mean rank cultural and heritage resources 4.17 1 4.13 1 4.87 1 tourism infrastructure 4.15 2 2.73 6 2.87 5 hospitality 4.15 2 3.21 3 3.15 3 shopping/affordability 4.10 4 1.46 8 1.90 7 general infrastructure 4.08 5 3.18 4 2.98 4 natural resources 4.03 6 4.01 2 3.90 2 recreational activities 3.53 7 2.95 5 2.60 6 entertainment 3.31 8 1.64 7 1.39 8 references cracolicl, m. f., & nijkamp, p. (2008). the attractiveness and competitiveness of tourist destinations: a study of southern italian regions. journal of tourism management, vol. 30, pp. 336-344, elsevier ltd. crouch, g. i. (2011). destination competitiveness: an analysis of determinant attributes. journal of travel research, vol. 50, no. 1, pp. 27-45, sage publications. crouch, g. i., & ritchie, j. r. b. (1999). tourism, competitiveness and societal prosperity . journal of business research, vol. 44, no. 3, pp. 137-152. dwyer, l., & kim, c. (2003). destination competitiveness: determinants and indicators. current issues in tourism, vol. 6, no. 5, pp.369-413. dwyer, l., edwards, d., & mellor, r. (2004). attributes of destination competitiveness: a factor analysis. tourism analysis, vol. 9, pp.00-00, cognizant communication corp. gomezelj, d. o., & mihalic, t. (2008). destination competitiveness—applying different models, the case of slovenia. journal of tourism management, vol. 29, pp. 294-307, elsevier ltd. gupta, s., & singh, a. (2015). determinants of tourism destination competitiveness: a case of bundelkhand, india. international journal of management research, vol. 6, no. 2. hassan, s. s. (2000). determinants of market competitiveness in an environmentally sustainable tourism industry. journal of travel research, vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 239-245, sage publications. hong, w. c. (2009). global competitveness measurement for the tourism sector. current issues in tourism, vol. 12, no. 2, pp. 105-132, routledge taylor & francis group. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ jackson-macon, i. & ogbeide, g-c. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 26-31. 31 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 26-31, doi: 10.18060/24220 copyright © 2020 ijada jackson-macon & godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. ogbeide, g-c., fenich, g., scott-halsell, s., & kesterson, k., (2013). communication preferences for attracting the millennial generation to attend meetings. journal of convention and event tourism, 14(4) 331-344. law, f. y., & lo, m. c. (2016). rural tourism destination competitiveness of kubah national park in sarawak: tourists’ perspectives. asian academy of management journal, vol. 21, supp. 1, pp. 127-148. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 1-6, doi: 10.18060/24221 copyright © 2020 nripendra singh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribuion 4.0 international license. events and tourism review june 2020 volume 3 no. 1 sustainability, social, and technology development trends in events nripendra singh clarion university of pennsylvania for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation singh, n. (2020). sustainability, social, and technology development trends in events. events and tourism review, 3(1), 1-6. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr singh, n. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 1-6. 2 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 1-6, doi: 10.18060/24221 copyright © 2020 nripendra singh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract events have become an important segment of the hospitality and tourism industry. events are recognized around the globe for their positive impact on the economy of the region, tourism, urban regeneration, culture, education, and community development. there are three major trends that are observed in the event industry: sustainability, social, and technology development. while these trends are benefitting the industry there are concerns and challenges that need to be addressed. in this paper, key facts about these trends are discussed. it is suggested that research on these three trends will enhance this new and emerging discipline and business event industry. keywords: businerss events, sustainability trends, social development trends, technology development trends introduction events have become an important segment of the hospitality and tourism industry. events are involved in almost all aspects of hospitality businesses like tourism, lodging, transportation, food and beverage, catering, and retail, providing direct and indirect benefits, such as income, employment, and investment (getz & page, 2015). events are recognized around the globe for their positive impact on the economy of the region (jago & shaw, 1999). events have an impact on tourism, urban regeneration, culture, education (mair & whitford, 2013), leisure time and surplus income (allen, o’toole, mcdonnell, & harris, 2002), and community development (bowdin, allen, o’toole, harris, & mcdonnell, 2006). recent reporting from the events industry council (events industry council [eic], 2018) shows that 1.9 million meetings were held in the united states in 2016, resulting in more than $330 billion (usd) in direct spending with over 250 million participants. regarding numbers of people attending conferences, it can have anywhere between hundreds to thousands of people in one place from one to five days. these gatherings have an economic impact but simultaneously have many negative implications too. for example, there can be large amounts of waste generated from these gatherings, negatively impacting the environment. moreover, with growing sustainability and technology trends and awareness among consumers, conference organizers are concerned and exploring possible ways to overcome the negative image and make conferences effective and efficient (booker, 2017). thus, there are three major trends in business events development: sustainability, social, and technology trends. these trends need further attention of researchers to strengthen the industry and develop knowledge in this discipline. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 1-6. 3 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 1-6, doi: 10.18060/24221 copyright © 2020 nripendra singh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. sustainability trend in events meetings and conferences have been criticized for having a negative impact on the environment being resource-intensive (hoyer & naess, 2001). while travel-related carbon emission is on top, paper waste is the other major source of negative impact on the environment from this sector (case, 2013). this statement summarizes the reason sustainability is being considered a priority by event professionals, and recent trends confirm this. sustainability has been one of the most important trends in the event industry (case, 2013). recent examples from rio and london olympics show the international olympic committee (ioc) committed to building a sustainable future by delivering innovations in event planning, staging, and design (olympic, 2016). an event professionals survey (pelham, 2011) concluded there was “no time to wait” for embracing sustainability as both government and corporate clients request sustainable events. this was in line with growing environmental awareness and concern among consumers. a recent study by fenich, scott-halsell, ogbeide, and hashimoto (2014) found that millennials, a key target segment of the events industry, are highly focused and interested in “sustainability” and “green” initiatives. forced by such demographic preferences, event organizers have started organizing paperless events that reduce cost, facilitates transactions, and protect the environment (orantes-jimenez, zavala-galindo, & vazquez-álvarez, 2015). social trend in events communication and interaction are core activities of human life, such as meetings and conferences in the work arena. zelinsky (1994) pointed out this social trend due to business technology social sustainability business events https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 1-6. 4 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 1-6, doi: 10.18060/24221 copyright © 2020 nripendra singh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. meetings and called the usa as a "conventionland". he pointed out that staging conventions are an emerging phenomenon that needs site-specific amenities to attract visitors to cities. in short, business meetings on one hand have an economic impact and on the other, satisfy the social needs of pleasure and fun (zelinsky, 1994). events industry council, the global apex body of events industry, in its recent report on 2018 global economic significance of business events, mentioned that in just one year, 2017, 1.5 billion participants from more than 180 countries participated in different business events (events industry council, 2018). this is almost 21 percent of the total world population. this social trend has a huge economic impact every year. in 2017, it resulted in $2.5 trillion of output (business sales), and 26 million jobs. with $621.4 billion of direct gdp, business events stand as the 22nd largest economy in the world. the event landscape has undergone a drastic change in the last decade, and technological tools such as mobile applications and social media are helping to create economies of scale, operational efficiency, and customer engagement in such social gatherings (meeting professionals international [mpi], 2014, 2015, 2016). technology trend in events a survey of the meetings industry experts revealed that events are increasingly becoming tech-savvy by using state of the art technology (incentives, business, travel, & meetings [ibtm], 2013). a survey of “managing event technology ecosystems” by mpi on how event professionals currently adapt to event technology found that 50% of meetings and event planners who responded agreed their technology budget in the past three years has increased (mpi, 2015). one such technology in use is a mobile conference app, which is defined as standalone software that can be operated through a mobile device to serve the needs of conference organizers, planners, and attendees (singh, 2019). mobile conference apps are used for different purposes before, during, and after conferences (event marketing institute [emi], 2015; torres, 2017); for example, distribution of schedule, notification of changes, task management, feedback or polls, name badges for registration, and integration with social media. research shows the top three reasons for its use are “ease of dissemination of information,” “engagement of participants,” and “convenience for not printing the handouts” (aksentyeva et al., 2012). while it is heartening to see the technology adoption by the event organizers, it is upsetting to read that conference attendees are reluctant to use technologies such as conference apps because they do not find it attractive (singh 2019; schrier, erdem, & brewer, 2010). therefore, it looks like while the technology trend is accepted by the event industry, it is yet to be fully embraced by the participants or event attendees. conclusion as discussed above, the three major trends of the event industry are quietly visible in action. while it is benefitting the industry some concerns and challenges need to be addressed. for example, how to minimize the resource-intensive nature of the meetings. one solution can be to use technology to minimize the negative impact on the environment (esfahani, nilashi, rahman, ghapanchi, & zakaria, 2015). recently, the conference app was used in a five day unep conference that provided cost benefits (usd 30,189) and helped in a huge amount of https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 1-6. 5 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 1-6, doi: 10.18060/24221 copyright © 2020 nripendra singh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. waste reduction (1,400 paper reams) for the environment (united nations environment programme [unep], 2016). due to recent trends, this sector has been characterized by “three highs” (growth, added-value, and innovations), “three larges” (output, employment opportunities, and industry associations), and “three advantages” (human resources, technological know-how, and asset utilization) (aksentyeva et al., 2012), which reflects the importance of this sector on the economy, sustainability, society, and technology. it is proposed to do further research on the three trends, sustainability, social, and technology, to assess the intertwined nature of their relationships. additionally, there is a need to establish new ways to create a balance between sustainability, social needs, and technology, to protect the environment and economic growth. furthermore, there is a need to examine how hospitality and tourism educators are adjusting their curriculum to meet these three trends. references aksentyeva, n., aminov, d., cayenne, j., foo, j., kammogne, g., lum, a., & zhou, h. (2012, october). technology use in meetings. new york university. retrieved from http://theirf.org/research/technology-in-offsite-meetings-and-incentive-events/265/ allen, j., o’toole, w., mcdonnell, i., & harris, r. (2002). festival and special event management (2nd ed.). milton, australia: wiley. booker, b. (2017). the latest conference trends from 9 industry insiders. retrieved from https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/blog/conference-trends-ds00/ bowdin, g., allen, j., o’toole, w., harris, r., & mcdonnell, i. (2006). events management (2nd ed.). oxford: elsevier. case, r. (2013). events and the environment. new york, ny: routledge. esfahani, m. d., nilashi, m., rahman, a. a., ghapanchi, a. h., & zakaria, n. h. (2015). psychological factors influencing the managers' intention to adopt green is: a reviewbased comprehensive framework and ranking the factors. international journal of strategic decision sciences, 6(2), 28-56. event marketing institute. (2015). the momentum of mobile event apps: benchmarks study. crowd compass (cvent) & event marketing institute. retrieved from https://www. crowdcompass.com /pdf/momentum-of-mobile-apps.pdf events industry council. (2018). 2018 global economic significance of business events. retrieved from: https://www.eventscouncil.org/industry-insights/economic-significancestudy events industry council. (2018). the events industry council releases preliminary events industry economic impact data. retrieved from: http://www.eventscouncil.org/newsroom/headlines/2018/01/09/the-events-industrycouncil-releases-preliminary-events-industry-economic-impact-data fenich, g. g., scott-halsell, s., ogbeide, g. c., & hashimoto, k. (2014). what the millennial generation from around the world prefers in their meetings, conventions, and events. journal of convention & event tourism, 15(3), 236-241. getz, d., & page, s. j. (2015). progress in tourism management: progress and prospects for event tourism. tourism management, 52, 593-631. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://www.eventscouncil.org/industry-insights/economic-significance-study https://www.eventscouncil.org/industry-insights/economic-significance-study singh, n. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 1-6. 6 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 1-6, doi: 10.18060/24221 copyright © 2020 nripendra singh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. hoyer, k., & naess, p. (2001). conference tourism: a problem for the environment, as well as for research?. journal of sustainable tourism, 9(6), 451-470. incentives, business, travel, & meetings. (2013). ibtm global meetings industry research for americas 2013. retrieved from http://www.ibtmevents.com/rxuk/rxuk_ibtmevents/document/ibtm%20meetings %20industry%20research%20america%20focus%20report.pdf?v=6350670994340014 75 jago, l., & shaw, r. (1999). consumer perceptions of special events: a multi-stimulus validation. journal of travel and tourism marketing, 8(4), 1-24. mair, j., & whitford, m. (2013). an exploration of events research: event topics, themes and emerging trends. international journal of event and festival management, 4(1), 6-30. meeting professionals international. (2014). the state of event apps. retrieved from http://www.hbaa.org.uk/sites/default/files/mpi-research-state-of-event-apps.pdf meeting professionals international. (2015). the state of event technology adoption. retrieved from https://www.mpiweb.org/docs/default-source/research-and-reports/technologyadoption-report_v2.pdf?sfvrsn=2 meeting professionals international. (2016). mobile app use in events. retrieved from http://www.mpiweb.org/ events/wec-2016/information/mobile-app olympic. (2016). sustainability. retrieved from https://www.olympic.org/sustainability orantes-jimenez, s. d., zavala-galindo, a., & vazquez-álvarez, g. (2015). paperless office: a new proposal for organizations. systemics, cybernetics and informatics, 13(3), 47-55. pelham, f. (2011). will sustainability change the business model of the event industry? worldwide hospitality and tourism themes, 3(3), 187-192. schrier, t., erdem, m., & brewer, p. (2010). merging task-technology fit and technology acceptance models to assess guest empowerment technology usage in hotels. journal of hospitality and tourism technology, 1(3), 201-217. singh, n. (2018). investigating conference attendee’s mobile application adoption behavior: an ecological perspective. graduate theses and dissertations. 16882. https://lib.dr.iastate.edu/etd/16882 torres, a. (2017, october). the best event apps for every type of event. retrieved from https://www.eventbrite.com/blog/best-event-apps-ds00/ united nations environment programme. (2016). united nations environment sets the tone for green meetings through unea-2. retrieved from http://web.unep.org/sustainability/ news/un-environment-sets-tone-green-meetings-through-unea-2 zelinsky, w. (1994). conventionland usa: the geography of a latterday phenomenon. annals of the association of american geographers, 84(1), 68-86. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-8306.1994.tb01729. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://www.olympic.org/sustainability events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 2 (fall 2020), 32-38, doi: 10.18060/24826 copyright © 2020 godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribuion 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2020 volume 3 no. 2 pandemic (covid-19) implications: recommendations for the events and tourism industry godwin-charles ogbeide purdue university northwest for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation ogbeide, g-c. (2020). pandemic (covid-19) implications: recommendations for the events and tourism industry. events and tourism review, 3(2), 32-38. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr ogbeide, g-c. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(2), 32-38. 33 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 2 (fall 2020), 32-38, doi: 10.18060/24826 copyright © 2020 godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract this article reviews the implications of the covid-19 pandemic on the events and tourism industry. the negative impact of covid-19 on hotel performance worldwide was identified. also, the effect of shutdown for a short period was compared worldwide. the lesson learned identifies the events and tourism trends during a pandemic and ideas for the survival of the events and tourism industry during a pandemic. recommendations were also drawn for events and tourism professionals for advancing virtual or hybrid meetings or events during a pandemic. keywords: covid-19, pandemic, virtual meeting and event, hybrid meeting and event, covid-19 prevention, covid-19 symptoms introduction due to the advent of the covid-19 pandemic, many hospitality and tourism businesses were closed or operating at a lower capacity than usual because to fear and the necessary prevention measures to curtail infection and death. as of the time this article was written, according to the john hopkins university of medicine covid-19 dashboard, 80.5 million people were infected, and 1.76 million people have died globally due to covid-19 infection (https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html, 2020). covid-19 is a disease caused by the sars-cov2 virus. this virus is mainly transmitted via people’s respiratory droplets and contact. the transmission may also occur by handling materials or objects carrying infection around an infected person (who, 2020a). the symptoms of covid-19 vary from one person to another (who, 2020c). the most common symptoms of infected people include tiredness, dry cough, and fever. some of the less common symptoms include aches and pains, discoloration of toes or fingers or rash skin, sore throat, loss of smell or taste, diarrhea, headache, and conjunctivitis (who, 2020c). some of the serious symptoms of covid-19 include loss of movement or speech, chest pain or pressure, and shortness of breath or difficulty breathing (who, 2020c). it takes an average of 5–6 days for an infected person to show symptoms of covid-19. however, it may take up to 14 days (who, 2020c). infected people with mild or moderate illness could recover without hospitalization. people with serious symptoms should seek immediate medical attention (who, 2020c). covid-19 prevention measures the best way to prevent covid-19 illness is to avoid exposure to the virus (cdc, 2020; who, 2020b). according to the center for disease control and the world health organization, some of the prevention measures include the following:  maintain at least six feet away from people (physical distancing), whenever possible.  wear a mask to cover your nose and mouth when around people.  wash your hands regularly with water and soap. if water and soap are not accessible, use a hand sanitizer with at least 60% alcohol content. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html ogbeide, g-c. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(2), 32-38. 34 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 2 (fall 2020), 32-38, doi: 10.18060/24826 copyright © 2020 godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license.  avoid crowded spaces and ventilate indoor spaces properly with outdoor air to a large extent as possible.  isolate from people and stay home if sick.  consistently clean and disinfect often touched surfaces. keeping the information above in mind, it is common knowledge that the hospitality and tourism industry worldwide will suffer the negative impact of covid-19 prevention measures. this article aims to explore the implications of covid-19 to the hospitality and tourism industry and provide recommendations for the industry's future. in this article, the implications of covid-19 on the events and tourism industry are discussed. this article focused on three main sections. the first section is entitled "the implications of covid-19 on the hotel sector"; it describes the negative impact of covid-19 on hotel performance worldwide. also, the effect of shutdown for a short period was compared worldwide. the second section is entitled "the implications of covid-19 on the events and tourism industry". this section reveals the challenges and the economic impact of covid-19 on the events and tourism industry. section three: "lesson learned, conclusions, and recommendations from covid-19"; identifies the events and tourism trends during a pandemic, ideas for the survival of the events and tourism industry during a pandemic. recommendations were also drawn for events and tourism professionals. the implications of covid-19 on the hotel sector the challenges of the hotel sector as a result of covid-19 cannot be overemphasized. as of april 2020, the hotel sector has furloughed or laid off 70 percent of its employees (gangitano, 2020). according to the american hotel and lodging association (ahla) report, full-service hotels that usually employ 50 employees (on average) now employ 14, while resort hotels that usually employ 90 employees (on average) now employ five (gangitano, 2020). according to the str report, hotel performances have shrunk worldwide at the end of the first quarter of 2020 (steve hood, personal communication, april 9, 2020). based on the str data, 2020 was the worst year for u.s. hotel performance on record. hotel performance indicators as of april 4, 2020, when the revenue per available room (revpar) due to covid-19 was compared to the revpar due to the incidence of u.s. terrorism attack (9/11) of 2001 and the 2009 recession, the revpar due to covid-19 (-81.6%) was the lowest as compared to revpar due to the incidence of u.s. terrorism attack (-38.0%) and 2009 recession (-25.3%). the revpar and the occupancy rates were very low compared to the previous year (see table 1). the str report of april 4, 2020, also indicated that around 133 events were canceled, and 250 were postponed due to covid-19. the u.s. market key performance indicators (kpis) showed a significant difference between 2020 and the previous year's group reservation occupancy rate (-94.8%). similarly, there was a significant difference between 2020 and the previous year's group revpar rate (-96.7%) and average daily rate (adr) rate (-37.3%). the u.s. transient guest's performance indicators were also bad. there was a significant difference between 2020 and the previous year's transient guest's occupancy rate (-90.2%). similarly, there https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g-c. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(2), 32-38. 35 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 2 (fall 2020), 32-38, doi: 10.18060/24826 copyright © 2020 godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. was a significant difference between 2020 and the previous year's transient guest's revpar rate (-94.0%) and adr rate (-39.2%). the decline in occupancy was not limited to u.s. hotels. it was observed worldwide due to the pandemic of 2020 (see table 2). table 1. total u.s., revpar and occupancy rate change hotel class revpar % occupancy % hotel segments revpar % luxury class -93.4 9.1 urban -90.3 upper upscale class -92.7 9.2 suburban -76.2 upscale class -84.6 15.8 airport -78.8 upper midscale class -79.6 18.8 interstate -67.4 midscale class -69.4 24.5 resort -91.5 economy class -57.1 34.8 small metro/town -70.0 str report as of april 4, 2020 table 2. global hotel occupancy (occ) rate change vs. prior year country % occ change country % occ change country % occ change country % occ change czech rep. -96% kuwait -85% oman -75% cambodia -62% italy -96% france -84% belarus -74% indonesia -61% greece -94% tunisia -84% saudi arabia -74% myanmar -61% austria -93% netherland s -84% egypt -74% philippines -60% lebanon -92% switzerlan d -83% malaysia -74% laos -58% poland -91% denmark -83% kenya -72% maldives -56% romania -91% germany -83% main. china -72% uae -54% israel -91% morocco -80% ghana -69% russia -52% bulgaria -91% sweden -80% jordan -68% singapore -51% hungary -90% finland -79% tanzania -68% south africa -50% serbia -90% portugal -78% japan -68% australia -47% belgium -89% vietnam -77% sri lanka -67% nigeria -45% georgia -86% south korea -77% india -67% new zealand -44% ukraine -86% ireland -77% thailand -66% seychelles -32% lithuania -85% bahrain -75% uk -63% qatar -30% spain -85% turkey -75% ethiopia -62% str report as of april 4, 2020 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g-c. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(2), 32-38. 36 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 2 (fall 2020), 32-38, doi: 10.18060/24826 copyright © 2020 godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. the implications of covid-19 on the events and tourism industry during the covid-19 pandemic, the meetings and events sector has the following options:  cancel your meetings or events for the rest of the year  postpone or reschedule for smaller meetings or events that meet the cdc guidelines of physical distancing  postpone or reschedule your meetings or events for a better period of no infection  organize hybrid meetings or events (i.e., a live and virtual event at the same time)  plan all virtual (digital) event to replace the live event making a decision based on any of the above choices is not easy because of the economic impact and the number of internal and external stakeholders affected. regardless, many organizations have no choice but to cancel or postponed their meetings or events. some of the notable canceled or postponed events include the 2020 olympic games (tokyo, japan), the national basketball association (u.s.), the kentucky derby (u.s.), nascar (u.s.), the indianapolis 500 (u.s.), the french open, chinese grand prix, italy’s sporting events, iran’s sporting events, the cannes film festival (cannes, france), st. patrick’s day parades (ireland), glastonbury (britain), the rolling stones tour of north america, the walt disney world resort (orlando, florida), the disney cruise line, the new york international auto show, google i/o developer event, many businesses, and professional organizations conferences. lesson learned, conclusions, and recommendations 1. according to the str report of april 4, 2020, physical distance or shutdown during a pandemic helps reduce the virus' spread. when china shutdown for two months, the country curtailed the incidence of covid-19 and recovered slightly while the u.s. and europe that did not follow china's example saw their hotel performance tumbled. table 3 shows that china's occupancy rate increased by 15.2% after the pandemic was curtailed. this is an example of how consumer confidence in an organization's (destination's) control of the pandemic situation could enhance its performance. table 3. the impact of shutdown on hotel performance during pandemic region occupancy rate, february 1 occupancy rate, april 4 difference china ~15% 30.2% +15.2 u.s. ~60% 21.6% -38.4 europe ~65% 7.7% -57.3 2. in a study by the professional convention management association (pcma) with 1,776 respondents, the following are evident (pcma convene, 2020):  87 percent of respondents have canceled meetings/events  66 percent have postponed meetings/events  70 percent have moved their face-to-face event fully or partially to a virtual platform https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g-c. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(2), 32-38. 37 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 2 (fall 2020), 32-38, doi: 10.18060/24826 copyright © 2020 godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 3. the future of meetings and events would include a lot of virtual events. many meetings that don't require networking experience (e.g., staff meetings, advisory board meetings, board of directors meeting, employment interviews, etc.) would be moving to virtual meeting platforms. 4. when planning face-to-face or hybrid meetings or events during a pandemic, a duty of care is critical to protect attendees. the event professionals may consider a sponsor for duty of care (healthcare and wellness). the need for sanitization in various location of the meeting or events venue, the possibility of an in-house physician(s) depending on the size of the meeting or event, app health check or temperature check, different entrance and exit doors for safety measures, signs to remind and inspire attendees to follow cdc or who guidelines (e.g., wear a mask, physical distance, etc.), and the use of transparent barriers between suppliers and buyers during a one-on-one meeting. 5. the marketing and promotion of the event during a pandemic have to be very innovative. it is critical to utilize a customer-centric marketing campaign. a customer-centric marketing campaign uses distinguished messages and actions to ensure the customers are getting exactly what they want. it is critical to promote the meeting's or event's duty of care to assure potential attendees' safety. 6. if possible, use influencers to promote and inspire people to the meeting or event. 7. regarding virtual or hybrid meeting or event program, plan to create a fantastic experience as much as possible. virtual meetings or events would require a lot of time to design and produce. in some cases, the virtual event would need more time to plan and execute than a face-to-face meeting or event. references center for disease control (2020). ways covid-19 spreads. retrieved on december 26, 2020 from https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-gettingsick/how-covid-spreads.html gangitano, a. (2020). 70 percent of hotel employees have been laid off or furloughed. retrieved on april 24, 2020 from https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-alobbying/494390-70-percent-of-hotel-employees-have-been-laid-offor?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=newsjunkie&utm_term=organic hood, s. (2020). share (str) report webinar. personal communication, april 9, 2020 john hopkins university of medicine (2020). coronavirus resource center: global confirmed and global death. retrieved on december 26, 2020 from https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how-covid-spreads.html https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/prevent-getting-sick/how-covid-spreads.html https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/494390-70-percent-of-hotel-employees-have-been-laid-off-or?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=news-junkie&utm_term=organic https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/494390-70-percent-of-hotel-employees-have-been-laid-off-or?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=news-junkie&utm_term=organic https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/494390-70-percent-of-hotel-employees-have-been-laid-off-or?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=news-junkie&utm_term=organic https://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-lobbying/494390-70-percent-of-hotel-employees-have-been-laid-off-or?utm_source=pardot&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=news-junkie&utm_term=organic https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html ogbeide, g-c. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(2), 32-38. 38 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 2 (fall 2020), 32-38, doi: 10.18060/24826 copyright © 2020 godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. pcma convene (2020). how is covid-19 changing the business events industry? retrieved on april 16, 2020, from https://www.pcma.org/wpcontent/uploads/2020/04/pcma-convene-covid19-survey-p5d3.pdf russell, m. (2020). how is covid-19 transforming the events landscape? retrieved on march 31, 2020 from https://www.pcma.org/covid-19-transforming-events-landscape/ world health organization (2020a). transmission of sars-cov 2: implications for infection prevention precautions. retrieved on december 26, 2020 from https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/333114 world health organization (2020b). advice on the use of masks in the context of covid-19. retrieved on december 26, 2020 from (https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/332293 accessed 20 august 2020) world health organization (2020c). coronavirus disease (covid19) advice for the public. retrieved on december 26, 2020 from https://www.who.int/healthtopics/coronavirus#tab=tab_3 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://www.pcma.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/pcma-convene-covid19-survey-p5d3.pdf https://www.pcma.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/pcma-convene-covid19-survey-p5d3.pdf https://www.pcma.org/covid-19-transforming-events-landscape/ https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/333114 https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/332293 https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/332293 https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus#tab=tab_3 https://www.who.int/health-topics/coronavirus#tab=tab_3 events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 35-45, doi: 10.18060/22785 copyright © 2018 yvette n. green. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribuion 4.0 international license. events and tourism review volume 1 no. 1 examining the visitor profile and event characteristics of a festival yvette green university of new orleans for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation green, y. n. (2018). examining the visitor profile and event characteristics of a festival. events and tourism review, 1(1), 35-45. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr green, y. n. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 35-45. 36 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 35-45, doi: 10.18060/22785 copyright © 2018 yvette n. green this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract festivals and special events serve as important attractors for destinations and provide unique experiences for visitors. the purpose of the study is to examine a visitor profile and event characteristics of the 2015 louisiana seafood festival. food and beverage and music were the top rated aspects of the festival most important to the attendee. results showed that the festival made a valuable contribution by attracting nearly 56,000 attendees. the visitor profile provided valuable information on visitor characteristics, event characteristics, and visitor spending. the event organizers can use the visitor profile for marketing and advertising efforts to attract more patrons to the festival. keywords: festivals, visitor profile, event characteristics, seafood introduction the festival industry in the city of new orleans encompasses so much of the city’s food, resources, and culture. french quarter fest, jazz and heritage festival, and the essence festival highlight the city’s musical scene while festivals such as the po-boy festival, decadence festival, new orleans oyster festival and the louisiana seafood festival highlights the city’s food, culture, and natural resources. festivals can develop social and cultural awareness as well as serve as an economic generator. studies have highlighted the need to examine festival for their impact on the community, the attendees behaviors, and determining social, cultural and economic impacts (kyungmi & uysal, 2003; gursoy, kim & uysal, 2004, eraqi, 2007; gu & ryan, 2008; jackson, 2008; slabbert & viviers, 2011). this gap is the catalyst for the current study. the purpose of this study was to provide a visitor profile analysis of the 2015 louisiana seafood festival (lsf). it is the objective of the study to profile the event characteristics of the festival and the travel characteristics of the attendees to the festival. the research questions are: 1) what are the event characteristics that are important to the 2015 lsf attendees, and 2) what are the travel characteristics of lsf attendees to the festival? ultimately, the implications of this study will provide the organizers with valuable recommendations for future festivals to attract visitors. literature review festival research festivals and special events serve as important attractors for destinations and provide unique experiences for visitors. research shows that it is important to understand the perceptions of residents and try to maximize positive perceptions (gursoy et al., 2004). several studies have addressed resident perceptions of the impact of festivals (andereck, valentine, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ javascript:__dolinkpostback('','ss~~ar%20%22kyungmi%20kim%22%7c%7csl~~rl',''); javascript:__dolinkpostback('','ss~~ar%20%22uysal%2c%20muzaffer%22%7c%7csl~~rl',''); javascript:__dolinkpostback('','ss~~ar%20%22slabbert%2c%20elmarie%22%7c%7csl~~rl',''); javascript:__dolinkpostback('','ss~~ar%20%22viviers%2c%20pierre-andre%22%7c%7csl~~rl',''); green, y. n. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 35-45. 37 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 35-45, doi: 10.18060/22785 copyright © 2018 yvette n. green this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. knopf & vogt, 2005; fredline & faulkner, 2002; kim & petrick, 2005; ohmann, jones & wilkes, 2006). knowledge regarding the impacts of festivals on communities is growing, and it is important to determine the impacts of the festival on the community (eraqi, 2007; gu & ryan, 2008; jackson, 2008; slabbert & viviers, 2011). research has focused on understanding attendee behavior or delineating the direct economic impacts of visitation upon host communities and suggested that research beyond economic impacts and motivations were very few. studies highlighted the need for a research agenda to consider all three aspects of economic, social and environmental aspects (kyungmi & uysal, 2003; gursoy, kim & uysal, 2004) the louisiana seafood festival the louisiana seafood festival was selected as the festival to investigate. the louisiana seafood festival is a celebration of all the fresh and flavorful seafood from the state of louisiana. the seafood highlighted at the festival include crab, shrimp, oyster, alligator, crawfish and all fin fish. the festival was founded in 2007 and is eight years old. in the past, the dates for the festival fluctuated during the fall months of september and october. in 2015, the festival locked in the labor day weekend dates for three years. along with the fluctuation of dates, the venue for the festival has also fluctuated. each year the venue grew larger to accommodate the growing number of patrons. since 2014, the festival has taken place in the new orleans city park fairgrounds, one of the largest festival venues in the city. the three-day festival offers the following activities/events: three days of live music, celebrity chef cooking demonstrations, a beer garden featuring a wide selection of craft beers, a kid’s tent featuring seafood-themed activities, an arts village, and food and beverage vendors. admission for the festival is free; however, patrons purchase food and beverage items as well as arts and crafts. methodology questionnaire design representatives of the louisiana hospitality foundation (lhf), the producer of the louisiana seafood festival (lsf), contracted with the hospitality research center (hrc) at the university of new orleans (uno) for the purpose of providing information about attendees to the 2015 lsf festival. the questionnaire was adapted from a visitor profile survey developed and used by the hrc in prior studies (chacko & marcell, 2007, roussel, 2009, jainchill, 2013). representatives from hrc, with input from lhf, designed the questionnaire to be administered during the event. the questionnaire consisted of 30 questions. fifteen questions addressed the festival event characteristics, eleven questions addressed visitor attendees travel characteristics, and four questions addressed demographics. data collection and analysis a team of surveyors trained in data collection administered the surveys during the festival weekend, september 4-september 6, 2015 via on-site intercept. a total of 600 completed surveys were obtained. the completed questionnaires were forwarded to hrc for https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ javascript:__dolinkpostback('','ss~~ar%20%22slabbert%2c%20elmarie%22%7c%7csl~~rl',''); javascript:__dolinkpostback('','ss~~ar%20%22viviers%2c%20pierre-andre%22%7c%7csl~~rl',''); javascript:__dolinkpostback('','ss~~ar%20%22kyungmi%20kim%22%7c%7csl~~rl',''); javascript:__dolinkpostback('','ss~~ar%20%22uysal%2c%20muzaffer%22%7c%7csl~~rl',''); green, y. n. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 35-45. 38 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 35-45, doi: 10.18060/22785 copyright © 2018 yvette n. green this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. data entry and editing. the hrc analyzed the data using statistical software, results were tabulated and a frequency analysis conducted. information provided by respondents relative to their experience at the festival (sociological/cultural festival impacts) and demographic characteristics were summarized using simple statistics. responses to open-ended questions were categorized by hand and then organized based upon the most frequent themes that emerged from visitors’ comments. these data collection and analysis methods were successfully used in other festival research studies (shani et al., 2009; mcdowall et al., 2014) the visitor profile provides information presenting the results from each question included in the survey. in some tables, totals may not add up due to rounding. lhf representatives provided 56,000 attendees as the attendance figure of the event, which was used in the visitor profile. results and discussion travel characteristics most of the louisiana seafood festival (lsf) attendees were residents of the new orleans metro area (73.8%). the majority of local attendees to the festival came from orleans parish (54.8%) and the second largest set of local attendees came from jefferson parish (37.4%). louisiana (outside the new orleans metro area) was the top state of residence for out-of-town visitors to the festival (14.8%). the remaining top states of residence included texas (13.4%), florida (9.4%), mississippi (9.4%), and georgia (7.4%). table 1 shows the parish of residence for the local attendees. table 1. parish of residency for local residents response percentage 2015 orleans parish jefferson parish 54.8 37.4 st. tammany parish 4.4 st. charles parish 1.1 st. john the baptist parish 1.1 st. bernard parish plaquemines parish 0.7 0.5 total 100.0 valid cases 436 the majority (84.6%) of out-of-town louisiana seafood festival visitors stayed overnight in the new orleans area. visitors who stayed overnight in new orleans spent an average of 3.5 nights in the area. over half (57.3%) of the overnight visitors stayed in hotels, while a smaller portion stayed with friends or relatives (25.8%). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ green, y. n. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 35-45. 39 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 35-45, doi: 10.18060/22785 copyright © 2018 yvette n. green this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. the average room rate for visitors staying in a hotel was $149 per night. the majority (66.7%) of overnight visitors who stayed in hotels reported having two people per room. most of the overnight visitors who stayed in a hotel reported that their party occupied only one room (83.6%). more than half (58.8%) of the out-of-town visitors drove to new orleans. another 40.5% chose to fly into the city. 23.6% of the visitors who were in new orleans to attend the louisiana seafood festival while the majority came to the city for other vacation or pleasure purposes (63.5%). visitors spent an average of $651 during their trip to new orleans. the largest spending category was for meals ($228) followed by lodging ($129). table 2 shows average individual visitor trip expenditures. table 2. average individual visitor trip expenditures response 2015 restaurants/meals $228 bars/nightclubs $95 recreation/entertainment $63 shopping $72 local transportation $44 gambling $21 lodging $129 total $651 the louisiana seafood festival can be characterized as a “locals” festival as the majority of visitors lived in the new orleans area (orleans and jefferson parishes). out of town visitors included other parts of louisiana, texas, florida, mississippi and georgia. while 23% traveled specifically for the louisiana seafood festival, the majority of visitors (63.5%) were in town for other vacation/pleasure activities. the majority of out of town visitors stayed on average 3.5 nights in the new orleans area. most stayed at a hotel spending on average $149 in room rate costs. out of town festival attendees spent an average of $651 in all the hospitality and tourism sectors including hotels, restaurants, bars/nightclubs, gaming, shopping, and local transportation – restaurants received the highest expenditures. if extrapolated outward, this type of spending could have a significant economic impact on the local community. event characteristics over half (68.7%) of the respondents attended the festival for the first time during 2015. the average number of prior visits to the event was 2.5. the majority (77.3%) of the repeat visitors had attended the event between one and three times in the past. most individuals attended the event in parties of two or three people (63.9%). the majority of festival attendees https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ green, y. n. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 35-45. 40 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 35-45, doi: 10.18060/22785 copyright © 2018 yvette n. green this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. did not bring any children with them to the event (72.5%). of those who brought children to the event, about half (49.3%) had one child. table 3 shows the number of prior visits. table 3. number of prior visits response percentage 2015 one time 33.0 two times 28.1 three times 16.2 four times 10.8 five times or more total 11.8 100 average no. of times 2.5 valid cases 185 attendees spent an average of 1.3 days at the festival. the majority (75.5%) of attendees spent one day at the louisiana seafood festival. the highest proportion (60.6%) of attendees spent $50 or less for the day at the festival. the average daily spending for all attendees was $59. food and drinks (73.6%) was the top-rated aspect of the louisiana seafood festival followed by music (28.6%) and atmosphere (9.3%). table 4 shows the patrons expenditures at the event. table 5 shows the patrons favorite aspect of the festival. table 4. patrons expenditures at the event response percentage 2015 $50 or less 60.6 $51 $100 32.8 $101 $200 6.1 $201 and above 0.5 total 100.0 average expenditure $59 valid cases 594 table 5. patrons favorite aspect of the festival response percent of cases 2015 food/drinks 73.6 music 28.6 atmosphere 9.3 free 6.6 location 3.4 people 3.0 family friendly 1.3 other 7.4 total* 133.2 n 791 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ green, y. n. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 35-45. 41 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 35-45, doi: 10.18060/22785 copyright © 2018 yvette n. green this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. word of mouth (36.1%) was the top source of information for festival attendees followed by the website (26.6%) and tv (11.7%). the top sponsors of the louisiana seafood festival recognized by attendees were drago’s (32.9%), state farm (25.3%), and bud light (20.7%). table 6 shows the sources of information for attendees. table 6. sources of information response percent of cases 2015 word of mouth 36.1 website 26.6 tv 11.7 previous visits 9.8 newspaper 9.0 radio 6.1 tourism publicity 5.3 social media 3.6 other 14.9 total* n 123.1 726 *total equals more than 100% due to multiple responses respondents indicated their likelihood to recommend the louisiana seafood festival to other people using a ten point scale (0=not at all likely; 10=extremely likely). the average likelihood to recommend the event was 9.3, while the median was 10. when the results of likelihood to recommend were analyzed using the net promoter score (nps) model, a customer loyalty metric, the louisiana seafood festival had a score of 72.1%. scores of 50% and above are considered to be satisfactory. the majority of festival attendees reported they would return to the festival next year (88.4%). table 7 shows the likelihood to recommend the louisiana seafood festival. table 7. likelihood to recommend the louisiana seafood festival response percentage 2015 promoters (rating 9 to 10) 76.3 passive (rating 7 to 8) 19.6 detractors (rating 0 to 6) 4.2 total 100.0 net promoter score 72.1% average rate median rate 9.3 10.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ green, y. n. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 35-45. 42 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 35-45, doi: 10.18060/22785 copyright © 2018 yvette n. green this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. the visitors to the louisiana seafood festival appeared to be very satisfied with the festival and its event characteristics. the louisiana seafood festival received a net promoter score of 72.1% which is extremely satisfactory in customer loyalty. of the repeat visitors to the festival, the average number of prior visits to the event was 2.5. the majority (77.3%) of the repeat visitors had attended the event between one and three times in the past. the majority of all festival visitors (88.4%) would attend again next year. the louisiana seafood festival is developing a following of repeat attendees. it appears both new and repeat visitors are satisfied with the festival. food/drinks and music were the top two rated aspects of the festival. on average, attendees spent $59 at the festival. louisiana seafood is the highlight of this festival, and this natural resource comes in the form of shrimp, crawfish, oyster, crab, finfish, and alligator. attendees purchased specially crafted food items from restaurant vendors using louisiana seafood as well as beverages and retail items such as arts and crafts. the music entertainment secured for the festival were well-known local bands. since food/drinks and music are the mainstay for the festival, maintaining the current number of restaurant vendors or increasing the number of vendors along with increasing the number of bands or length of performance time of the bands would maintain the high level of customer loyalty to the festival. when looking at the recognizable sponsors and the sources of information for attendees, the largest recognizable sponsor was, drago’s, a local well-known restaurant, followed by state farm and bud light, both nationally recognized companies. word of mouth was the largest source of information followed by the website. in new orleans, there is a large food culture. thus, there is the potential to capitalize on other well-known restaurants as sponsors as well as other large beverage brands. advertising in restaurants who are sponsors and/or vendors would increase the word of mouth source of information. as social media continues to become prevalent, engaging in a social media campaign may also attract attendees. starting social media pages such as instagram and facebook for the festival, then advertising the event and providing exclusive discounts available through social media will increase awareness and attendance. finally, linking the social media to the festival website will bring the grassroots advertising full circle. demographics almost a third (31.7%) of respondents had a household annual income of over $100,000. the majority of respondents who attended the festival were white (64.9%), while a smaller proportion was black (28.7%). over half of the respondents were between the ages of 25 and 49 years old (58.8%), and more than half of the respondents who participated in the survey were female (57.5%). a large portion of the attendees has income over $100,000, which means the potential for large discretionary income. the attendees are split between females and males leaning more towards females and between the ages of 25 and 50. this demographic means that there is the possibility of families. only a small percentage of attendees brought children (27.5%) to the festival, and those who brought children on average brought two children with them. there is potential to attract more families with children to the event. increasing dedicated family-friendly activities would increase the attendance of families. increased family attendance would result in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ green, y. n. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 35-45. 43 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 35-45, doi: 10.18060/22785 copyright © 2018 yvette n. green this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. increased retail, food and beverage sales. this spike in income would have an impact on the financial success of the festival. other festival issues one challenge faced by the louisiana seafood festival is the fluctuation of the annual date and venue location for the event. as the festival grew, organizers had to locate a venue to accommodate the increased number of attendees as well as find an ideal date to avoid conflict with other festivals and events in the city. having an annual date and dedicated venue would allow advanced planning for the festival organizers and the festival visitors alike. the festival organizers will be able to secure additional sponsorship, vendors, and advertising because the date and venue are set versus fluctuating. the festival attendee will be able to plan by adding a trip to the festival onto an established vacation, or other pleasure trips into the city of new orleans. conclusion and implications in conclusion, the 2015 louisiana seafood festival attracted nearly 56,000 attendees and made a valuable contribution to the new orleans metro area economy. the study provided noteworthy implications for both industry festival event organizers and academics alike. the practical implications for festival organizers are timely. advertising and partnerships are crucial for festival attendance. understanding the attendee make up will allow for new programming which is vital to the success of the event. from the academic standpoint, adding new research on event characteristics and attendee travel characteristics for the festival is beneficial to the great discussion of impacts of festivals on a community. based on the results and discussion of the study, the following are recommendations for the lsf event organizers: 1) develop a two-pronged approach to advertising the festival which encompasses local and out of town advertising. develop partnerships with entities such as marketing boards and cvbs to advertise the festival. 2) select a dedicated date and venue for the festival. a dedicated date and venue will provide continuity and allow the organizers and attendees to plan for the festival. 3) increase number of restaurant sponsorships and vendors. advertise within these establishments to increase word of mouth about the festival. 4) start instagram and facebook pages for the festival, providing exclusive festival discounts available through social media. link the social media to the festival website to capitalize on the website usage. 5) increase the dedicated family and children friendly activities to increase the attendance of families. the aforementioned recommendations provide tangible practical implications for the festival organizers. these recommendations, if instituted, may have a positive impact on the overall success of the event. the visitor profile from the 2015 louisiana seafood festival provided the event organizers with valuable information on visitor characteristics, event characteristics, and visitor spending. the event organizers can use the visitor profile for target https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ green, y. n. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 35-45. 44 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 35-45, doi: 10.18060/22785 copyright © 2018 yvette n. green this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. marketing and advertising efforts to attract more patrons to the festival. the festival management academic community will also benefit from this study. focusing on the visitor profile of a festival provides a new dimension in the festival research literature. the results of this study are limited to the 2015 louisiana seafood festival. however, such research provides the opportunity for future investigation. future research may include examining the economic impact of the festival on the local community. studying the festival longitudinally to examine trends in visitor profile, economic impact, and changes in festival organization and delivery of the festival are also opportunities for future research. the current study along with future research opportunities will provide valuable information for the festival management research body of literature. references andereck, k. l., valentine, k.m., knopf, r. c., & vogt, c. a., (2005). residents’ perceptions of community tourism impacts, annals of tourism research, 32 (4), 1056-1076. chacko, h., & marcell, m. 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(2009). assessing the viability of repeat visitors to cultural events: evidence from the zora! festival. journal of convention & event tourism.10 (2), 89-104. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ javascript:__dolinkpostback('','ss~~ar%20%22kyungmi%20kim%22%7c%7csl~~rl',''); javascript:__dolinkpostback('','ss~~ar%20%22uysal%2c%20muzaffer%22%7c%7csl~~rl',''); javascript:__dolinkpostback('','mdb~~hjh%7c%7cjdb~~hjhjnh%7c%7css~~jn%20%22journal%20of%20hospitality%20%26%20leisure%20marketing%22%7c%7csl~~jh',''); green, y. n. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 35-45. 45 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 35-45, doi: 10.18060/22785 copyright © 2018 yvette n. green this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. slabbert, e., & viviers, p. (2011). residents’ perceptions of the impacts of a major arts festival in south africa, tourism & management studies, 2(1), 1109-1113. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ javascript:__dolinkpostback('','ss~~ar%20%22slabbert%2c%20elmarie%22%7c%7csl~~rl',''); javascript:__dolinkpostback('','ss~~ar%20%22viviers%2c%20pierre-andre%22%7c%7csl~~rl',''); javascript:__dolinkpostback('','mdb~~hjh%7c%7cjdb~~hjhjnh%7c%7css~~jn%20%22tourism%20%26%20management%20studies%22%7c%7csl~~jh',''); events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 49-57, doi: 10.18060/22935 copyright © 2019 nichole hugo & daniel plunkett. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribuion 4.0 international license. events and tourism review volume 2 no. 1 sustainable practices in the bed and breakfast industry nichole hugo eastern illinois university daniel plunkett university of wisconsin la crosse for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation hugo, n., & plunkett, d. (2019). sustainable practices in the bed and breakfast industry. events and tourism review, 2(1), 49-57. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr hugo, n., & plunkett, d. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 49-57. 50 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 49-57, doi: 10.18060/22935 copyright © 2019 nichole hugo & daniel plunkett. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract the trend of moving towards more environmentally friendly and community-based operations to showcase corporate social responsibility and improve public image has been found within the hotel industry. however, research within the bed and breakfast (b&b) industry on this subject is lacking in the u.s., making it unclear if this sector of the lodging industry is aware of the implementation of such practices. this study utilized an online questionnaire to participants of a midwest b&b conference in order to better understand what sustainable practices their establishments have implemented and the barriers that are keeping them from future implementation. keywords: bed and breakfast; lodging; local food; environmental practices; sustainability introduction studies have found that hotels with certifications associated with sustainability (such as iso 14001 and leed) earn more revenue than hotels which were not certified (segarra-oña, peiró-signes, & verma, 2011; walsman, verma, & muthulingam 2014). international organization of standardization (iso) 14001 is the 2015 version of standards for environmental auditing and performance evaluation, environmental labeling, and life-cycle assessment from geneva switzerland (environmental protection agency, 2017). originating in the u.s., the leadership in energy and environmental design (leed) certification provides independent verification of buildings utilizing sustainable practices and is the most widely used green building rating system in the world (u.s. green building council, 2018). there are over 400 leed certified hotels around the world, with over 1,600 more hotels in the process of becoming certified (neagle, 2016). while this demonstrates a move towards hotels adopting more sustainable principles, it is unclear if b&b operators are keeping up with this trend due to limited research on this subject. the purpose of this study is to focus on what sustainable practices have been implemented at b&b establishments, motivations for sustainable business practices and community connectedness, and barriers to implementing sustainable practices. literature review very few studies have focused on the b&b industry; those with the b&b focus have primarily taken place outside of the u.s. or focused on aspects which were not related to sustainability. previous studies examining connections between b&bs and sustainable initiatives have examined visitor motivations (chen, lin, & kuo, 2013) and motivations or barriers to owners implementing sustainable practices. the studies which focused on motivations and barriers for b&b business owners to engage in sustainable tourism practices took place in australia (carlsen, getz, & ali-knight, 2001) and canada (van haastert & de grosbois, 2010; dodds & holmes, 2011), which limits the scope of the generalizability to b&bs globally. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hugo, n., & plunkett, d. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 49-57. 51 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 49-57, doi: 10.18060/22935 copyright © 2019 nichole hugo & daniel plunkett. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. overall, barriers to implementing sustainable practices by b&b owners were primarily budgetary constraints, followed by a lack of understanding and awareness of sustainable practices by owners, poor return on investment, perception that it conflicts with the values of customers, lack of access, and human resources (van haastert & de grosbois, 2010; dodds & holmes, 2011). based on these findings it appears that the expectancy-value theory of motivation may be driving b&b owners’ decisions to implement sustainable practices. in vroom’s (1964) expectancy model, motivation represents the psychological need to pursue a goal state. expectancy denotes the extent to which one believes an act will be followed by some outcome (feather, 1990). what someone does in a given situation may be based on their expectations and the subsequent perceived value of the outcomes (feather, 1982). in the case of b&b owners, their motivation to implement sustainable practices may be linked to their expectations that implementing those practice will result in added value to the customers and a return on investment. recommendations from outside of the academic literature include an article from the little hotelier resource hub (2018), a website used to provide resources for small property owners, outlining the benefits of b&bs registering for a sustainability label, including improvement of brand image and increased profits. this demonstrates the importance of communicating information regarding the encouragement of implementing sustainable practices, particularly targeting b&b owners, in order to improve economic aspects of business operations. a study, which took place in new zealand, researched the connection between b&bs and local food producers (nummedal & hall, 2006). this study focused on b&b owners and their perceptions of what customers value in food tourism and how the establishments utilized local produce. the results indicated that a majority of the businesses surveyed purchased at least half of their food from local producers and they felt it supported local economic linkages and had broader regional economic benefits. issues with buying locally included availability and reliability of produce, but that many operators were interested in increasing the amount of food they buy locally. research regarding sustainability related to a broader scope of the lodging industry, primarily within the hotel sector, found that customers are generally willing to participate in sustainability programs, but they are still primarily focused on price and convenience when selecting a hotel (bruns-smith, choy, chong, & verma, 2015; ogbeide, 2012; singh & ogbeide, 2018). however, hotels that have implemented green practices have found a positive relationship between guests’ satisfaction and the intention to return to the establishment (berezan, raab, yoo, & love, 2013). due to the limited research focusing on sustainability in the b&b industry, this study strives to advance the exploration of this area, by demonstrating a need for more research to fill the current gap in the literature and by beginning to explore practices currently being implemented in wisconsin. methodology an exploratory case study was used to explore the aspects of sustainability within the b&b sector by surveying b&b owners and managers attending an industry conference. the survey instrument for this study was developed based on questionnaires used from previous studies, including academic and practitioner surveys. questions regarding the importance of food https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hugo, n., & plunkett, d. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 49-57. 52 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 49-57, doi: 10.18060/22935 copyright © 2019 nichole hugo & daniel plunkett. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. sourcing and the perception of values of customer related to food were adopted from nummedal and hall’s (2006) study on food tourism in the b&b sector. questions were also used from a study by dodds and holmes (2011) regarding the sustainable practices implemented at a b&b. the questionnaire was reviewed by an innkeeper and b&b conference organizer to ensure questions asked were relevant to the sector. upon review, it was advised that participants be asked about whether or not they were travel green certified through the state tourism office instead of leed or green globe certified, as participants would be more familiar with this sustainability certification program. travel green is an organization in wisconsin that encourages tourism businesses to implement environmentally friendly business practices. prospective applicants who wish to become certified through travel green must earn a minimum of 35 points in nine categories of sustainability, in addition to paying a modest fee. in return, travel green will promote the business on their website where it categorizes businesses based on industry to make it easier for customers to identify tourism businesses that engage in sustainable practices. participants of the wisconsin bed & breakfast association conference and tradeshow held in december 2018 were emailed a questionnaire following the conference. questions were asked regarding sustainable practices they implemented at their establishments, motivations for implementing these practices, and barriers to implementing practices in the future. result and discussion of the 80 conference participants that were asked to take part in the survey, 36 (45%) completed the questionnaire. of the 36, twenty-eight indicated they were a b&b innkeeper. participants ranged in age from 46-86 (m = 60.1, sd = 8.80), were primarily female (70.4%), and have been a b&b innkeeper anywhere from one to 32 years (m = 11.63, sd = 9.43). at the time of the study 121 b&bs were listed online in wisconsin, which shows that a majority of the b&b innkeepers in the state were in attendance at the conference to provide their input (wisconsin bed and breakfasts, 2018). most b&b innkeepers indicated their implementation of recycling (93%), low energy light bulbs (93%), and purchasing locally grown produce (93%). these responses were followed by using energy efficient appliances (86%), using environmentally friendly products (79%), and buying products made from recycled materials (68%). none of the establishments use renewable energy sources (see table 1). table 1. sustainable practices implemented at b&b sustainable practice (n=28) n percentage recycling 26 93% low energy light bulbs 26 93% purchasing locally grown produce 26 93% energy efficient appliances 24 86% environmentally friendly cleaning products 22 79% buying products made from recycled materials 19 68% https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hugo, n., & plunkett, d. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 49-57. 53 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 49-57, doi: 10.18060/22935 copyright © 2019 nichole hugo & daniel plunkett. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. towel/linen reuse policy 16 57% signage to remind customers of sustainable practices (turn off lights, reuse towels, etc.) 10 36% low flow water faucets 8 29% dual flow toilets 7 25% rainwater harvesting 4 14% renewable energy sources (such as solar panels) 0 0% as indicated in table 2, cost (43%) was the most common reason for b&b innkeepers not to implement sustainable practices at their establishment. this was followed by a lack of knowledge (21%), lack of choices (18%), and lack of quality (18%). other reasons for not implementing practices included the lack of time (n = 2) and not wanting to disrupt the customer experience (n = 2). table 2. preventing the implementation of more sustainable practices at b&b sustainable practice prevention (n=26) n percentage cost 12 43% other 12 43% lack of knowledge 6 21% lack of choices 5 18% lack of quality 5 18% participants were asked to rate to what extent they agree (1=strongly disagree, 5=strongly agree) with sustainability and the implementation of various sustainable practices at their b&b, related to both environmentally and societal (community connectedness) sustainability. table 3 presents participant responses ranked by mean. 96.2 percent of participants strongly agreed that they promote local attractions and facilities to customers. responses also indicated a consensus that implementing practices to protect the environment are a priority. while the majority of participants were in agreement that they are implementing sustainable practices related to protecting the environment and providing various types of support throughout the local community, few indicated openly marketing or communicating those practices to customers. while 27% of participants strongly agree that they believe their customers value establishments that implement sustainable practices, communication and marketing of these practices is lacking. only 7.7% of participants indicated they strongly agree that information about their sustainable practices are clearly conveyed to customers at their establishment, and only 3.8% of participants indicated they strongly agree that their sustainable practices are well marketed. participants indicated their perceptions regarding how important they thought foodrelated factors were to their customers (see table 4). unanimously, 100% of participants indicated that the quality of food was very important. regarding all food-related factors, 84.6% of all participants or more indicted each food-related factor was at least somewhat important or very important. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hugo, n., & plunkett, d. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 49-57. 54 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 49-57, doi: 10.18060/22935 copyright © 2019 nichole hugo & daniel plunkett. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. table 3. attitudes and implementation of sustainable practices sustainable practices (n=26) mean i promote local attractions and facilities to customers 4.96 it is important to implement sustainable practice to protect the environment 4.62 i try to limit the amount of waste produced by my business 4.62 our establishment is actively engaged in the community 4.46 seasonal food products are primarily bought when they are in season 4.46 materials (non-food products) are primarily bought from local vendors 4.23 customers value establishments that implement sustainable practices 4.12 food products are primarily bought from local vendors 3.62 i promote the use of public transportation to customers 3.35 sustainable practice at our establishment are well marketed 3.12 information about our sustainable practices is clearly conveyed to our customers at our establishment 3.12 table 4. perceived importance of food-related factors for customers food related factors (n=26) mean quality of food 5.00 quality of food service 4.92 value for money (stay cost) 4.69 offers regional local dishes 4.19 food bought from local producers 4.12 last, and as indicated previously, participants were asked if they were ‘travel green’ certified by the state tourism office (instead of leed or green global). of the 26 respondents, 30.8% said they were travel green certified. reasons for not being certified were mixed (see table 5). table 5. reasons for not being travel green certified reason frequency lack of knowledgeable about the program 4 it is too time-consuming to become certified 5 it would not provide a strong benefit to my business 5 other 5 conclusion and implications this study shows that b&b many innkeepers are actively engaged in promoting local attractions and facilities to their customers and overall are engaged in their community. many https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hugo, n., & plunkett, d. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 49-57. 55 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 49-57, doi: 10.18060/22935 copyright © 2019 nichole hugo & daniel plunkett. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. also believe it is important to implement sustainable practices to protect the environment and strive to limit the amount of waste they produce. however, the use of renewable energy sources was not among the practices participants had implemented. this could certainly be due to perceptions of cost, or knowledge of their options. it could also be related to perceptions of customer value. it takes time and resources to implement these changes. future research could look into barriers to adopt renewable energy sources. communication of sustainable practices could also to be improved. composting is very popular among participants, with 73% participating in some form of composting, but most do not advertise this information to their customers. this is particularly interesting since only 5.3 percent of food is reported to be composted in the u.s. (epa, 2015), indicating that b&b owners and managers in wisconsin who participate in composting practices are well above the national average. participants seemed to indicate that promotion of sustainable practices through efforts such as signs around the b&b would degrade the experience their customers desire. prior research on hotels has provided evidence that customers value the implementation of sustainable practices, and may even be willing to pay more to stay at a hotel that is marketing their green practices (kang, stein, heo, & lee, 2012), and would be willing to put up with minor inconveniences associated with implemented sustainable practices (kim & han, 2010). however, the findings here suggest b&b customers may not see that same value, or it may not be known to innkeepers that this is a desired amenity. recommendations would be for b&b owners to identify community-related sustainable groups that could assist in marketing their establishment as being more environmentally friendly or actively engaged in societal sustainability and community connectedness. for example, travel green is an organization that assists tourism businesses in wisconsin by promoting businesses that become certified. however, this type of organization is not isolated to just helping b&bs and could be a tool utilized by multiple types of tourism businesses. the organization of resources by country or state available to assist b&bs, as well as similar tourism businesses, would make it easier for the industry to find information and promote their sustainable practices. future research should also look into the extent that b&b customers value sustainable practices while traveling. would they give greater consideration to a b&b that markets the use of sustainable practices? the participants unanimously agreed that food quality is important to customers, but that they place less importance on regional dishes and locally purchased food. there is fairly strong support for using locally produced food and willingness to increase the use of it. they see value beyond just supporting the producer, but may need to know more on the customer end. overall they think customers like locally produced food, but it is not seen as their top priority. it seems like b&b innkeepers definitely see the value of sustainable practices along with their hotel counterparts. from a management perspective, it appears that there is a willingness to ‘do more’ to be more sustainable. nevertheless, like hotels and other hospitality and tourism sectors, it’s a customer-driven business. b&b innkeepers might need to see more interest from consumers before making too many additional changes. the focus of the participants was on the overall experience of the customer and what best serves them. further research on the customer end might help innkeepers see the customer-driven value they are looking for if it exists. references https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hugo, n., & plunkett, d. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 49-57. 56 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 49-57, doi: 10.18060/22935 copyright © 2019 nichole hugo & daniel plunkett. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. berezan, o., raab, c., yoo, m., & love, c. (2013). sustainable hotel practices and nationality: the impact on guest satisfaction and guest intention to return. international journal of hospitality management, 34, 227-233. bruns-smith, a., choy, v., chong, h., & verma, r. (2015). environmental sustainability in the hospitality industry: best practices, guest participation, and customer satisfaction. cornell hospitality report, 15(3), 6-16. carlsen, j., getz, d., & ali-knight, j. (2001). the environmental attitudes and practices of family businesses in the rural tourism and hospitality sectors. journal of sustainable tourism, 9(4), 281-297 chen, l. c., lin, s. p., & kuo, c. m. 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(2018). wisconsin. bed and breakfast. retrieved from https://www.bedandbreakfast.com/wisconsin.html https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://www.bedandbreakfast.com/wisconsin.html events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 4 -12, doi: 10.18060/22833 copyright © 2018 jonathon day. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribuion 4.0 international license. events and tourism review volume 1 no. 1 challenges for mice sustainability: complexity and changing adaptative systems jonathon day purdue university for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation day, j. (2018). challenges for mice sustainability: complexity and changing adaptative systems. events and tourism review, 1(1), 4-12. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr day, j. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 4 -12. 5 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 4-12, doi: 10.18060/22833 copyright © 2018 jonathan day this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract the meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions (mice) sector has been a leader in the adoption of sustainability practices but challenges remain. this paper addresses several of the challenges facing mice as it works to become more sustainable. the paper examines the complexity of operationalizing sustainability in a way that supports ongoing performance management. the paper also outlines the usefulness of systems thinking when considering mice, a complex, adaptive system (cas), and examines the implications of this approach when seeking to support change toward sustainability in both components of the system and in the system as a whole. keywords: sustainability, systems thinking, meetings and events, complexity introduction the world faces a range of significant challenges, and sustainability is one of the great issues of the twenty-first century. the meetings, incentives, conventions, and exhibitions (mice) sector has been a leader in responding to the challenges of sustainability, but much work remains to be done (park & boo, 2010). ensuring the mice sector is sustainable is of concern to a broad range of stakeholders. within the mice sector sustainability is a high priority for companies with the mice supply-chain and other key stake-holder groups (mykletun, bartkeviciute, & puchkova, 2014). consumers are also concerned about the sustainability of meetings. a recent global study of millennials (fenich, scott-halsell, ogbeide, & hashimoto, 2014) showed a concern for sustainability and that sentiment is held by other components of the market (leibowitz, 2018 ). understanding the factors associated with changing a complex, dynamic, adaptive system like the mice sector is an important starting point for improving sustainability performance. the purpose of this article is to highlight both the complexity of operationalizing sustainability in the mice sector and need for systems approaches to improve the sustainability of the sector. defining and operationalizing sustainability one of the first challenges in addressing sustainability is determining a meaningful definition of the term. while “sustainability” has been criticized as a meaningless jargon term by some in the popular press (adage, 2010; lammers, 2011), there is a growing consensus in research that definitions of sustainability incorporate a strategic perspective (wced, 1987) and an optimizing of the often competing priorities of the triple bottom line (tbl) (elkington, 1997). the tbl is a commonly applied heuristic for considering the trade-offs in development. it borrows the concept of the “profit and loss” sheet from accounting and proposes that development should consider the net impacts – positives less negatives – of actions from three perspectives: environment, economy, and social/human. there is a growing awareness of the https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ day, j. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 4 -12. 6 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 4-12, doi: 10.18060/22833 copyright © 2018 jonathan day this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. trade-offs required to achieve goals within each of these domains (lu & nepal, 2009) and recognition that stakeholders, even those committed to sustainability, may hold different opinions on what constitute reasonable balances in the tbl. while this general definition of sustainability may be conceptually easy to grasp, the operationalization and performance management of sustainability, specifically in tourism and the meetings sector, requires the management of a variety of actions. performance management of sustainability is complex (day, 2016) for a number of reasons including the number of possible actions required, the varying processes for prioritizing actions and the number of actors in the process. each of the domains of sustainability performance – environmental, social, and economic – require actions to be undertaken and for their performance to be managed over time. an important field of study in sustainability, including sustainability in tourism and in the mice sector specifically, has focused on what should be done (criteria) and how it should be measured (indicators). the range of activities is considerable. for example, the global reporting initiative (gri), a framework for businesses to report their sustainability efforts used by many hotel companies, identifies 46 aspects in the three broad categories of the tbl that must be measured and managed (gri, 2013). the global sustainable tourism council (gstc) hotel guidance includes 26 criteria and 168 indicators (gstc, 2016). destinations, the locations in which mice take place, face similarly comprehensive sets of actions and performance indicators. although there remains continuing discussion and refinement of the criteria and indicators (measuring sustainable tourism: a call to action, 2017), there appears to be increasing consensus on a core set of activities common to most guidelines. a factor that adds to the complexity of implementing sustainability programs is that, while a common set of indicators are emerging, the salience of the indicators to a specific business or location is contingent on a variety of factors. as such, there is variation between businesses and other entities as to which activities they will undertake to achieve their sustainability goals. in the meetings and events sector, while some research has addressed a tbl approach to event sustainability (andersson & lundberg, 2013), much attention has focused on environmental sustainability (boggia, massei, paolotti, rocchi, & schiavi, 2018). for example, the accepted practices exchange (apex) green meeting standards focus on environmental issues. the priorities of different types of stakeholders must also be considered in the operationalization of sustainability programs across the mice sector. the apex green meeting standards recognize the contribution of different actors to the system and provide specific guidance to a variety of types of organizations including destination marketing organizations/local government (destinations), exhibits, transportation, audio visual production, onsite offices, venues, and food and beverage (astm, 2012). each of these types of businesses, even those strongly committed to sustainability, will have unique perspectives on the action they should take and the ways they should manage their efforts. as becomes quickly apparent, the complexity of sustainability in the mice sector can quickly become overwhelming. researchers have only begun to address the challenges of sustainable tourism performance measurement and management. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ day, j. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 4 -12. 7 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 4-12, doi: 10.18060/22833 copyright © 2018 jonathan day this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. it is important to note that considerable effort has been invested in considering what needs to be done while less attention has been paid to how it will be done. the challenge of changing the mice sector in ways that improve its sustainability can be illuminated by understanding the networked system nature of mice and exploring the mechanisms for system change. systems thinking for sustainability significant progress toward sustainability can be made by addressing elements of the mice sector. addressing the actions of specific players in the sector, whether they are convention centers or hotels, consumers or meeting planners, has contributed to our ability to achieve sustainability goals. similarly, focusing on specific issues, such as energy conservation, and components of environmental management, contributes to understanding. nevertheless, focusing on elements of a sector overlooks the value of understanding the sector as a whole. there is growing recognition that taking a broader, more holistic perspective provides an important view of the challenges (baggio, 2013; holmes, hughes, mair, & carlsen, 2015), and an effective paradigm for this sort of analysis is systems thinking. “systems thinking is a discipline for seeing wholes. it is framework for seeing interrelationships rather than things, for seeing patterns of change rather than static snapshots” (senge, 1990, p. 68). senge (1990) argues that systems thinking can avoid being overwhelmed by complexity. while tourism is often described as an industry, there is general agreement in research that it can best be described as a system (baggio, 2014; morrison, lehto, & day, 2018) or network (volgger & pechlaner, 2015). these terms – systems and networks – are used somewhat interchangeably. in describing tourism as a system, it is most accurate to describe it as a complex adaptive system (cas) (farrell & twining-ward, 2005). the system is complex because it is comprised of a large number of independent elements and adaptive because it changes in response to inputs from both within and outside the system (day, 2016). cass are common and take many forms. an ecosystem is a complex adaptive system, and it is interesting to note we are seeing the term “ecosystem” coopted to describe business systems. for instance, a reference to the growth of an entrepreneurial ecosystem (boutillier, 2016; o'connor, stam, sussan, & audretsch, 2018) describes the many companies that may contribute to entrepreneurial growth in a specific region. although there is a growing body of work addressing systems and networks in tourism, there is less research focusing on the mice sector as a cas. like tourism as a whole, the mice system is a complex, adaptive system. the relationship between the tourism system as a whole and the mice system illustrates important characteristics of systems. systems may overlap, such as tourism and mice, which share some elements; systems may be comprised of subsystems or embedded systems. broadly speaking, each part of the mice sector – meetings, incentives, conventions, and exhibitions – is a cas. the system of businesses focused around and or supplying to a convention center is a subsystem or embedded system within the larger destination system. the mice system and the tourism system are embedded in larger social, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ day, j. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 4 -12. 8 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 4-12, doi: 10.18060/22833 copyright © 2018 jonathan day this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. environmental, and economic systems. recognizing these relationships is important because each system or subsystem has unique characteristics and may respond in different ways to interventions to improve sustainability. three further insights from systems thinking are instructive when considering improving sustainability. first, the mice system is open; it is influenced and influences things external to the system. changes in society or the environment have significant influence on the system and should be considered as plans are developed to improve sustainability. second, the mice system is dynamic; it is constantly changing and adapting. as noted previously, a system adapts to external changes such as new technology or changes in consumer preferences. recognizing that strategies that address the dynamic, adaptive nature of the mice system must be able to evolve with the system is important. finally, relationships in systems are complex and changes may impact the system or system components in unpredictable ways or generate unanticipated results. monitoring direct and indirect impacts of decisions is necessary to make informed choices. a systems approach to mice does not preclude analysis of the components of the system. indeed, considering varying levels within the system can provide critical insights. at one level, the system is comprised of individuals and their behavior, whether within a business or organization or as consumers contributing to the sustainability of the system. at a higher level, the role of businesses and their engagement with corporate social responsibility can be addressed. at a higher level – performance of a system or a subsystem – such an industry sector or a destination can be assessed. examining actions at different levels can highlight incongruencies between actors in the system. for example, a company may introduce a linen reuse program that conserves energy and reduces water waste (environmental goals) while at the same time reducing costs (economic goal). however, from a destination-level perspective, this action may reduce employment. “managing” system change at the heart of improving sustainability performance is change. stimulating change is an extremely challenging activity, whether considered from a personal perspective, within an organization, or within the system as a whole. the adoption of sustainability is often presented as a management issue, or specifically a change management issue. from a business perspective, much has been written about organizational change (kotter, 1996; kotter & schelsinger, 2008), and it remains a topic of extreme importance in businesses and organizations. while traditional change management approaches can be effective in introducing change to organizations and businesses, these approaches provide only a partial set of answers to the challenge of changing system performance. a systems approach recognizes the importance of addressing all levels of the system – individual, organization, and destination or sector. effective system change requires individuals to change and adopt new practices. individual behavioral change is challenging – as anyone who has ever started an exercise regime or modified their diet will attest. event attendees or convention participants must adopt behaviors that are pro-sustainability. while we have greater understanding of motivations of consumers to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ day, j. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 4 -12. 9 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 4-12, doi: 10.18060/22833 copyright © 2018 jonathan day this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. participate in pro-environmental or pro-social behaviors, there remains a paucity of research on ways to support people as they adopt new behaviors (la lopa & day, 2011). while research has focused on encouraging conscious decisions to change behavior, there is also opportunity to encourage behavior change through decision architecture (thaler, 2008) and behavioral economics (thaler, 2015). sustainability across the sector is a systems governance challenge. the mice system is not a managed hierarchy, as you may find in some businesses or the military, some management models traditionally applied to business are ineffective for systems like destinations or sectors. rather, networks of independent actors require approaches to influencing the system based on collaboration, trust, informal mechanisms, and shared knowledge (volgger & pechlaner, 2014). understanding the mechanisms that support adoption of sustainability in systems is important. policy frameworks provide parameters for sustainability in “eventful cities” (getz, 2017) but other factors should be considered. volgger and pechlaner (2015) identify the means by which actions within a system can be encouraged, ranging from access to budget and financial resources to trust and knowledge to brands and themes. the power of brands to influence system members to adopt sustainability measures is an area of research that requires greater attention. the possibility of positive feedback loops – also known as virtuous cycles, in which a destination brand or industry reputation encourages companies and individuals to adopt sustainability-related behaviors, and these behaviors then build the strength of the brand – is exciting but requires greater examination. similarly, it is posited that industry associations play an important role in establishing sectoral norms that focus attention on key issues, such as sustainability. the role of the event industry council and its member organizations in raising expectations of behavior may be an important factor in influencing the mice system to adopt sustainability practices. again, the possibility that this too is a positive feedback loop in the system requires greater examination. conclusion and implications this paper highlights some of the challenges of sustainability in the mice system. while the issues of improving the sustainability are substantial, there is growing understanding of the work required to implement change across the system. applying a systems-based approach to analyzing the issues generates several important insights. they include:  while conceptually simple, sustainability is a complex activity. it requires the implementation of a substantial number of activities at all levels of the system.  the actions required to achieve sustainability are contextual. while there is a common set of activities generally recommended, which activities, and the priority given to them, will be determined by a variety of factors including location and individual actors – people, businesses, government and non-government entities.  sustainability requires ongoing performance management. individuals, businesses, destinations and sectors, like the mice sectors itself, must consider managing sustainability as an ongoing activity. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ day, j. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 4 -12. 10 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 4-12, doi: 10.18060/22833 copyright © 2018 jonathan day this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license.  recognizing mice as a complex adaptive system encourages a dynamic approach to sustainability programs and greater awareness of changes within and outside the system.  a systems approach to sustainability with the mice sector provides a useful way of dealing with the complexity of sustainability management. a systems-thinking approach provides a framework for examining the interactions between actors and consideration of different levels within the system. the discussion also highlights the value of considering not only specific actions but also their impacts – intended or unintended – on other parts of the system.  sustainability requires change through many levels of the system and different techniques must be employed. no single approach is sufficient and improving the sustainability of the system requires techniques that support individual change, organizational change, and governance techniques that support change across the system. the analysis highlights the need for a range of approaches to encouraging adoption of sustainability practices through the system this article has highlighted the complexity of operationalizing sustainability across the mice system and suggested a systems-thinking approach as an effective means of meeting the challenge of improving sustainability in the sector. there is clear evidence that many of the actors in the mice system are working towards improving their performance of sustainable activities and that the system is moving in a positive direction. nevertheless, despite recent advances there is still much to be discovered, and the gaps in our knowledge of how to address systematic change across the mice system provide an engaging agenda for future research. references adage. 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(2014). requirements for destination management organizations in destination governance: understanding dmo success. tourism management, 41, 64-75. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2013.09.001 volgger, m., & pechlaner, h. (2015). governing networks in tourism: what have we achieved, what is still to be done and learned? tourism review, 70(4), 298-312. doi:10.1108/tr-04-2015-0013 wced. (1987). our common future. oxford: oxford university press. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2013.09.001 events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 28-34, doi: 10.18060/22826 copyright © 2018 nripendra singh and godwin-charles ogbeide. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribuion 4.0 international license. events and tourism review volume 1 no. 1 cost benefit analysis of hotel recycling practices in india nripendra singh clarion university of pennsylvania godwin-charles ogbeide indiana university-purdue university indianapolis (iupui) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation singh, n., & ogbeide, g-c. (2018). cost benefit analysis of hotel recycling practices in india. events and tourism review, 1(1), 28-34. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr singh, n., & ogbeide, g-c. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 28-34. 29 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 28-34, doi: 10.18060/22826 copyright © 2018 nripendra singh and godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract waste management practices like recycling are not only beneficial to the environment but can provide economic benefits and enhance the image of the hoteliers. there is a need for more studies on the economic benefits of recycling practices to the hoteliers. this study investigated the cost and benefit analysis of solid waste management via recycling in india, by exploring eight highly rated hotels and assessing the average recycling benefits attributed to these hotels in india. the result indicated that by practicing recycling, the hospitality industry would protect the environment while generating economic benefits from waste management. keywords: recycling, hotel waste, waste-audit, cost benefit analysis, waste management introduction the economic importance of the hospitality and tourism industry cannot be overemphasized. according to world travel & tourism council (2018), in 2017, the travel and tourism industry was the fastest growing economic sector worldwide. its direct, indirect and induced impact accounted for: (1) us$8.3 trillion contribution to the world’s gdp (10.4%), (2) us$882 billion investment (4.5% of total investment) globally, and (3) 313 million jobs, 1 in 10 jobs worldwide. while the economic importance of the industry cannot be overemphasized, its adverse effect on the environment because of the enormous waste attributed to this industry, cannot be undermined. according to central pollution control board (cpcb) of india, waste generation varies from 2.2 lbs to 13.22 lbs per hotel room (cpcb, annual report, 2007). the hospitality industry is critically noted as the contributor of as much as 45% of all municipal solid waste from this industry (bacot, mccoy, & plagman-galvan, 2002). hence, the purpose of this case study is to investigate the cost benefit analysis of solid waste reduction via recycling in india. literature review according to kirk (1995) three strategies that hotels can use to reduce the amount of waste on the environment need to focus on the following: (1) purchasing policies that include sensible packaging of the product, (2) waste management, which includes the minimization of operation’s waste, reuse, and recycle of solid waste, and (3) waste disposal principles based on sound disposal method and partnership with disposal companies. one of the challenges of waste management is the lack of separation of waste at the source by the hotel industry. the operations of hotel industries include lodging, restaurant, bars, etc. having several operations that consume food, water, energy, paper, and other resources adds pollutants like solid and wet waste to the environment (kirk, 1995). taleb (2005) developed a beneficial model of waste recycling programs for some hotels in egypt to support them in waste reduction. similarly, in the spirit hotel waste reduction, some countries employed the principle of “pay as you throw” (fullerton & kinnaman, 1996). in fact, some local governments in the u.s. have passed legislation to impose commercial recycling by substantial businesses (apotheker, 1995; oskamp et al., 1991). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n., & ogbeide, g-c. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 28-34. 30 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 28-34, doi: 10.18060/22826 copyright © 2018 nripendra singh and godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. recycling here refers to setting aside waste material such as aluminum cans, glass and plastic bottles, and paper to be recycled. in hospitality context, this action reduces the amount of waste, which goes to landfills, minimizes hauling cost, adds to profitability, and green image (baker, davis, & weaver, 2013; singla, 2013; singh & lavina, 2015; singh, sundari, & nath, 2015; singh, cranage, & lee, 2014). thus, recycling helps in reducing the overall waste that goes in the landfill, also referred as waste reduction. among the various barriers to recycling (e.g., time, cost, and space), the shortage of a “doorstep” collection service was noted as the leading challenge (maclaren & yu, 1997; horobin & long, 1996). hence, waste materials seem difficult to separate because its time consuming and costly, as well as lack of space for different bins. however, findings indicated that improving hotel waste management would reduce operational cost, reduce energy consumption and help advance the company’s corporate image towards attainment of a competitive advantage (mensah, 2006). hotel waste includes glass, aluminium, steel, plastics, food and cardboard (axler, 1973; kirk, 1995; taleb, 2005). a substantial hotel can produce up to eight tons of waste daily, and about 60 percent of this is recyclable, an obvious indication of the importance of recycling (ogbeide, 2012; potts, christenbury, & wolak, 2002; snarr & pezza, 2000). the amount of recyclable waste differs from one hotel to another. the difference is based on the kind of hotel, purchase practice, occupancy rate, size and number of conferences, lounge/bar business, and activities of guests and employees. nonetheless, findings indicated that best practices in waste reduction and recycling could curtail waste to 50 g of unsorted hotel waste per guest night (bohdanowicz, 2005). bearing the above in mind, the importance of hotel recycling program cannot be undermined. most importantly, how could hoteliers be motivated to incorporate best practices in recycling into their operations? the study aims to use the cost benefit analysis from recycling the hotel waste material to encourage more hoteliers to adopt recycling practice. methodology primary data from waste audits of eight highly rated hotels in the delhi national capital region (ncr) of india and secondary data from a literature review provided a foundation for this case study. according to evergreen environmental (n.d.), a waste audit is a process that can be utilized to establish the quantity and kinds of waste produced by an organization. evidence from such audits can be used to identify how to reduce the amount of waste an organization generates. the eight selected hotels for the waste audit include, jaypee siddharth hotel, park plaza, hilton hotel, la-shangri-la hotel, jaypee greens golf & spa resort, country inn, lemon tree hotel, and jaypee vasant continental. these hotels were selected because of their brand and consent to participate in waste audit. the waste audit instrument was based on a structured format, which was validated by experts in the field before its utilization for this study. the instrument consisted of 10 different waste materials generated in hotels. the data generated from the audit was subjected to a cost benefit analysis. the analysis focused on the difference between the total cost of recycling and the benefit of recycling (net benefit = benefit – cost). the information about the cost of recycling was based on a direct interview of the indian pollution control association (ipca) and triangulated with two additional interviews from indian non-governmental organizations (chintan and vatavaran) and facts from the literature review (nilofour, swamy, & devi, 2013). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n., & ogbeide, g-c. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 28-34. 31 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 28-34, doi: 10.18060/22826 copyright © 2018 nripendra singh and godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. in a study conducted by new delhi municipal cooperation (ndmc) and central pollution control board (cpcb) in india on waste separation, it was discovered that a single labor could be used to separate 100 kg of waste per day (devi, arza, swamy, & krishna, 2014). the economic benefits of recycling were based on the revenue made from selling recyclable items to scrap dealers. result and discussion once the entire waste audit process was completed for the selected hotels, the average of each waste material produced from the hotels was determined. table 1 displays the average of each waste material generated from 10 different hotel wastes. cost and benefit: the hotels’ first-year cost of employing green practices in their facilities included the cost of added labor for waste separation (i.e., one labor per 100 kg of waste separation), cost of bins and miscellaneous cost. the second year’s cost of recycling included the labor cost for waste separation and miscellaneous cost, but excluded the cost of bins because it would be a onetime expense. table 1. average quantity of each waste material generated from all eight hotels material average waste/day (lb) average waste/yr (lb) plastic pet bottle 18.79 6,856.62 other/mixed plastic 24.56 8,963.49 tetra pak (laminated paper) 12.36 4,510.85 aluminum 10.46 3,819.27 glass 360.95 131,748.21 newspaper 152.25 55,572.62 mixed office paper 17.69 6,458.13 cardboard 363.83 132,796.13 food/wet waste 1,664.88 607,681.29 trash (laminated plastic) 5.38 1,963.74 total 2,631.15 960,370.33 the third year’s cost of recycling included 50% of the labor cost for waste separation and miscellaneous cost. the 50% of labor cost was based on experience and specialization in the labor required for waste separation. the cost of the fourth year of recycling was the same as the cost of the third year. there was no recycling cost associated with recycling from the fifth year onwards. the above cost estimate was based on the discussion with the senior operations managers at the surveyed hotels. based on the discussion with these experts it was intuitively decided that the extra cost of hiring eight labors for separating waste would be saved because separation would become a habit or a way of work. thus, the waste would be pre-sorted from room and kitchen areas, which would not need extra labor for sorting. it is essential to note here that the extra cost of labor was added only for the purpose of sorting the commingled waste, especially from the rooms and kitchen area. there might be a need for sorting the waste coming from https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n., & ogbeide, g-c. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 28-34. 32 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 28-34, doi: 10.18060/22826 copyright © 2018 nripendra singh and godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and gatherings such as conferences etc., but it would be negligible due to the experience and specialization in the labor required for waste separation. the benefit of recycling was based on the income from revenue made from selling recyclable items (salvage) to scrap dealers. the average revenue was estimated to be the same for each year. the net benefit was based on the difference between the total cost of recycling and the benefit of recycling (see table 2). table 2. cost benefit analysis of hotel waste management in india year 1 ($) year 2 ($) year 3 ($) year 4 ($) year 5 ($) labor cost 9291.41 9291.41 4645.71 4645.71 0.00 bins cost 593.90 0.00 0.00 0.00 0.00 miscellaneous cost 1244.38 1244.38 1244.38 1244.38 0.00 total cost $11,129.69 $10,535.79 $5,890.09 $5,890.09 0.00 benefit (average income from salvage) $11,397.64 $11,397.64 $11,397.64 $11,397.64 $11,397.64 net benefit $267.95 $861.85 $5,507.56 $5,507.56 $11,397.64 conclusion and implications the cost and benefit analysis of hotels recycling practices in india indicates that some hotels can actually save some money if waste management practices are adopted. these findings are in line with the recent studies such as singh et al. (2015), which suggest that recycling practices can increase profitability of hotels in the long run. however, is the finding enough to motivate other hoteliers to adopt waste reduction (recycling) practices in their facilities? the stimulus for all hotels to adopt waste reduction practices would be a great implication of this case study. however, it is evident that many hoteliers are well aware of the documentation in the literature about the image, environmental and economic benefits of waste reduction in the world. upon all the implications, many hotels are still not motivated to adopt waste management practices. hence, a combination of all the benefits of waste reduction and some agreeable regulations might be a solution toward encouraging the hoteliers to practice recycling. this recommendation is in support of the work of hasek (1991), that increased government regulations and legislation would encourage some hotels to adopt the practice of hotel waste management using recycling. regardless of the motivation approach, hotel recycling practices should be customized to suit each hotel’s waste management needs. legislating or regulating hotel waste reduction practices could be both important and very complex. it is even going to be more challenging in most capitalistic societies. hence, such proposal and the enforcement of the proposal would require the cooperation of the hotel industry movers and shakers, coupled with great emphasis on the image, environmental and economic benefits of adopting hotel waste reduction practices. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n., & ogbeide, g-c. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 28-34. 33 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 28-34, doi: 10.18060/22826 copyright © 2018 nripendra singh and godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. some of the limitations of this study include the fact that the cost benefit analysis was based on the economic condition in india. the differences between the cost benefit analyses from other parts of the world will be grounded on the amount and cost of labor required for recycling, other miscellaneous costs as well as the economic value of hotel waste in those regions. in addition, the cost benefit analysis was based on eight highly ranked hotels in india. thus, the findings might not be applicable to economy hotels in india or other parts of the world. hence, future studies should aim to explore different types of hotels in different parts of the world in order to show a comprehensive benefit of hotel recycling practices. references apotheker, s. 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(2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 28-34. 34 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 28-34, doi: 10.18060/22826 copyright © 2018 nripendra singh and godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. oskamp, s., harrington, m. j., edwards, t. c., sherwood, d. l., okuda, s. m., & swanson, d. c. (1991). factors influencing household recycling-behavior. environment and behavior, 23, 494-519. potts, d., christenbury , h. & wolak , j. (2002) recycling for the hospitality industry, cooperative extension service, clemson university, 15-30. singal, m. (2014). the link between firm financial performance and investment in sustainability initiatives. cornell hospitality quarterly, 55(1), 19-30. singh, n., & lavina, a. (2015). waste separation at household level: comparison and contrast among 40 countries. indian journal of applied research, 5(1), 558-562. singh, n., cranage, d., & lee, s. (2014). green strategies for hotels: estimation of recycling benefits. international journal of hospitality management, 43, 13-22. singh, n., sundari, s. k., & nath, a. (2015). contribution of hotel and restaurant industry to solid waste: an assessment of its impact on environment. i-manager’s journal on management, 10(1), 22-32. taleb, a., (2005). a study on benefits of applying waste recycling programs in the hotel industry (unpublished doctorate thesis). helwan university, egypt. world travel & tourism council. (2018). world travel & tourism council unveils 2018 economic impact research report. retrieved on december 3, 2018 from https://www.treadright.org/news/press-releases-news-our-partners-sustainabletravel/world-travel-tourism-council-unveils-2018 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://www.treadright.org/news/press-releases-news-our-partners-sustainable-travel/world-travel-tourism-council-unveils-2018 https://www.treadright.org/news/press-releases-news-our-partners-sustainable-travel/world-travel-tourism-council-unveils-2018 events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 88-98, doi: 10.18060/22909 copyright © 2019 kevin naaman, weixuan wang, chengming hu, & brandon howell. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribuion 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2019 volume 2 no. 2 service-learning in a tourism, hospitality, and event management program kevin naaman indiana university bloomington weixuan wang indiana university bloomington chengming hu southeast missouri state university brandon howell indiana university bloomington for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation naaman, k., wang, w., hu, c., & howell, b. (2019). service-learning in a tourism, hospitality, and event management program. events and tourism review, 2(2), 88-98. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr naaman, k., wang, w., hu, c., & howell, b. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 88-98. 89 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 88-98, doi: 10.18060/22909 copyright © 2019 kevin naaman, weixuan wang, chengming hu, & brandon howell. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract if faculty do not monitor students’ perceptions of their service-learning experience, then they may end up harming the community that the students serve. specifically, negative perceptions such as students’ prejudices and biases can harm community members. this study, therefore, measured one hundred and twenty-three tourism, hospitality, and event management (them) students’ perceptions and barriers of their service-learning experience. results from the questionnaire indicated that, on average, students perceived the service-learning experience and the community favorably. time and inconvenient locations were the most common barriers to service-learning participation. them faculty are provided an instrument to monitor their students’ service-learning perceptions. keywords: service-learning, undergraduate curriculum, personal development, tourism and hospitality, barriers introduction faculty have been found to perceive service-learning’s effects favorably, indicating positive outcomes such as increasing students’ awareness of societal challenges and enhancing educational outcomes (abes, jackson, & jones, 2002). though, faculty can find it difficult to implement service-learning in their curriculum. hou & wilder (2015) learned that faculty face the following barriers with implementing service-learning into their courses: (1) inadequate incentives, (2) lack of resources (i.e., time and funding), and (3) logistics (i.e., scheduling, transportation, and communication). these barriers have been documented since the turn of the century (bringle & hatcher, 2000), yet many institutions still find it difficult to implement this pedagogical framework. moreover, faculty must be aware of another contemporary issue if they decide to instruct a service-learning course. if service-learning programs are not implemented well, then they “may result in unanticipated outcomes, such as increased prejudice and bias” (conner & erickson, 2017, p. 53; erickson, & o’connor, 2000). faculty can implement reflective writing in their service-learning courses to: (1) gather qualitative data, and (2) help students overcome their negative perceptions, such as their biases of the community they serve (hobbs, 2007). however, research on quantitative measurements of students’ service-learning perceptions is needed (conner et al., 2017) so that faculty may monitor how their students perceive service-learning activities and their interactions with the community (caspersz & olaru, 2017; cecil, 2012; holsapple, 2012). research has traditionally focused on students’ positive outcomes of service-learning (conner et al., 2017), so this gap was addressed by also researching students’ negative perceptions (i.e., biases) and their barriers (i.e., lack of time) to servicelearning participation. the purpose of this article is to, therefore, assess students’ perceptions of their servicelearning experiences from a tourism, hospitality, and event management (them) program. the questionnaire can be used by other them faculty to identify if: (1) their students face any https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ naaman, k., wang, w., hu, c., & howell, b. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 88-98. 90 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 88-98, doi: 10.18060/22909 copyright © 2019 kevin naaman, weixuan wang, chengming hu, & brandon howell. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. barriers to service-learning participation, and (2) their students’ perceptions pose the risk of negatively affecting the community. the implication from this study is that a questionnaire is provided to them faculty so that they can monitor students’ positive perceptions, negative perceptions, and barriers to service-learning participation. strategies for using these data are discussed. literature review service-learning is a pedagogical tool where students learn how to translate classroom content to practice through engagement with community organizations that relate to their academic degree (bringle & hatcher, 1996). three recent meta-analyses have indicated that students can benefit from service-learning in the following ways: (1) student development (i.e., academic performance; celio, durlak, & dymnicki, 2011), (2) social intelligence (astin, vogelgesang, ikeda, & yee, 2000; yorio & ye, 2012), and (3) enhanced learning outcomes (warren, 2012). them programs have been recognized as professional disciplines (jamal, taillon, & dredge, 2011; mcintosh, 1983; van weenen & shafer, 1983), which are befitting venues for implementing service-learning experiences (reising, allen, & hall, 2006). however, service-learning should not be conceptualized as only benefiting student participants. service-learning is rooted in a social justice framework, which is intended to provide mutual benefits for both the community partners and students (d'arlach, sánchez, & feuer, 2009; hammersley, 2012; morton & bergbauer, 2015). service-learning’s foundations in equity and community engagement are threatened if faculty do not identify and assuage students’ negative perceptions towards their community members. for instance, students that serve low-income community members may end up blaming those affected for their predispositions (hollis, 2004). another study found that some students’ negative stereotypes were strengthened after their service-learning experience (jones, 2002). take this excerpt as an example: “i think people with aids deserve what they got because it’s the consequence of their own bad behavior” (jones, 2002, p. 11). faculty must be careful if they decide to implement a service-learning course because there is the possibility that the students’ perceptions can negatively affect the community partners (giles, 2014). because service-learning can pose a risk to the community, it is important that faculty monitor their students’ perceptions of the community and service-learning activities. however, faculty must also recognize that their students face barriers to engaging in service-learning activities. researchers have outlined many barriers that students face and some of the examples include (1) time, (2) inconvenient locations, (3) perceiving service-learning to be uninteresting, and (4) perceiving service-learning as not useful (burke & bush, 2013; mckinney, medvedeva, vacca, & malak, 2004). even if students do not have serious prejudices or biases, their service for the community will be insignificant if they are neither able nor willing to participate due to the barriers they face. it is therefore important, to provide a way to measure them students’ positive perceptions, negative perceptions, and barriers of service-learning. this is so that them faculty receives the necessary information to change their pedagogical practices so that they do not harm the community or students. this study provides a questionnaire that other faculty members may use to monitor their students’ perceptions. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ naaman, k., wang, w., hu, c., & howell, b. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 88-98. 91 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 88-98, doi: 10.18060/22909 copyright © 2019 kevin naaman, weixuan wang, chengming hu, & brandon howell. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. methodology sample and participant selection a convenience sample of one hundred and twenty-three undergraduate students participated in this study during march 2017. the students were from three tourism, hospitality, and event management (them) courses at a midwestern university. each course included a service-learning project. internships were not included in this study. each service-learning course mandated that all students: (1) were assigned to a them organization in the community, (2) assisted with operations during the semester, and (3) prepared both a written and oral report with their recommendations on how to improve their partnering agency’s operations. the partnering agencies were given these recommendations. the survey was administered by one of the researchers in each of the three classrooms. this survey was voluntary and completed as an in-person, pen-and-paper format. instrumentation the administered questionnaire contained the following sections: (1) demographics, (2) perceptions of service-learning, and (3) service-learning barriers. two different questionnaires were used to measure students’ perceptions of service-learning. the first was a fourteen-item questionnaire from burke et al. (2013). the second questionnaire was also from burke et al. (2013), and it also measured the barriers to service-learning participation. mckinney et al. (2004) is the primary source of these questionnaires. data were gathered from a five-point likert scale, where 1 represented strongly disagree, 2 represented disagree, 3 represented neutral, 4 represented agree, and 5 represented strongly agree. data analysis all data exploration and analysis were conducted through the statistical softwares, ibm spss 25 and rstudio. these data were investigated for normality using the shapiro-wilk’s test. the results from the service-learning perceptions and barriers were normally distributed, as assessed by shapiro-wilk's test (p > .05). an exploratory factor analysis (efa) reduced the dimensions of the fourteen-item questionnaire to see if the resultant factors would be consistent with the literature. the suitability of efa was assessed prior to analysis. the overall kaiser-meyer-olkin (kmo) measure was 0.897 with individual kmo measures all greater than 0.7 (kaiser, 1974). bartlett's test of sphericity was statistically significant (p < .0005), indicating that the data were factorizable. the number of factors was decided upon using varimax rotation and factors that had eigenvalues above the value of one (cattell, 1966). next, a series of bivariate correlations were conducted to test whether the barriers would be negatively correlated with the three factors from the fourteen-item questionnaire. lastly, descriptive statistics were calculated from the questionnaire to gauge how students perceived the service-learning activities, engagement with the community, and their barriers. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ naaman, k., wang, w., hu, c., & howell, b. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 88-98. 92 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 88-98, doi: 10.18060/22909 copyright © 2019 kevin naaman, weixuan wang, chengming hu, & brandon howell. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. results and discussion results from the demographics indicated the sample was mainly female (n = 97, 78%), caucasian (n = 99, 80%), and primarily between the ages of 20-21 (n = 91, 74%). table 1 provides the sample’s demographic information. table 1. demographic distribution of participants demographic characteristics total 123 gender male 26 (21%) female 97 (78%) age 18 0 (0%) 19 4 (3%) 20 44 (36%) 21 47 (38%) 22-25 27 (22%) 26-30 1 (1%) 31 older 0 (0%) gpa below 1.0 0 (0%) 1.0-1.9 0 (0%) 2.0-2.9 24 (20%) 3.0-3.9 97 (78%) 4.0 2 (2%) race african american 5 (4%) american indian 0 (0%) asian 7 (6%) caucasian 99 (80%) hispanic 8 (7%) native hawaiian 0 (0%) other 4 (3%) the results from the efa generated three factors: (1) student development, (2) social values, and (3) learning outcomes. the three factors explained 66.01% of the total variance and were consistent with the literature. the first factor (student development) included items that measured a students’: (1) ability and interest to interact with the community (caspersz, et al., 2017), and (2) career preparation (causin & runnels, 2018). secondly, social values measured https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ naaman, k., wang, w., hu, c., & howell, b. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 88-98. 93 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 88-98, doi: 10.18060/22909 copyright © 2019 kevin naaman, weixuan wang, chengming hu, & brandon howell. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. items regarding a students’: (1) stereotypes, and (2) ability to reflect (conner et al. 2017; levesque-bristol, knapp, & fisher, 2011). lastly, learning outcomes measured items regarding interpersonal relations and applying course content to real-world problems (warren, 2012). table 2. exploratory factor analysis of perceived service-learning benefits perceptions factor loading eigenvalue variance student development – factor 1 6.97 49.81 1. i feel more connected to the community after having service-learning experience. .791 2. i am able to solve problems in my community after having service-learning experience. .696 3. service-learning experience impacts my career goal. .661 4. service learning is helpful to your major. .636 5. i would recommend service-learning course to other students. .643 6. i can be more inclined to be involved in my community after having service-learning experience. .657 7. service-learning experience empowered you. .586 8. service-learning experience is helpful to your overall undergraduate experience. .542 social values – factor 2 1.24 8.86 9. service learning decreases any stereotype that you may have had. .825 10. service learning increases your appreciation for different cultures. .707 11. service learning helps you view yourself differently. .711 learning outcomes factor 3 1.03 7.34 12. service learning helps you work well with others. .843 13. you can apply classroom materials to your service-learning activities. .636 14. service-learning experience helps you challenge the material you learned in the classroom. .618 total variance 66.017 note. kaiser-meyer-olkin index = .897 bartlett’s test of sphericity = 950.085, df = 91 (p = .000). the cronbach’s alpha = .92 for the 14-item questionnaire, demonstrating high reliability (gliem & gliem, 2003). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ naaman, k., wang, w., hu, c., & howell, b. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 88-98. 94 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 88-98, doi: 10.18060/22909 copyright © 2019 kevin naaman, weixuan wang, chengming hu, & brandon howell. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. table 3 outlines the descriptive statistics of the students’ perceptions of their servicelearning activities and barriers. the results indicated that, on average, the students agreed the service-learning activities were beneficial for their development, social values, and learning outcomes. only one of the fourteen service-learning perceptions was below 3.0. this result indicated that, on average, the students did not agree that they were able to apply classroom content to the service-learning activities. information such as this can be useful for them faculty because they can adapt their teaching strategies to ensure the students are able to apply classroom content to the service-learning experience. moreover, questions 1, 2, 6, 9, and 10 reflected items measuring a students’ perceptions of the community. none of these questions was below 3.0, which demonstrated that they did not perceive the community negatively (e.g., scores below a 3.0 are negative and scores above 3.0 are positive). lastly, students also agreed, on average, that they experienced two barriers: (1) time, and (2) inconvenient locations. them faculty can use this instrument to check in with students throughout the servicelearning process. if this instrument were administered at the end of the semester, then the faculty would not have enough time to change their pedagogical practices. additionally, these results should not be used to solely determine whether the students’ perceptions pose a risk of negatively affecting the community. these questions are generalized and do not ask about specific facets of their interactions with the community. as a result of these limitations, faculty should be continuously engaged with the community partners and create an open atmosphere so that the community partners feel free to express any of their concerns with the students or service-learning process. table 3. summary statistics of students positive and negative perceptions of service-learning mean median s n composite score for student development 3.51 3.63 0.66 123 1. i feel more connected to the community after having service-learning experience. 3.46 4.00 0.91 123 2. i am able to solve problems in my community after having service-learning experience. 3.23 3.00 0.91 123 3. service-learning experience impacts my career goal. 4.02 4.00 0.61 123 4. service learning is helpful to your major. 3.25 3.00 1.02 123 5. i would recommend service-learning course to other students. 3.45 4.00 0.99 123 6. i can be more inclined to be involved in my community after having service-learning experience. 3.59 4.00 0.90 123 7. service-learning experience empowered you. 3.43 4.00 0.91 123 8. service-learning experience is helpful to your overall undergraduate experience. 3.66 4.00 0.94 123 composite score for social values 3.45 3.67 0.77 123 9. service learning decreases any stereotype that you may have had. 3.60 4.00 0.97 123 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ naaman, k., wang, w., hu, c., & howell, b. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 88-98. 95 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 88-98, doi: 10.18060/22909 copyright © 2019 kevin naaman, weixuan wang, chengming hu, & brandon howell. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 10. service learning increases your appreciation for different cultures. 3.28 3.00 0.98 123 11. service learning helps you view yourself differently. 3.48 4.00 0.83 123 composite score for learning outcomes 3.27 3.33 0.84 123 12. service learning helps you work well with others. 3.38 4.00 0.99 123 13. you can apply classroom materials to your servicelearning activities. 2.94 3.00 1.10 123 14. service-learning experience helps you challenge the material you learned in the classroom. 3.48 4.00 0.98 123 composite score for service-learning barriers 2.81 2.75 0.63 123 1. the service-learning activities are time-consuming. 3.80 4.00 0.84 123 2. the service-learning collaboration agency is inconveniently located. 3.06 3.00 0.91 123 3. service-learning activities are not interesting. 2.46 2.00 0.97 123 4. i do not believe service-learning activities are useful or beneficial to my education. 1.91 2.00 0.87 123 note. s = standard deviation. the cronbach’s alpha = 0.83 for the two combined instruments, indicating good reliability of the instrument as a whole (gliem et al., 2003). all bivariate correlations between the service-learning barriers and perceptions were negatively related. this is important to demonstrate so that faculty members realize the importance of identifying and subsequently removing barriers so that the students’ perceptions of service-learning are not hindered. table 4 provides the results of the bivariate correlations and quantifies the negative relationships between these factors and barriers. table 4. relationship between students’ perceived barriers and benefits of service-learning time-consuming locations uninteresting not useful student development -.208* -.172 -.352** -.506** social awareness -.086 -.274** -.128 -.357** learning outcomes -.205* -.133 -.250** -.362** note. * = pearson correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). ** = pearson correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). conclusion and implications conclusions the purpose of this study was to provide tourism, hospitality, and event management (them) faculty a way to quickly and reliably monitor their students’ perceptions of their service-learning experiences, perceptions of the community, and barriers to service-learning participation. this study used a questionnaire to monitor three them service-learning courses and found that, on average, the students perceived the community and their service-learning https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ naaman, k., wang, w., hu, c., & howell, b. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 88-98. 96 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 88-98, doi: 10.18060/22909 copyright © 2019 kevin naaman, weixuan wang, chengming hu, & brandon howell. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. experience favorably. the faculty who taught these three courses were provided with data to improve their instruction and facilitation of their service-learning courses. namely, these data are to be used to make sure faculty successfully implement service-learning in their curriculum. implications jamal et al. (2011) noted them instructors are presented with the opportunity to steward the next generation of them professionals to handle complicated cultural and sociological issues in the field. service-learning in them programs is argued to be important because the experiences expose students to the profession, which enhances their ability to address complicated issues in the field (boyer, 1994; cecil, 2012). therefore, it is important that servicelearning faculty monitor their students’ perceptions of service-learning experiences. this study argues that a lot is at stake—for the community and the students—so it is important that faculty diligently monitor their students’ service-learning perceptions and barriers. service-learning is a deliberate process and may “do more harm than good” (conner et al., 2017, p. 53) if the faculty do not monitor the relationships between the students and faculty members. recommendations them faculty can use this instrument to monitor their students’ perceptions and barriers throughout the semester. faculty should use this instrument no later than halfway through the service-learning experience so there is enough time to collect the data, analyze them, and implement changes in the service-learning experience. lastly, faculty can pair these data from the instrument with qualitative data from reflective writing exercises. however, hobbs (2007) argues that mandatory writing can be harmful to student success; this article provides recommendations for implementing reflective writing. limitations one limitation of this study is that the authors did not utilize a random sampling method or control group. a different insight into the data might have been achieved if the researchers looked at additional populations such as service-learning courses outside the department or across universities, and comparing it with courses without service-learning activities. the researchers did not measure the students’ perceptions and barriers at the end of the semester to see if the results had changed. future directions additional research needs to be completed in community partnership involvement on the academic side of the service-learning partnership. involvement in the development of the academic curriculum between the community and academic institutions could be of great interest. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ naaman, k., wang, w., hu, c., & howell, b. 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(2012). a meta-analysis on the effects of service-learning on the social, personal, and cognitive outcomes of learning. academy of management learning & education, 11(1), 9-27. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.1057/thr.2011.3 https://doi.org/10.1007/bf02291575 events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 76-87, doi: 10.18060/23435 copyright © 2019 yvette green, han chen, & kim williams. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribuion 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2019 volume 2 no. 2 festival admission and visitors’ behavioral intentions: do previous visit and age matter? yvette green university of new orleans han chen university of new orleans kim williams university of north texas for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation green, y., chen, h., & williams, k. (2019). festival admission and visitors’ behavioral intentions: do previous visit and age matter? events and tourism review, 2(2), 76-87. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr green, y., chen, h., & williams, k. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 76-87. 77 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 76-87, doi: 10.18060/23435 copyright © 2019 yvette green, han chen, & kim williams. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract food festivals provide unique opportunities for leisure, social and cultural experiences, help generate business and income for the host community and promote a positive image of the local community. this study examines the behavioral intentions of the first time and repeat visitors to revisit and recommend a festival when admission fee is charged vs no admission. the study also investigates the impact of admission fees on the intention to revisit and recommend the festival for different age groups. two-way anova and independent t-tests were used. results found that admission fees impacted the intentions to revisit and recommend the festival. keywords: festival, behavioral intentions, revisit, recommendations, admission fee, age introduction festivals, in particular, food festivals, provide unique opportunities for leisure, social and cultural experiences, help generate business and income for the host community and promote a positive image of the local community. understanding that the economic impact of festivals is heavily determined by attendees’ direct and indirect expenditures, festival organizers strive to maximize visitor satisfaction and increase revisit (chen, lee & lin, 2012; lee et. al, 2008). there are numerous satisfaction studies on nonfood festivals (anwar & sohail, 2004; crompton & love, 1995; lee et al., 2008) and wine and food festivals (axelsen and swan, 2010; yuan and jang, 2008). festival researchers have focused on reporting the profiles and characteristics of visitors (nicolson & pearce, 2000; yuan et al., 2005), motivations for attending food festivals (cela et al., 2008; crompton & mckay, 1997; nicholson & pearce, 2000), festival experiences (axelsen & swan, 2010) and ways to organize a successful food/wine festival (einarsen & mykletun, 2009). although there is growth in research on festivals, limited studies have examined the factors and attributes that affect the levels of satisfaction and loyalty towards food festivals, consumers’ satisfaction and revisit intentions (özdemir & culha, 2009; yuan & jang, 2008), as well as the impact of admission fees on the intention to revisit or recommend a festival or event (hubbard, et. al, 2012; wan & chen, 2013). the above-mentioned gaps in revisit and recommendation intentions and admission fee impacts make it critical to understand the factors or attributes that affect satisfaction and loyalty towards attending food festivals. the study aims to 1) examine the impact of admission fees on the intention to revisit and recommend a festival for first-time visitors vs. repeat visitors and to 2) examine the impact of admission fees on the intention to revisit and recommend for older vs. younger visitors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ green, y., chen, h., & williams, k. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 76-87. 78 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 76-87, doi: 10.18060/23435 copyright © 2019 yvette green, han chen, & kim williams. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. literature review intention to revisit and recommend in a study conducted by hall et al. (2016), findings revealed that visitor perception of festival attributes determined perceived quality; while entertainment quality, informational services, food and beverage provision, and comfort facilities had a strong influence on the evaluation of the festival. hall et al. (2016) also concluded that overall perceived quality had more influence over recommendations than revisit intentions, and festival visitor satisfaction predicted revisit intentions more than recommendation intentions. the hall et al. (2016) study supported existing literature (cronin et al, 2000; lee et al, 2007; papadimitriou, 2013; petrick, 2004) that the perceived quality of a festival exerts direct and significant influence on visitors’ behavioral intentions. other studies have found a positive and significant relationship between satisfaction and revisit intentions on one hand and satisfaction and recommendation on the other hand (thrane, 2002; yoon et al.,2009). previous studies have proven that festival attendees’ satisfaction levels have a direct association with their loyalty towards a particular festival (baker & crompton, 2000; özdemir & culha, 2009; thrane, 2002; yuan & jang, 2008). tourists’ loyalty in these studies refers to their intention to return to the food festival or recommend it to other people. the food, environment, entertainment and service quality of festivals leave a positive image with most tourists. these positive attributes increase satisfaction towards the food festival and consequently increased visitors’ intentions to revisit the festival and recommend it to family, friends, and others (wan & chan, 2013). these findings reiterate the connection between tourist satisfaction and their behavioral intentions and support earlier research that the three concepts, namely, image, satisfaction and behavioral intention (thrane, 2002; yuan & jang, 2008), are linked. behavioral intentions of first time vs. repeat visitors behavioral intentions are what a visitor intends to do after experiencing an opportunity (naik, gantasala, & prabhakar, 2010). behavioral intentions can involve individuals making the decision to revisit an organization, the decision to make a repeat purchase with an organization, and delivering word-of-mouth publicity about an organization to family and friends (zeithaml et al., 1996). shanka and taylor (2004) reported two festival attributes and four visitor characteristics of festivals that impacted first time and repeat visitors. the two festival attributes with discriminating abilities between the first-time visitors and repeat visitors were parking and services, while the four visitor characteristics that showed discriminating effects were age, place of residence, group composition, and information sources utilized (shanka & taylor, 2004). lee and beeler (2007) highlighted differences between first-time and repeat visitors in terms of the strength of the relationship among service quality, satisfaction, and future intention. first-time visitors were more likely than repeat visitors to count on the quality of the festival to be satisfied. on the other hand, repeat visitors were satisfied with factors other than service quality (lee & beeler, 2007). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ green, y., chen, h., & williams, k. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 76-87. 79 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 76-87, doi: 10.18060/23435 copyright © 2019 yvette green, han chen, & kim williams. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. behavioral intention, admission and age limited research is available on behavioral intentions and the impact of admission and visitor age on a festival (hubbard et al, 2016) or mega event (lee et al, 2013). hubbard et al. (2016) reported that the respondents were very positive about their intentions to attend the festival again with admission fees and a large proportion of attendees were very likely to recommend this festival to a friend or relative. the respondents rated the festival as a high performer in terms of satisfaction, quality, and experience. a large proportion of respondents planned on attending the festival again and the admission price was not seen as affecting attendance (hall et al., 2016; hubbard et al, 2016). research also indicated that age could impact behavioral intentions (hall, et al., 2016). reynisdottir, song, and agrusa (2008) suggested that willingness to pay admission fee was negatively related to age as younger people are more used to the idea of having to pay entrance fees to tourist attractions. in addition, researchers indicated that older visitors were less willing to pay more for park admission fees than younger visitors (uyarra, gill, & côté, 2010). uyarra et al. (2010) found the willingness to pay more increased with repeat visits. based on the literature, two hypotheses were developed for the study: h1: admission fee has a more negative impact on attendees’ (a) intention to revisit and (b) intention to recommend to new visitors compared to repeat visitors. h2: admission fee has a more negative impact on attendees’ (a) intention to revisit and (b) intention to recommend for older visitors compared to younger ones. methodology the louisiana seafood festival the louisiana seafood festival was selected as the festival to investigate. the louisiana seafood festival is a celebration of all the fresh and flavorful seafood from the state of louisiana. the seafood highlighted at the festival includes crab, shrimp, oyster, alligator, crawfish and all finfish. the festival was founded in 2007. in the past, the dates for the festival fluctuated during the fall months of september and october. in 2015, the festival locked in the labor day weekend dates for three years. along with the fluctuation of dates, the venue for the festival has also fluctuated. each year the venue grew larger to accommodate the growing number of patrons. since 2014, the festival has taken place in the new orleans city park fairgrounds, one of the largest festival venues in the city. the three-day festival offers the following activities/events: three days of live music, celebrity chef cooking demonstrations, a beer garden featuring a wide selection of craft beers, a kid’s tent featuring seafood-themed activities, an arts village, and food and beverage vendors. admission for the festival was free since its inception, however, patrons purchase food and beverage items as well as arts and crafts. in 2016, the festival organizers began charging admission into the festival. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ green, y., chen, h., & williams, k. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 76-87. 80 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 76-87, doi: 10.18060/23435 copyright © 2019 yvette green, han chen, & kim williams. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. questionnaire design representatives of the louisiana hospitality foundation (lhf), the producer of the louisiana seafood festival (lsf), contracted with the hospitality research center (hrc) at the university of new orleans (uno) for the purpose of providing information about attendees to the 2015 and 2016 lsf festival. the questionnaire was adapted from a visitor profile survey developed and used by the hrc in prior studies (chacko & marcell, 2007; jainchill, 2013; roussel, 2009). representatives from hrc, with input from lhf, designed the questionnaire to be administered during the event. the questionnaire consisted of 30 questions. fifteen questions addressed the festival event characteristics, eleven questions addressed visitor attendees travel characteristics, and four questions addressed demographics. data collection and analysis data was collected over a span of two years. a team of surveyors trained in data collection administered the surveys during the festival weekends in 2015 and 2016 via on-site intercept. a total of 600 completed surveys were obtained in 2015 and 649 completed surveys in 2016. the completed questionnaires were forwarded to hrc for data entry and editing. the hrc analyzed the data using statistical software, results were tabulated and a frequency analysis conducted. information provided by respondents relative to their experience at the festival (sociological/cultural festival impacts) and demographic characteristics were summarized using simple statistics. responses to open-ended questions were categorized by hand and then organized based upon the most frequent themes that emerged from visitors’ comments. these data collection and analysis methods were successfully used in other festival research studies (mcdowall et al., 2014; shani et al., 2009). the hypotheses testing was done using two-way anova and independent t-tests. results and discussion demographics out of the 1249 responses collected over a period of two years, a total of 1229 were usable. detailed demographic information were indicated by table 1. hypothesis testing to examine if admission fee influence visitors’ intention to revisit differently for new visitors compared to repeat visitors, a two-way anova (repeat visitor, new visitor; admission fee, free admission) was carried out. results indicated a significant interaction between previous festival visitation and admission fee, f (1,1225) =10.16, p< .01 (table 2). an independent t-test was conducted with new visitors and repeat visitors separately to better understand the simple main effects (table 3). results showed that new visitors had a significantly lower intention to revisit when the admission fee is charged (.68 ± .47) than free admission (.84 ± .37), t (863) = 5.68, p< .01 . however, admission fee did not have a significant https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ green, y., chen, h., & williams, k. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 76-87. 81 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 76-87, doi: 10.18060/23435 copyright © 2019 yvette green, han chen, & kim williams. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. influence on repeat visitors’ intention to revisit, t (362) = .71, p = .48. hence, hypothesis 1a was supported. table 1. demographics no admission fee (n=590) admission fee (n=639) n % n % gender male 251 42.5 287 44.9 female 339 57.5 352 55.1 ethnicity white 381 64.6 431 67.4 black 170 28.8 138 21.6 asian 13 2.2 14 2.2 hispanic 16 2.7 27 4.2 other 10 1.7 29 4.5 generation 18-24 46 7.8 68 10.6 25-34 202 34.2 216 33.8 35-49 146 24.7 188 29.4 50-64 145 24.6 133 20.8 65 and above 51 8.6 34 5.3 previous visitation yes 191 32.4 173 27.1 no 399 67.6 466 72.9 household income less than $25,000 5 7.6 44 6.9 $25,000 to $49,999 25 13.6 84 13.1 $50,000 to $74,999 21 19.0 99 15.5 $75,000 to $99,999 33 15.1 104 16.3 $100,000 to $149,999 22 17.3 109 17.1 $150,000 to $199,999 20 8.5 106 16.6 $200,000 and more 10 5.9 42 6.6 prefer not to answer 77 13.1 51 5.0 table 1 continuation similarly, a two-way anova (repeat visitor, new visitor; admission fee, free admission) was carried out to examine if admission fee influences visitors’ intention to recommend differently for new visitors compared to repeat visitors (table 4). results indicated no significant interaction between admission fee and previous visitation, f (1,1225) =.01, p=.91. admission fee https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ green, y., chen, h., & williams, k. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 76-87. 82 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 76-87, doi: 10.18060/23435 copyright © 2019 yvette green, han chen, & kim williams. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. had a significant main effect on intention to recommend, f (1,1225) =20.12, p< .01. visitors had a higher intention to recommend the festival when there was no admission fee (9.32, ± .06) than admission was charged (8.92 ±.06). in addition, the previous visitation had a significant main effect on the intention to recommend, f (1,1225) =16.74, p< .01. new visitors have significantly lower intention to recommend the festival (8.94, ± .05) than repeat visitors (9.30, ± .07). therefore, hypothesis 1b is not supported. table 2. summary of anova, intention to revisit as dependent variable source type iii ss df ms f corrected model 16.29 3 5.43 39.11** intercept 751.56 1 751.56 5414.21** admission fee 2.05 1 2.05 14.79** visitation 9.76 1 9.76 70.33** admission fee × visitation 1.41 1 1.41 10.16** error 170.05 1225 .14 total 1000.00 1229 corrected total 186.33 1228 *p< .05; ** p< .01 table 3. independent t test free admission fee 95% ci for mean difference t df m sd n m sd n new visitor .84 .37 399 .68 .47 466 .11, .22 5.68 863 repeat visitor .96 .19 191 .95 .22 173 -.03, .06 .71 362 table 4. summary of anova, intention to recommend as dependent variable source type iii ss df ms f corrected model 84.38 3 28.13 14.27** intercept 84948.40 1 84948.40 43095.79** admission fee 39.66 1 39.66 20.12** visitation 33.01 1 33.01 16.74** admission fee × visitation .03 1 .03 .01 error 2414.66 1225 .14 total 102932.00 1229 corrected total 2499.05 1228 *p< .05; ** p< .01 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ green, y., chen, h., & williams, k. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 76-87. 83 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 76-87, doi: 10.18060/23435 copyright © 2019 yvette green, han chen, & kim williams. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. in order to investigate if admission fee influence visitors’ intention to revisit differently for older visitors compared to younger ones, a two-way anova was carried out (table 5). results did not show significant interaction between admission fee and age, f (4,1219) =1.43, p=.22. admission fee had a significant main effect on intention to revisit, f (1,1219) =33.88, p< .01. visitors had a higher intention to revisit the festival when there was no admission fee (.90, ± .02) than admission was charged (.75 ±.02). in addition, age had a significant main effect on intention to revisit, f (4,1219) =2.64, p< .05. visitors aged 18 to 24 (.92 ± .04) had a significantly higher intention to revisit than visitors in the age group of 35 to 49 (.80 ± .02). hypothesis 2a is not supported. table 5. summary of anova, intention to revisit as dependent variable source type iii ss df ms f corrected model 7.60 9 .85 5.76** intercept 557.29 1 557.29 3800.95** admission fee 4.97 1 4.97 33.88** age 1.55 4 .39 2.64* admission fee × age .84 4 .21 1.43 error 178.73 1219 .14 total 1000.00 1229 corrected total 186.33 1228 *p< .05; ** p< .01 a two-way anova was carried out to examine if admission fee influence visitors’ intention to recommend differently for older visitors compared to younger visitors (table 6). results indicated significant interaction between admission fee and visitors’ age, f (4,1219) =5.45, p< .01. independent t test was conducted with different age groups separately to better understand the simple main effects (table 7). results showed that visitors who were 50 to 64 years old had significantly lower intention to recommend the festival when admission fee was charged (8.58 ± 2.11) than free admission (9.43 ± 1.01), t (276) =4.33, p< .01. moreover, visitors who were 65 years old and above had lower intention to recommend the festival when admission fee was charged (8.12 ± 1.84) than when it was free (9.45 ± 1.03), t (83) =4.28, p< .01. admission fee did not have a significant influence on visitors’ intention to recommend for all other younger age groups (see table 6), supporting hypothesis 2b. discussion admission fee tends to negatively influence new visitors’ intention to visit than repeat visitors. in addition, admission fee was negatively associated with visitors’ intention to recommend. the results do not support the previous research that admission price would not impact the intent to revisit or recommend (hall et al., 2016; hubbard et al, 2016). repeat visitors have higher level intention to recommend than new visitors in general, which echoes with uyarra et al.’s (2010) finding that the willingness to pay more increased with repeat visits. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ green, y., chen, h., & williams, k. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 76-87. 84 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 76-87, doi: 10.18060/23435 copyright © 2019 yvette green, han chen, & kim williams. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. visitors’ intention to recommend was significantly lower among visitors whose age were 50 and above when admission fee was charged. in general, visitors showed a higher intention to revisit when there was no admission fee. also, visitors aged 18 to 24 had a significantly higher intention to revisit than visitors in the age group of 35 to 49. the results are consistent with previous research findings that willingness to pay admission fee was negatively related to age as younger people are more used to the idea of having to pay entrance fees to tourist attractions (reynisdottir, song, & agrusa, 2008; uyarra, gill, & côté, 2010). table 6. summary of anova, intention to recommend as dependent variable source type iii ss df ms f corrected model 98.21 9 10.91 5.54** intercept 66564.49 1 66564.49 33797.47** admission fee 61.00 1 61.00 30.97** age 6.66 4 1.66 .85 admission fee × age 42.95 4 10.74 5.45** error 2400.83 1219 .14 total 102932.00 1229 corrected total 2499.05 1228 *p< .05; ** p< .01 table 7. independent t test free admission fee 95% ci for mean difference t df age group m sd n m sd n 18-24 9.13 1.13 46 9.01 1.31 68 -.35, .58 .49 112 25-34 9.14 1.26 202 9.03 1.20 216 -.12, .35 .96 416 35-49 9.20 1.36 146 8.89 1.52 188 -.01, .63 1.94 332 50-64 9.43 1.01 145 8.58 2.11 133 .46, 1.23 4.33 ** 276 65 and above 9.45 1.03 51 8.12 1.84 34 .71, 1.95 4.28 ** 83 conclusion and implications in conclusion, the current study provided implications for both practitioners and academics. practitioners can use the results to assist with the planning and logistics, revenue and economic impact of the festival. the research also contributes to the body of knowledge for festival behavior intention research. the results of this study are limited to the 2015 and 2016 louisiana seafood festival. however, such research provides the opportunity for future investigation. future research may examine how visitors’ travel distance to the festival venue influence their revisit intention. in addition, the economic impact of the festival on the local community can also be investigated. continuing to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ green, y., chen, h., & williams, k. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 76-87. 85 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 76-87, doi: 10.18060/23435 copyright © 2019 yvette green, han chen, & kim williams. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. study the festival longitudinally to examine trends in visitor profile, economic impact, and changes in festival organization and delivery of the festival are also opportunities for future research. the current study along with future research opportunities will provide valuable information for the festival management research body of literature. references anwar, s. & sohail, m. 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(1996). the behavioral consequences of service quality. journal of marketing, 60, 3146. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 13-25, doi: 10.18060/23236 copyright © 2020 nripendra singh & olivia m keltz this work is licensed under a creative commons attribuion 4.0 international license. events and tourism review june 2020 volume 3 no. 1 tridimensional approach to assess brand loyalty for cafes nripendra singh clarion university of pennsylvania olivia m. keltz clarion university of pennsylvania for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation singh, n. & keltz, o. m. (2020). tridimensional approach to assess brand loyalty for cafes. events and tourism review, 3(1), 13-25. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr singh, n. & keltz, o. m. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 13-25. 14 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 13-25, doi: 10.18060/23236 copyright © 2020 nripendra singh & olivia m keltz this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract the purpose of this study was to identify the factors that influence brand loyalty among youth for local cafes in a small town. a descriptive research design with a survey method was used to collect data using the online qualtrics platform. three hundred and one (301) usable responses using a stratified sampling technique were collected on a 5-point likert scale as recommended for analysis. tri-dimensional approach was used to assess behavioral, attitudinal, and cognitive loyalty. structural equation modelling (sem) using spss amos was utilized to test the model fit and assess the validity and reliability of the results. the study is unique as it focuses on brand loyalty towards local cafes as compared to national brands such as starbucks. keywords: youth behavior, brand loyalty, attitudinal loyalty, tri-dimensional approach introduction the success of organizations depends largely on how well it attracts consumers towards their brands. loyalty towards brands can save millions of dollars; an estimate from serafin and horton (1994) suggested that every percentage of loyalty for the ford company was worth $100 million in profits. thus, brand loyalty is an important factor that determines why consumers prefer one brand over the other and greatly benefits a company. recently, brand loyalty has been considered a sustainable competitive advantage that is extremely valuable to businesses, which cannot be easily imitated by competitors (ehsan, warraich, & sehribanoglu, 2016). most studies on brand loyalty have focused on big brands, but this concept is equally important for local brands in a small town such as clarion, pa. clarion is a small town in the northwest region of pennsylvania. it is considered a college town, as it is home to clarion university and its 5,200 students. the small town of clarion is a great example of an area with competitive surroundings for café business. in clarion specifically, there is a local café, michelle’s café, amid many global franchises, such as starbucks and mcdonald’s. in this situation, brand loyalty has an important role in the local café. thus, the purpose of this study is to understand brand loyalty towards café in a small college town. the outcome from the study will help cafés to develop marketing strategies based on results from the survey method and constructs including repurchase intention, switching intentions, willingness to recommend, brand preference, price tolerance, and brand identification. literature review in order for a business to succeed to its highest potential, the business should obtain consumers who are loyal to the brand name. in other words, a business must maintain a pool of consumers who consistently patronize their stores. brand loyalty is defined as a market-based resource that provides a sustainable competitive advantage as it cannot be easily imitated (ehsan et al., 2016). it is ideal for a business to have a distinct attribute that stands out to consumers that https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n. & keltz, o. m. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 13-25. 15 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 13-25, doi: 10.18060/23236 copyright © 2020 nripendra singh & olivia m keltz this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. makes consumers want to stay loyal to the brand name because they feel confident that they will receive consistency with the service/products of the company. generating new consumers is important for company growth but maintaining consistent value from loyal consumers is a factor, which drives companies to success. measuring brand loyaltytri-dimensional approach brand loyalty is defined by oliver (1999) as “a deeply held commitment to rebuy or continuously patronize a preferred product/service consistently in the future thereby causing repetitive same brand or same brand set purchasing, despite situational influences and marketing efforts having the potential to cause switching behavior.” by this definition, brand loyalty is a matter of repurchasing only. initially in the 1970s, brand loyalty was measured in one dimension by behavior (jacoby & kyner, 1973). however, brand loyalty can be categorized and measured through more than just behavioral tendencies. a newer model can explain brand loyalty through three different aspectsbehavioral, attitudinal, and cognitive. the original three-dimensional model was used to measure loyalty only in the service sector by jones and taylor, (2007) and worthington, russel-bennett & hartel, (2009). the model is validated for product brands by ehsan et al. (2016) with their test on brand loyalty in the cola market in pakistan. the behavioral category is associated with the frequency of purchases of a particular brand. behavioral loyalty can be expressed as a brand preference (measured as expenditure on a particular brand as a proportion of product category) or as brand allegiance (measured as expenditure on a brand over time) (worthington et al., 2010). attitudinal loyalty can be referred to as commitment towards a brand in terms of psychological and emotional attachments towards it. attitudes toward a certain brand can result in recommendations or preference for a certain brand due to reputation or quality. cognitive loyalty is the commitment to stay with a brand on the basis of switching costs and brand attributes evaluations (ehsan et al., 2016). cognitive loyalty, on the other hand, refers to a psychological preference towards a brand and having positive beliefs about purchasing it on the next occasion (worthington et al., 2010). this third approach will show how and why students are loyal to specific brands using the three categories: cognitive responses (i think), emotive responses (i feel), and behavioral responses (i do). willingness to recommend willingness to recommend, as a part of attitudinal loyalty, is whether a consumer is willing to recommend a product, service, or brand to another consumer (jones & taylor, 2007). a consumer’s willingness to endorse a company or product to friends, family, and colleagues is an indicator of brand loyalty because of the risk to a person’s reputation when they make a recommendation. they will risk their reputations only if they feel “intense loyalty”, and positive recommendations can lead to company growth, and the significance of this factor as a growth stimulator should not be overlooked (reichfield, 2003). recommendations and reviews are a way for people to risk their reputations every day online to benefit a business. brand preference as defined by worthington et al. (2010), cognitive commitment is the decision to stay with a brand, based on switching costs and brand attributes. affective commitment refers to the positive feelings that come from purchasing the brand and emotional connection with the brand. brand https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n. & keltz, o. m. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 13-25. 16 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 13-25, doi: 10.18060/23236 copyright © 2020 nripendra singh & olivia m keltz this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. preference is the personal ranking of brands when given the choice between two similar products or services of different brands. brand preference is especially strong when a person is willing to sacrifice features such as convenience or price for a specific brand. repurchase intention brand behavioral loyalty can be measured through actual purchase action, and the continuance of purchasing the same brand (ehsan et al., 2016). a study by porral, fernandez (2015), has shown that brand awareness, perceived quality, and brand loyalty are all valid factors that affect purchase intention. it was found that perception of a brand to be equal or greater to competitors or creating customer loyalty programs will increase repurchase intention. repurchase intention will occur when a person feels that they like the brand well enough to patronize that business again in the future. repurchase intention can be caused by a preference for the brand, the quality, comfort, or any other factor that the customer values. switching intentions consumers may intend to continue patronizing a company or service they currently use, or they may decide to end a relationship with a service provider and patronize a different business in the same category (jones & taylor, 2007). because switching intentions is the probability of a customer switching to a competitor, brand switching and switching intention imply negative outcomes for companies. businesses need to pay careful attention to switching intentions because it decreases profitability, lowers market share, and raises marketing costs (seong & kyung, 2018). usually, customers do not tend to switch loyalty to other stores unless some negative experience happens to them while at the main store. price tolerance retailers develop strategies, which emphasize the value of the money in whatever choice the consumers make. studies have shown that consumers often actively search for a brand that will result in savings and the need to save money is a reason to stick with a brand, however, porral et al., (2015) showed that low prices are not sufficient to bring value and develop a long-term relationship with customers. these contradicting studies can be due to the difference in ages. young adults are those who are born between the years 1980 and 1994 and are notoriously brand disloyal (lazarevic, 2012). anderson (1996) postulated that young adults have a greater price tolerance and willingness to pay extra when they feel more brand loyal, identify themselves with the brand, or feel satisfied. brand identification customer brand identification is defined as customers identifying with a brand and feeling an affinity toward it (kim, kim, & holland, 2018). customers believe that a brand is either “me” when they feel it embodies them, or “not me” when they cannot relate. it is based on social identity theory. in other words, customers who buy a certain brand feel that they belong to a group of people who also buy that brand. a person who frequents starbucks, for example, has strong brand identification if they connect with other starbucks customers, buy merchandise, and consider themselves a true starbucks person. therefore, brands can embody characteristics that consumers connect with. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n. & keltz, o. m. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 13-25. 17 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 13-25, doi: 10.18060/23236 copyright © 2020 nripendra singh & olivia m keltz this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. based on the above discussion, the broad research question that this study will answer is: which attributes toward a café are more important to predict brand loyalty, using a tridimensional approach? . figure 1. tri-dimensional approach to test brand loyalty figure 1 shows the tri-dimensional approach for brand loyalty. the three dimensions include behavioral, attitudinal, and cognitive loyalty. the behavioral loyalty category consists of two factors for repurchase intention and switching intentions. each factor included three questionnaire statements. attitudinal loyalty consisted of willingness to recommend and brand preference with three and four questionnaire statements, respectively. cognitive loyalty includes price tolerance and brand identification factors with three questionnaire statements each. methodology the survey method was used to collect the data for analysis. the survey instrument was designed using existing scales from ehsan et al. (2016). the responses were collected on a 5-point likert scale using an online qualtrics platform. more than 300 young adults were targeted as respondents using the convenience-sampling technique in a rural college town in pennsylvania. an anonymous survey link was sent to the college students in a state university belonging to the pennsylvania state system of higher education (passhe) in the united states using a universitywide e-mailing list-serve. finally, the questionnaire used in this study had six attributes under three repurchase intentions switching intentions willingness to repurchase brand preference price tolerance brand identification cognitive loyalty attitudinal loyalty behavioral loyalty brand loyalty https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n. & keltz, o. m. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 13-25. 18 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 13-25, doi: 10.18060/23236 copyright © 2020 nripendra singh & olivia m keltz this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. dimensions to capture the elements of brand loyalty (see appendix for the questionnaire). a pilot study on a sample of 50 respondents was conducted and based on the reliability analysis. once the pilot study was confirmed to be reliable and valid, the questionnaire was used to collect the final data in this study. structural equation modeling (sem) was used to assess the hypothesized model using model fit indices using spss and amos software. confirmatory factor analysis was used to test the validity and reliability of the data. results and discussion finally, 385 survey responses were collected using the qualtrics online survey platform. eighty-two surveys were incomplete, and two surveys did not pass the serious participation question. therefore, there were 301 usable survey responses for data analysis. table 1 includes all 301 survey responses. the sociodemographic characteristics of respondents (table 1) indicated that respondents were predominantly female (70.43%), between the ages of 18 and 22 (58.47%), and of white ethnicity (89.37%). table 1: respondents characteristics respondents characteristics characteristics n percent gender male 83 27.6 female 212 70.4 age 18 22 years 176 58.5 23 38 years 54 17.9 39 years or older 71 23.6 race african american 7 2.3 asian 10 3.3 white 269 89.4 hispanic/latino 12 4.0 frequency of visit once a week 163 54.2 2 3 times a week 90 29.9 4 or more times a week 29 9.6 once a day 14 4.7 2 or more times a day 5 1.7 table 2 shows the results from the reliability test (cronbach’s α) on the collected responses to determine if the items in the survey accurately represented the factors. each factor had acceptable reliability (kline, 2016). reliability scores (cronbach’s α= .897) were high and acceptable. figure 2 shows the hypothesized model, which is followed by the results from the model fit indices. the indices in figure 2 furthest to the left show the corresponding questionnaire statements to the three dimensions of brand loyalty. as the data fit the model reasonably well, and the sizes of parameter estimates were found to be adequate, the measurement model was considered statistically valid. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n. & keltz, o. m. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 13-25. 19 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 13-25, doi: 10.18060/23236 copyright © 2020 nripendra singh & olivia m keltz this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. table 2. reliability testing constructs m cronbach’s α repurchase intention 3.98 0.673 switching intention 3.35 0.680 willingness to recommend 4.19 0.791 brand preference 3.99 0.785 price tolerance 3.53 0.580 brand identification 2.78 0.791 results from the hypothesized measurement model as shown in figure 2, support the tridimensional approach, as the model fit indices fits the data well. the model fit indices with respecifications done based the modification indices are as follows: χ 2 / df = 2.585, rmsea= 0.73, gfi= .889, cfi= .918, tli= .897, and nfi= .874. figure 2. measurement model https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n. & keltz, o. m. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 13-25. 20 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 13-25, doi: 10.18060/23236 copyright © 2020 nripendra singh & olivia m keltz this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. the next step after the confirmatory factor analysis was to test the hypothesized model for reliability and validity. fornell and larcker (1981) suggest using construct validity was determined through convergent and discriminant validity. as seen in table 3, results from composite reliability (cr), average variance extracted (ave), and inter-correlation factors with ave, which should be less than the square root of ave to prove discriminant validity. as per singh (2018), because of self-reported data, shared method variance generally shows inflated relationships among latent variables. therefore, discriminant validity is acceptable (brooke, russell, & price, 1988; singh, 2018). thus, the model was accepted to have construct validity. table 3. reliability and validity results cr ave brand_ preference repurchase_ intentions switching_ intentions willingness price_ tolerance brand_ identification brand_ preference 0.791 0.497 0.705 repurchase_ intentions 0.695 0.450 0.721 0.671 switching_ intentions 0.690 0.529 0.664 0.684 0.727 willingness 0.728 0.476 0.963 0.801 0.801 0.690 price_ tolerance 0.692 0.435 0.620 0.581 0.543 0.706 0.659 brand_ identification 0.792 0.561 0.622 0.457 0.504 0.624 0.557 0.749 the next step is to assess the structural model. as this model is a non-unidimensional higherorder model (lower-order measures capture different latent variables), it is considered a secondorder factor model (figure 3 and 4). the six factors under the three dimensions and brand loyalty are latent factors as they were indirectly derived from the questions asked in the first order (figure 1), as discussed before in the methodology section. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n. & keltz, o. m. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 13-25. 21 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 13-25, doi: 10.18060/23236 copyright © 2020 nripendra singh & olivia m keltz this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. figure 3. second (2nd) order factor model figure 4. third (3rd) order factor model repurchase intentions switching intentions willingness to repurchase brand preference price tolerance brand identificatio n cognitive loyalty attitudinal loyalty behavioral loyalty .92 .84 .87 .83 .82 1.0 .93 .78 .71 repurchase intentions switching intentions willingness to repurchase brand preference price tolerance brand identificatio cognitive loyalty attitudinal loyalty behavioral loyalty brand loyalty .95 .89 .98 .83 .82 1.0 .93 .78 .71 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n. & keltz, o. m. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 13-25. 22 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 13-25, doi: 10.18060/23236 copyright © 2020 nripendra singh & olivia m keltz this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. the secondand third-order factor models, as shown in figures 5 and 6, possess the same model fit indices as in the first-order or measurement model (table 4). the same model fit indices show that the proposed model is acceptable as it fits the data well. additionally, this provides evidence that all the items and the six factors explain the three dimensions of brand loyalty in explaining overall brand loyalty. thus, the proposed model with the six factors under the three categories is sufficient to measure brand loyalty towards local cafes in a small college town. this validates that the tri-dimensional approach works well to explain brand loyalty for cafes and applicable in small towns too. table 4. model fit indices in the 2nd and 3rd order factor models model fit indices recommended value 2nd order factor model 3rd order factor model chi-square (χ 2 or cmin) non-significant pvalue 315.423 315.423 df 122 122 χ 2 / df < 5 2.585 2.585 rmsea < .08 .073 .073 gfi close to 1 .889 .889 cfi > .9 .918 .918 tli > .9 .897 .897 nfi close to 1 .874 .874 as per the results using structural equation modeling, it is evident that the model is highly acceptable and considered valid for assessing cafés’ brand loyalty. conclusion, limitations, and recommendations this study investigated how and why young adults exhibit brand loyalty toward local cafés in small college towns in three dimensions. this was unlike past studies that applied only behavioral loyalty factors in only the service sector. a key takeaway from these findings is that the three dimensions of behavioral loyalty, attitudinal loyalty, and cognitive loyalty together represent overall brand loyalty. these findings are in line with the findings from previous literature such as ehsan et al. (2016). thus, this study validates that the three dimensions explain brand loyalty well, as suggested in the tri-dimensional theory. findings suggest that consumers (young adults in this case) exhibit more than just behavioral loyalty, including attitudinal and cognitive dimensions. this study shows that attitudinal loyalty is strongest in young adults. an interesting finding is reflected from the https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n. & keltz, o. m. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 13-25. 23 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 13-25, doi: 10.18060/23236 copyright © 2020 nripendra singh & olivia m keltz this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. squared multiple correlations [smc or r2] of the three dimensions. smc indicates the relationship between an indicator and its underlying construct. in other words, it explains the percent of variance explained by the predictor variable. a small size indicates a weak relationship as it indicates a high measurement error (fornell & larcker, 1981). behavioral loyalty was found to have smc = .89, attitudinal loyalty was .95, and cognitive loyalty was .79. in other words, attitudinal loyalty construct can explain 95% of the variance and is the strongest predictor variable of brand loyalty with a loading of 0.98. this finding suggests that young adults exhibit strong attitudinal loyalty out of the three loyalty dimensions. this is important for managers or owners of local cafés because they can then capitalize on the strong loyalty factors. for example, with these results, it is established that attitudinal loyalty has a higher influence on young adults’ decision-making. as attitudinal loyalty consists mainly of willingness to recommend and brand preference, it is recommended that managers implement rewards programs for customers (especially students) for referring friends and family to the café. like all research studies, this study also has limitations. the first limitation is the small sample size specific to a student population in a small town in pennsylvania; therefore, future research may include a large sample size from the entire united states. secondly, the data was skewed with white undergraduate females. on a larger sample, data may be more evenly distributed. thirdly, resources for this study were very limited and the authors could only use the free trial version of qualtrics. this allowed the authors to see 100 responses at a time, meaning the survey had to be constructed multiple times, and the anonymous link was distributed through exhausted resources at the university campus. recommendations include using a platform that allows for viewing of more responses in a single attempt. in the case of a rural college town in pennsylvania, young adults in the area exhibit attitudinal loyalty the strongest, then behavioral, then cognitive. while there are many limitations, this study can be useful in the case of a local café who must compete with franchises. a local café has more leniency and freedom due to the shorter chain of command to implement marketing strategies based on the results of the study. strong attitudinal loyalty suggests that referrals and recommendation programs would benefit a café to increase brand loyalty. appendix: statements (scale) used for survey statements behavioral loyalty: repurchase intentions i prefer “my favorite cafe” to other coffee shops i intend to repurchase coffee from “my favorite cafe” again in the future. compared to “my favorite cafe”, there are few alternatives with whom i am likely to be satisfied. switching intentions when purchasing coffee, i regularly change coffee shops although there are many options of other coffee shops, i will continue to buy coffee from “my favorite cafe” https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n. & keltz, o. m. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 13-25. 24 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 13-25, doi: 10.18060/23236 copyright © 2020 nripendra singh & olivia m keltz this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. even if another brand has the same features as “my favorite cafe”, i would prefer to buy from “my favorite cafe” attitudinal loyalty: willingness to recommend i would recommend, “my favorite cafe” to friends and relatives i would give positive recommendations to others about “my favorite cafe” i would recommend “my favorite cafe” to anyone who asks for my advice brand preference when i purchase coffee, i prefer “my favorite cafe” when i purchase coffee, “my favorite cafe” will be my first choice. “my favorite cafe” has the most excellent quality, so it makes me want to visit often i choose “my favorite cafe” because it has a good reputation cognitive loyalty: price tolerance i am likely to pay a little bit more to purchase from “my favorite cafe” if “my favorite cafe” raised prices by 10 percent, i am likely to remain a customer the prices of “my favorite cafe” are affordable for most consumers brand identification my choice of going to “my favorite cafe” says a lot about who i am. i think of “my favorite cafe” as “my” coffee shop when someone praises “my favorite cafe”, it feels like a personal compliment reference aaker, d.a., (1991). managing brand equity capitalizing on the value of brand name. new york: the free press. anderson, e. w. 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(2010). a tri-dimensional approach for auditing brand loyalty. journal of brand management, 17. 10.1057/bm.2009.24. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ [retracted article]: conducting infectious and communicable disease education in hospitality organizations viewpoint retraction notice: the following article has been retracted at the request of the author, 8/31/2021: howell, b. (2019) conducting infectious and communicable disease education in hospitality organizations. events and tourism review. vol 2 no2 (fall 2019), 58-67, https://doi.org/10.18060/23232 https://doi.org/10.18060/23232 [retracted article]: conducting infectious and communicable disease education in hospitality organizations viewpoint events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 30-42, doi: 10.18060/24924 copyright © 2021 lilian wanyonyi, joseph m. njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review june 2021 volume 4 no. 1 sports tourism events and socio-economic well-being of the host communities: motivations and benefits from an emerging destination lilian wanyonyi joseph m. njoroge richard juma murang’a university of technology correspondence: alicialily0@gmail.com (l. wanyonyi) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the fivestep process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. m. & juma, r. (2021). sports tourism events and socio-economic well-being of the host communities: motivations and benefits from an emerging destination. events and tourism review, 4(1), 30-42. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:alicialily0@gmail.com http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. m. & juma, r. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 30-42. 31 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 30-42, doi: 10.18060/24924 copyright © 2021 lilian wanyonyi, joseph m. njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract travel and tourism industry has been considered as a major catalyst for local community development. as an alternative way of involving the host community in tourism activities directly, sports tourism aims to enable the hosts to earn income. host community is an important stakeholder in tourism, their wellbeing is directly proportional to sustainable tourism. nairobi city has hosted several sports tourism events for decades, but little has been documented on how such events promote the socio-economic wellbeing of the host community. this research sought to put sports tourism events into limelight by looking at the perceived motivational factors behind hosting of sports tourism events and to assess the socio-economic benefits of hosting sports tourism events. a cross-sectional research design was used in the study with a total of 404 respondents. questionnaires and interviews were used to collect data from informants in three stadia. descriptive, thematic analysis and inferential statistics were used for data analysis. the major motivating factors for hosting sports tourism event were good infrastructure, expected benefits and availability of accommodation facilities. the main benefits of hosting sports tourism events were identified as employment opportunities and increased trade for local businesses. a number of recommendations were made. keywords: sports tourism events, community, sustainable development introduction the travel and tourism industry is among the highly developing sectors in the world experiencing a growth in tourists’ numbers, huge employment opportunities and huge investments. wttc (2018) established that, the travel and tourism industry brought us$8.8 trillion to the economy worldwide this equating to 10.4% of global gdp. it contributes to more than 319 million jobs annually, representing 10.0% of all employment worldwide. in most developing nations, it has turned out to be a major driver of social and economic progress. kenya receives the largest number of international tourists each year followed by uganda and tanzania. tourism contributes about 10% of the gross domestic product in the country each year (kippra report, 2018). tourism arrivals in 2018 were recorded at 2,029,206 and ksh 157 billion tourism receipts (ktb report, 2018) thus making the tourism industry a major backbone of the economy. however, the increased poverty levels are still evident in different parts of the country which has been associated with unequal distribution of tourism benefits (kieti & akama, 2007). in kenya, 36.1% of the population still live below the poverty line compared to other african countries like ghana and south africa (world bank report, 2018). in its vision 2030 blueprint, tourism in kenya is a major pillar that the government has prioritized as a way of alleviating the poverty index and providing economic growth. the country aims to focus on niche tourism products and to be among the leading destinations globally providing quality, diversified and unique tourists’ experiences than her competitors gok, (2008).to achieve this, the country has come up with different development projects among them the launching of kenya national tourism blueprint 2030 that has strategies on product diversification to boost its tourism profile globally and the initiative to build state of the art stadia across the country that will boost kenya’s ability to bid and host regional and international sports https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. m. & juma, r. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 30-42. 32 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 30-42, doi: 10.18060/24924 copyright © 2021 lilian wanyonyi, joseph m. njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. tourism events. this will be a focal point in improving the quality of lives local people’s lives (gok, 2013). sport and tourism has become a vital element of tourism in kenya. the country has actively participated in local, regional and international sporting tourism events that has given it popularity. for instance, kenyan sports men and women have often performed exceptionally globally during events. the country has also attracted renowned world sport stars who have helped to promote and boost sports talents in the country. kenya has frequently hosted numerous spectacular sports tourism events like the annual standard chartered marathon, lewa marathon, the iaaf championships, kcb safari rally, the cricket championships, rugby safari sevens series, confederation of eastern and central africa football association (cecafa) championships and open golf championships which have attracted both local and international participants (ng’oriarita, 2013). nairobi county is a hub of tourism in africa. the county is enriched with both cultural and natural tourism attractions such as mamba village, karen blixen museum, nairobi national park, giraffe centre and bomas of kenya. since the inception of devolution, the county has bid and hosted some spectacular sporting events which include the annual rugby safari sevens series, iaaf world under 18 championships, afcon qualifiers championships, african volleyball championships, ice stock sports africa, wrc safari rally, east africa military games and african deaf athletics championships. the city has several stadia that host different events which have made the city ideal for sports enthusiasts. despite hosting these events, it is unclear whether the host community in nairobi gains from the events. hosting of sports tourism is regarded as part of community development but there exists dearth of studies basing on this within the kenyan context. the link between sports tourism and counties is still under researched (njoroge et al, 2017). furthermore, peric (2018), herbold, thees and philipp (2020), and boonsiritomachai and phonthanukitithaworn (2019) opine that the host community is important in any tourism process and no form of tourism should be held at the expense of the locals. to sum up, wise 2016, argues that most research have put focus on events while the focus on the host community is missing. from this basis, the study will endeavor to fill this knowledge gap by addressing key concern in kenyan perspective. devolution and growth of sports events tourism in kenya devolution refers to a decentralization of political powers and economic resources to the local divisions. the kenyan constitution in 2010 enshrined devolution. the constitution enabled the formation of forty-seven counties that are governed independently (khaunya, wawire & chepng‘eno, 2015). county governments have continued to strive towards promoting economic welfare to improve the gdp of the country. according to world bank report (2019), county governments contribute 5.7% of the overall gdp in the country. tourism is among the sectors that have attracted the attention of these devolved units as they have realized the benefits of its promotion. devolution has opened up remote places through equitable allocation of resources to the counties. these counties have embarked on mapping of tourism resources, tourism product development and marketing. as a way of developing tourism products, some counties have been at the forefront of developing sports facilities that have made them host spectacular sports events. njoroge, atieno and nascimento (2017) pointed out that, with a centralized system of governance, tourism developments in some parts of kenya were disregarded, a priority was given to the coastal region because of the serene beaches and wildlife. however, these led to a lack of diversification in tourism products offered by the country. they further explained that the counties have led to the development of new destinations with diverse tourism products which have enabled https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. m. & juma, r. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 30-42. 33 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 30-42, doi: 10.18060/24924 copyright © 2021 lilian wanyonyi, joseph m. njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. the country to curb seasonality which was majorly caused by overreliance on beach and wildlife tourism. motivation for hosting sports tourism events many published pieces of literatures have concentrated on marketing, managing and evaluating of political, cultural and environmental effects of sports tourism (kasimati, 2003; zhou & ap, 2009; gelan, 2003; waitt, 2003). there is scanty of research attention on motivations for governments, cities or states to involve in these sports events. studies on motivations and reasons for hosting sports events are very limited. (ap, bauer & zhou, 2012). the bidding process has become a common aspect of destinations that rely on events as the main tourism product. destination management organizations, governments and businesses have taken a lead to bidding for the rights to host events in their areas as an initiative to rip the expected benefits (berridge, 2010). different cities in the world are embracing mice by improving their facilities, infrastructures and spaces to enhance their ability for bidding for different types of events. (getz, 2012). socio-economic benefits of hosting events on the host community developing nations considers tourism as a means of alleviating poverty by boosting sustainable developments for the locals. (paul, 2012). sports tourism events have effects on the host communities. in relation to sustainability, sports tourism events have economic, social and environmental impacts on the receiving communities (weaver, 2006). the popularity of hosting sports events has been associated with the fact that they contribute huge impacts to the livelihood of the host community (wanyonyi, njoroge &juma,2021). this relies on the size of the event being hosted, (peric, 2018). ntloko and swart (2008) state that, sports tourism events provide direct and indirect linkages with other industries whenever they are hosted. new opportunities are created for improving the standards of living for the locals. several studies have based on the economic impacts to the host destinations. examples of economic impacts include the provision of employment, boosting the local economy, diversification in tourism products and rise in investments (kayat, 2010; njoroge et al 2017; herbold, thees & philipp, 2020), improvement in revenues, supplementary income, and enhanced quality of life (dimitriadis et al., 2013). conversely, on the negative side of effects there are economic challenges like a rise in the cost of living through an increase in prices of commodities and unequal allocation of accrued benefits (andriotis, 2005) though much has been done on the impacts of hosting events, camacho, duclos and don santos (2018) opine that assessment of social impacts in sports tourism events is important to ascertain if they pose any effect to the host residents. this is to curb the adverse effects and maximize on the benefits received. majority of the past studies comprised of impact-based studies that sought to investigate the impacts of sport tourism events on specific destinations. therefore, there is scarcity of studies looking on socio-economic returns derived from hosting sport tourism events and how local economies benefit from the hosting of events in their proximity (nyikana & tichaawa, 2018). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. m. & juma, r. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 30-42. 34 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 30-42, doi: 10.18060/24924 copyright © 2021 lilian wanyonyi, joseph m. njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. methodology the objective of this paper was to identify the motivational factors behind hosting of sports tourism events and the benefits of sport tourism events to host community. purposive sampling was used to identify the three stadia namely moi international sports complex, nyayo stadium and nairobi city stadium that frequently host events in the city. a cross-sectional research design was used to collect both qualitative and quantitative data. questionnaires were used to collect quantitative data from the host community and sports tourists in the stadia. descriptive statistics were used to analyze the likert scale type questions from the questionnaire. to measure the socio economic benefits derived from events, the variables that were deemed to contribute to the socioeconomic well -being of the hosts from the literature review were put on a likert scale and the host community were asked to rate on a scale of 1 to 5 the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with the statements. the scale used ranged from 1=strongly agree to 5=strongly disagree. to this end, the ordinal scale of measurement was used where a value of “1” was considered the highest while “5” was the lowest. the perceived motivational factors for hosting sports tourism events from literature, were also put on the likert scale and respondents were asked to rate the extent to which they agreed or disagreed with the statements. ordinal scale of measurement was used, and means were calculated for the variables. a factor analysis was used to categorize the motivational factors for hosting events into three groups “facilities”, “support factors” and “favorable factors”. correlation analysis was used to establish the relationship between variables of the study. interviews were also administered to host community and sports stakeholders (sport associations, ministry of tourism and wildlife and ministry of sport). descriptive, thematic analysis and inferential statistics were used to analyze data. results and discussions quantitative data analyses four hundred and four questionnaires were issued to the sampled respondents. the questionnaires were administered to the respondents at the three stadia during ice stock sports africa, world rally championships, east africa military games and african deaf athletics championships events that were hosted in nairobi city in 2019. three hundred and seventy-three questionnaires were returned. the response rate was 92.33%. the questionnaire yielded over 60% of the response rate which is satisfactorily according to mugenda and mugenda (2008). table 1. factor analysis results with varimax rotational of motivational factors f1 f2 f3 mean communality factor 1— facilities good infrastructure 0.81 4.201 0.689 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. m. & juma, r. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 30-42. 35 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 30-42, doi: 10.18060/24924 copyright © 2021 lilian wanyonyi, joseph m. njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. well-developed sporting facilities 0.738 4.472 0.554 availability of accommodation facilities 0.513 4.134 0.518 availability of social amenities 0.607 4.1314 0.636 factor 2: support factors support of sponsors 0.698 4.5952 0.537 support from the government 0.689 4.3619 0.635 the hospitality of the host community 0.594 4.378 0.577 factor 3: favorable factors conducive weather 0.588 3.82 0.522 security 0.919 4.005 0.895 eigenvalue 2.124 1.844 1.194 variance explained (%) 23.599 20.494 13.269 total:57.361 cronbach’s alpha (α) 0.869 0.771 0.7 number of items 4 3 2 from table 1, factor 1 contained four items with the highest eigenvalue (2.124) and the greatest individual variance (23.599% and 23.563% of the variance before and after rotation, respectively). the motivational factors items included in this factor were “good infrastructure”; “well-developed sporting facilities”; “availability of accommodation facilities”; and “availability of social amenities.” these four motivational factors items were related to infrastructure that is needed during the hosting of sports tourism events. absence of facilities in a destination may hinder a city from bidding process. factor 2 was named “support factors.” it explained approximately 20.494% of the variance and had an eigenvalue of 1.844. three items were also included in this factor, namely, “support of sponsors”; “support from the government”; and “hospitality of the host community.” the items in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. m. & juma, r. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 30-42. 36 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 30-42, doi: 10.18060/24924 copyright © 2021 lilian wanyonyi, joseph m. njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. this factor play a key role in enhancing the success of hosting an event. the third and final factor generated was “favorable factors,” which comprised 2 items “conducive weather” and “security.” this factor accounted for 13.269% of the variance, with an eigenvalue of 1.194. scholarly studies related to this finding point out that availability of facilities, security and hospitality of the host are the highest ranked motivators identified amongst sport tourists and sports participants during an event (motlagh, 2013). table 2. correlations of the study variables variables sew pmf cando seb dh correlation sew-socio-economic wellbeing 1.000 pmf -perceived motivation .624 1.000 seb-socio-economic benefits .543 .348 .411 1.000 dh -determinants of hosting .614 .455 .485 .472 1.000 from table 2, the combined correlation of two independent variables namely perceived motivation and socio-economic benefits and the dependent variable were computed to determine the strength and direction of the associations between variables. the findings in this table showed that all independent variables had a positive relationship with the dependent variable. perceived motivation r = 0.624, socio-economic benefits r = 0.543. in the performed test of significance, each independent variable yielded p-value of 0.000 at the level of significance 0.05 two tailed. therefore, there is a strong positive correlation between the dependent variable and the independent variables. the study concluded that, from the independent variables investigated in the study, perceived motivation has the highest correlation to socio-economic wellbeing followed by socio-economic benefits. the study conducted a multiple linear regression involving the two independent variables against socio-economic wellbeing. the results are as shown in table 3. table 3. multiple regression for hosting of sports tourism events variables model r r square adjusted r square std. error of the estimate change statistics r square change f change df1 df2 sig. f change 1 .744a .553 .550 .25974 .553 152.300 3 369 .000 a. predictors: (constant), socioecon_benefits, perceived motivation the multiple regression analysis in table 3 above showed that r value measures the goodness of prediction of the variances. in this case r value of 0.744 is a good predictor of the socio-economic wellbeing by the independent variables: perceived motivation for hosting sports tourism events and socio-economic benefits of hosting sports tourism events. on the other hand, the r2 is the coefficient of determination which is the dependent variable that can be explained by the independent variables. in this case the r2 value of 0.553 means that 55.3% of the corresponding variation in the socio-economic wellbeing can be explained by the independent variables perceived https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. m. & juma, r. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 30-42. 37 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 30-42, doi: 10.18060/24924 copyright © 2021 lilian wanyonyi, joseph m. njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. motivation for hosting sports tourism events and socio-economic benefits of hosting sports tourism events. however, there are other variables not covered by the study which account for 44.7% of socio-economic wellbeing. this outcome shows that socio-economic wellbeing can be enhanced by the predictors, perceived motivation factors and socio-economic benefits, the more the value of the predictors, the more effective and efficient socio-economic wellbeing. this is in line with mc comie (2016) and ntloko and swart (2008). perceived motivation for hosting sports tourism events and socio-economic wellbeing the study conducted a multiple regression analysis involving perceived motivation for hosting sports tourism events against socio-economic wellbeing. the purpose was to establish the contribution of perceived motivation for hosting sports tourism events on socio-economic wellbeing. the results are as shown in table 4. table 4. multiple regression for hosting of sports tourism events variable model r r square adjusted r square std. error of the estimate change statistics r square change f change df1 df2 sig. f change 1 .624a .390 .388 .30272 .390 237.031 1 371 .000 a. predictors: (constant), perceived motivation the simple regression analysis in table 4 shows that the r2 value equals to 0.390 means that 39.0% of the corresponding variation in the socio-economic wellbeing can be explained by the independent variable perceived motivation for hosting sports tourism events. this implies that by improving perceived motivation for hosting sports tourism events on its own; there will be an improvement in socio-economic wellbeing. improvement in facilities such as good infrastructure, sporting facilities, accommodation facilities and social amenities would result into increase in the number of sport tourism events hence socio-economic wellbeing. further, increase of support from the government and sponsors would improve socio-economic wellbeing as a result of hosting sports tourism events. besides, favorable factors such as security and conducive weather would increase the number of sports tourism events hence socio-economic wellbeing. thematic analysis an interview with various stakeholders showed a general agreement on motivations of sports tourism events as noted by a local hotelier: “the hosting of sports events in nairobi has made impressive strides due to increased marketing of kenya as a sports destination by ktb, good performance of kenyans participating in international events, increased number of sports tourism facilities in the country and improved infrastructure for example the thika superhighway, direct flight to usa from kenya and the completion of standard gauged railway has made movements within the country efficient.” hot1 this is an indication that these factors have facilitated the growth and popularity of sports tourism in the country as a potential niche product for the enabling socio-economic returns to the hosts. with regard to the effect of these motivation factors on the socioeconomic wellbeing of the https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. m. & juma, r. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 30-42. 38 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 30-42, doi: 10.18060/24924 copyright © 2021 lilian wanyonyi, joseph m. njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. host community, the respondent felt that, “the motivational factors increase the image of the country both locally and abroad for instance the recent performance of kenya at the international stage has put the country on the global map i.e. the ineos 1:59 challenge has served many valuable lessons on tapping the benefits accruing from sports tourism, sports tourism enthusiasts across the world have now started flocking the country to seek the answers on why the country is such a dominant force in the middle and long-distance running. besides, the conducive weather and availability of world class accommodation facilities have made kenya be an ideal host of many events thus accruing benefits to the hoteliers, local businesses, tour firms and the government at large this would mean higher economic returns to boost the socioeconomic wellbeing of the hosts whenever they are hosted. therefore, motivational supports like sports leadership, organizational support and level of security should be highly put into consideration to enhance more economic returns to host destination.”cg3 as a suggestion on how to improve motivation for hosting sports tourism events, the participant had this to say: “we need to encourage a high level of security in this wake of terrorism, sports facilities on the other hand need to be increased and elevated to international standards to boost their competitiveness when bidding to host major and mega sports tourism events, the government should enhance their marketing visibility to enhance their recognition locally and abroad”. mot2 in addition to this, infrastructure, organization support, the good will of the sponsors should be encouraged and supported to boost the successful hosting of sports tourism events in the county. this finding concurs with the findings by yusuf (2016), njoroge et al. (2017) and gitari (2016) but differ with the findings of nezakati, chin and akhoundi (2013), that showed interest in sport, age, ethnicity, structural constraint and interpersonal constraint were influential factors for hosting sports tourism events. assessment of the benefits of hosting sports tourism events in the host community in nairobi county for this objective, the sports stakeholders affirmed that the increased hosting of sports tourism events in nairobi has contributed to the social, economic and environmental benefits to the locals. “the increasing number of domestic and international tourists participating in sports events in nairobi has stimulated the local economy. participants contribute to the local economy through spending on accommodation, retail outlets, and restaurants, while increasing the demand for local labor.” to 4 in addition to that, sports tourism events have led to that. “development of infrastructure for instance, thika superhighway has made moi international sports complex more accessible during events. these events have led to employment of people before, during and after the events. there has also been increased media attention during events for example, iaaf championships that placed nairobi on a global map. further, community pride has been enhanced as local people’s identity during hosting is increased, hosting of events has also led to development of sports facilities in nairobi and other counties. “mos 1 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. m. & juma, r. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 30-42. 39 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 30-42, doi: 10.18060/24924 copyright © 2021 lilian wanyonyi, joseph m. njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. based on the economic benefits of hosting sports tourism events, the respondents stated that, “hosting has led to increased employment opportunities among the hosts, boosting of local business, attracting of investors in sports sector and improved infrastructure. therefore, the government should put more efforts in sports development in order to continuously host events that spur economic development to the country but also play economies of scale to the local community. cog 1 based on the social impacts of hosting sports tourism events, the respondents stated that. “events contributes to socio-cultural exchange, community consolidation, boosting of the image of the country, great media attention, external exposure of host country, urban renewal and development, knowledge and entertainment. though these effects are intangible, the legacies they have during events change the perception and acceptability of hosting events among the locals”. sa7 on the contrary, despite these positive social and economic impacts, the sporting events have been on the focus due to negative social impacts associated with hosting events. the events are associated with immoral behaviors among the attendees. few instances were reported especially during the iaaf championships and east africa military games. one respondent stated that, “one of the negative sides of these events hosting is traffic congestion, traffic diversion, too much and underage alcoholism, parking issues, crime and immorality especially during the night events organized in the sidelines of the main sports events”. another respondent stated that, “noise and a large amount of litter have posed a great environmental concern in areas around the stadia.” to3 other concerns raised were hooliganism, vandalism and fear of terrorists’ attacks that target sports events with a huge number of attendees and wide media coverage. it is evident that hosting of sports tourism events has both benefits and costs associated with them. county and national governments need to give a consideration in promoting sports tourism events as a niche product to enable a sustainable sports tourism development. the findings on this variable concur with the findings by njoroge et al. (2017), peric (2018), ntloko and swart (2008) and yusuf (2016). this finding however differs with the findings of oshimi, yamaguchi, fukuhara and taks (2021) only based their findings on social impacts as benefits that the host community gets from hosting of sports tourism events. this thematic analysis agrees with the quantitative results that challenges and opportunities positively affect the socioeconomic wellbeing of the host community. socio-economic wellbeing of the host community the stakeholders gave their opinion regarding to the dependent variable and the hosting of events and said that, “to enhance sustainable tourism development all stakeholders must actively participate to enhance long term benefits to the locals. events can help alleviate poverty among the locals through allowing them to actively participate in planning before and during events”. tourism has improved the livelihood of the local community hence sports tourism may not be an exception. the growing number of both inbound and outbound sport tourists participating in sports events stimulates the local economy. event participants contribute to the local economy by spending on accommodation facilities, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. m. & juma, r. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 30-42. 40 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 30-42, doi: 10.18060/24924 copyright © 2021 lilian wanyonyi, joseph m. njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. transport, retail outlets and restaurants while also increasing the demand for local labor.” mot 2 this in turn leads to improved socioeconomic wellbeing. besides the economic benefits, sports tourism events are catalysts for other forms of development, for instance urban regeneration, local community capacity building and promotion of marketing thus leading to a long-term legacies for the host cities. this creates a unique city brand that could attract many tourists in the future. however, for sports tourism events to serve as a means of strengthening economic development, the size and duration of hosting should be put into considerations to be able to leverage more benefits for the locals. in addition, it very necessary to develop the host community support and participation for events. in summary, this finding supports the prevalent view that sports tourism events can be a viable approach to the economic development of local communities (getz & page, 2016; nyikaana 2018; boonsiritomachai & phonthanukitithaworn, 2019). conclusion and recommendation sports tourism events is one of the dynamic sub-sectors in sports tourism known for creating socio-economic changes across the local communities. its role in diversifying the tourism products, provision of employment and establishment of sports facilities, cultural exchanges and environmental protection contributes to sustainable development. it’s beyond doubt that sports tourism events present lots of benefits and opportunities for host cities. therefore, to enhance this segment of travel, the findings will be useful to the government (policy makers) in crafting policies and relevant legislation to create an enabling environment to encourage the growth and development of the sports tourism. this will ensure that sports tourism develops within specified guidelines and is well regulated for the benefit of both the host community, sports tourists, and planners who coordinate these events. further, creating an enabling environment for the growth of the sports tourism sub-sector will greatly contribute to the government’s initiative to reduce poverty from the counties. these findings also have vital implications for the need of proper financing of counties in order to facilitate sports and recreational infrastructures throughout the country under the leadership of county governments. this will make counties to be active in bidding and hosting of sports tourism events. additionally, public and private sectors participation in sports should be enhanced. the collaboration among stakeholders of sports will eventually improve the sporting activities in the country. furthermore, there is need for a holistic plan which takes into consideration sport tourism development issues at the same time incorporates all role players in events to promote success of future events. this will be key in strengthening a sustainable sport tourism industry in the country by limiting the challenges and maximizing on the benefits. the study also identified opportunities that come as a result of hosting sports tourism events. these include a chance to offer more experiences and satisfaction with regard to the complementary nature of sport tourism events to other tourism attractions, promotion of domestic tourism and counteracting tourism seasonality. through sport tourism, events can be organized at different times of the year to curb overreliance on safari and beach tourism. this aspect has an implication on the destination marketers in this case kenya tourism board (the state corporation charged with the mandate of marketing kenya as a tourist destination both locally and internationally) in developing https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. m. & juma, r. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 30-42. 41 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 30-42, doi: 10.18060/24924 copyright © 2021 lilian wanyonyi, joseph m. njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. branding strategies to create a distinct image of sports tourism to make nairobi an ideal destination for sports tourism. references akama, j.s. & kieti, d. (2007). tourism and socio-economic development in developing countries; a case of mombasa resort in kenya: journal of sustainable tourism, 15(6), 735748. andriotis, k. (2005). community groups' perceptions and preferences to tourism development. evidence from crete. journal of hospitality and tourism research, vol.29, no.1, pp.67-90. berridge, g. (2010). event pitching: the role of design and creativity. international journal of hospitality management, 29(2), 208-215. boonsiritomachai, w. & phonthanukitithaworn, c. 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(2012). government motivations for hosting the beijing 2008 olympic games. journal of tourism and cultural change, 10(2), 185-201. zhou, y., & ap, j. (2009). residents’ perceptions towards the impacts of the beijing 2008 olympic games. journal of travel research, 48(1), 78–90. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2018/04/16350074/kenya-tourism-polishing-jewel http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/2018/04/16350074/kenya-tourism-polishing-jewel events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 1-3, doi: 10.18060/22905 copyright © 2018 godwin-charles ogbeide. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribuion 4.0 international license. events and tourism review volume 1 no. 1 the dawn of the events and tourism review godwin-charles ogbeide indiana university-purdue university indianapolis for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation ogbeide, g-c. (2018). the dawn of the events and tourism review. events and tourism review, 1(1), 1-3. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr ogbeide, g-c. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 1-3. 2 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 1-3, doi: 10.18060/22905 copyright © 2018 godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. the dawn of the events and tourism review keywords: conceptual papers, case study papers, general review papers, technical papers, viewpoint papers it is our pleasure to announce the launch of the first edition of the events and tourism review (etr). one of the major goals of the etr is to publish applicable articles that are highly useful and readable by both industry professionals and scholars. hence, the etr aims to publish short, plain and straightforward articles with practical implications in the hospitality and tourism industry. etr welcomes contributions related to any subject in the hospitality, tourism, and event industry. the etr is very excited about this first edition. the first article, “challenges for sustainability in the mice system,” addresses some of the challenges facing the meetings and events sector as it works towards enhancing its sustainability endeavors. it describes mice as a complex, adaptive system (cas), which would benefit from the systems thinking approach for sustainability. the article also addresses the implications of operationalizing sustainability that is based on an organization’s performance management. the second article, “important secondary information sources to form destination image,” utilizes comparative analyses to address the variations in sources of information that contributed towards the destination images of four different countries. it also shows the implications of these findings to mega events, as well as destination marketing organizations (dmos). it addresses many variables that could affect a destination’s image. the third article, “cost benefit analysis of hotel recycling practices in india,” focuses on an examination of a cost benefit analysis concerning the use of recycling to reduce solid waste in india. in exploring this, eight highly rated hotels’ potential recycling benefits were evaluated. findings indicated that hospitality organizations would actually benefit economically by reducing waste through recycling to protect the environment. the fourth article, “examining the visitor profile and event characteristics of a festival,” addresses the elements of greatest importance at a festival. the findings from this study can be utilized by event organizers to appeal to future festival attendees through advertising and marketing endeavors. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&ved=2ahukewiv7l6z9clfahuwo4mkhrzlb90qjrx6bagbeau&url=https://pixabay.com/en/photos/party mask/?&psig=aovvaw2codrnffwitsta_1bfukov&ust=1546099889582950 ogbeide, g-c. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 1-3. 3 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 1-3, doi: 10.18060/22905 copyright © 2018 godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. the fifth article, “student perceptions of engagement in a mandatory programmatic service learning,” addresses the importance of service learning for students pursuing careers in the hospitality industry. it also addresses the benefits of service learning to students, the program, and the organization sponsoring the service learning. an important aspect of this article is the design of the service learning course, which could serve as an example for educators and industry professionals interested in service learning endeavors. the etr highly recommends the submission of the following categories of papers that are usually given less attention. first, conceptual papers, which are not centered on research, but place emphasis on philosophical and stimulating discussions that would advance the hospitality and tourism industry. second, case study papers, which illustrate real stories and issues within organizations. these papers may be based on projects, field research, and/or experiences that are based on real organizational isuues with practical implications for other organizations and can be useful for educational purposes. third, general review papers, which are instructional, informative, and deliver an historical analysis of a given concept, method, or occurrence. such papers often create avenues for new ideas and innovations. fourth, technical papers, which usually focus on the exploration and description of products, procedures, or services in the hospitality and tourism industry. the etr also encourages the submission of viewpoint papers, which rely on the author’s justifiable opinions and rationalization in any subject to advance the development of the hospitality and tourism industry. worthy papers submitted to the etr will be peer-reviewed and published within three to six months of submission. the etr is able to publish as quickly as possible because of the short paper requirement. each paper is limited to 1000-3000 words including all tables, exhibits, figures and references. in addition to the quick production process of the etr, it intends to provide a global platform for innovative and applied studies that make a significant contribution to the practice and development of the hospitality and tourism industry. submitting to the etr means receiving global visibility and fast publication and circulation ensuring your article is viewed/read by key stakeholders worldwide while remaining online and free of charge for readers to access with ease. we look forward to receiving your papers and thank you in advance for considering etr as the disseminator of your research and creative endeavors. godwin-charles ogbeide, ph.d. mba indiana university-purdue university indianapolis (iupui) chief editor, events and tourism review gogbeide@iu.edu the etr is published by the events and tourism institute (eti) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:gogbeide@iu.edu events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 43-56, doi: 10.18060/25307 copyright © 2021 angela senter, mark beattie and demi deng this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review june 2021 volume 4 no. 1 large event security – a case study of spokane events, wa angela senter mark beattie demi deng washington state university correspondence: angie.senter@wsu.edu (a. senter) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation senter, a., beattie, m. & deng, d. (2021). large event security – a case study of spokane events, wa. events and tourism review, 4(1), 43-56. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:angie.senter@wsu.edu http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr senter, a., beattie, m. & deng, d. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-16. 44 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 43-56, doi: 10.18060/25307 copyright © 2021 angela senter, mark beattie and demi deng this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract large event security has become increasingly complex over the past 20 years. security incidents have included headline tragedies such as the las vegas shooting in 2017 and the boston marathon bombing in 2013. spokane, washington, has been no exception to the need to enhance guest security for large-scale events, as evidenced by the hoopfest gang-related shooting in 2010 and the martin luther king jr. day bombing attempt in 2011. balancing the interests of stakeholders has become challenging for event management professionals in both planning and operations phases. security strategies and trainings designed for security and guest service staff are critical for the success of new protocols. transparent communication to the public is crucial for the event's success and the guarantee of guest satisfaction. this case study aims to document the leadership decisions made to enhance security for large-scale events held in downtown spokane and the spokane arena. focusing on several tipping points, the leadership decisions and implementation are chronicled as a case study, along with the decisions and protocols that continue to influence large event security in the spokane area. this study will benefit other event planners and venues as they face security system upgrades, protocols, and implementation. keywords: event security, communication, collaboration, pandemic response, risk management introduction large event security has become increasingly complicated over the past 20 years. megaevents consistently contribute to local economic development in a positive way but also attract much attention concerning security-related issues involving all the stakeholders (amorin et al., 2014; boyle & haggerty, 2009; disalvatore, 2019; klauser, 2015). security cases have included the headline tragedies such as the las vegas shooting in 2017 and the boston marathon bombing of 2013. in 2021, the spokane events team gathered as they had for several years, although the meetings were via videoconference. everyone was getting more than a little weary of being cooped up at home, working remotely. prior studies indicated a notable impact of external shocks, such as pandemic and terrorist attacks, on the event market and the flow of event operation (miles & shipway, 2020). likewise, the public and the leadership in the city government and business district were getting anxious to reopen even as the pandemic continued to take its toll on citizens. the pressure was mounting to see a return to “normalcy,” and for spokane this means large events that had become signatures for the city. the greater spokane area attracts people from all over the region for broadway musicals, concerts, sporting events, fine dining, festivals, shopping, use of the airport, and even healthcare facilities. tourism is a large contributor to the local economy through events such as bloomsday, pig out in the park, and hoopfest. the greater spokane area has a built-out tourism infrastructure in terms of hotel rooms and restaurants to support. hoteliers and restaurateurs needed to put “heads in beds” and turn tables quickly as reserves were running low. “it’s awful,” worthy, a spokane hotelier, said. one wednesday night, the centennial by davenport hotels, located at 303 w. north river drive, “had 16 occupied rooms of 411. the night before last, we had less than $600 in food https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ senter, a., beattie, m. & deng, d. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-16. 45 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 43-56, doi: 10.18060/25307 copyright © 2021 angela senter, mark beattie and demi deng this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. and beverage revenue. you try keeping a kitchen open with that. that’s what we are dealing with on a daily basis.” for the arena and convention center, this meant bringing meetings and shows back to town. the pressure was mounting, and the team felt the heat enough to melt the new snow beginning to pile up on the sidewalks (clouse, 2020). the excellent news about treatments and vaccines was only creating more of a sense that the pandemic was behind us, and we could begin seeing our friends and family and attend events as we used to do. however, this positive vibe was tempered with the reality that there were still several months of transition ahead. a specialized team of city and private personnel was tasked with creating, communicating, and implementing the large-scale event security plans. the dilemma before the team is to figure out how to pull off large events safely. the task is huge, and the stakes are high, but the team knows they could use the past lessons in planning for future events while maintaining the security and easing potential attendees’ concerns, especially at large gatherings. as they gathered to form a strategic plan for event security that now included novel coronavirus threats, they began to outline the lessons learned in the past that would inform the future. they started by recalling significant turning points over the past decade. one of those turning points occurred on january 17, 2011. hundreds of families and community members were beginning to gather for a martin luther king jr. day unity parade in downtown spokane, washington. a routine event security procedure included a sweep of the parade route in advance of the event. a lone, unattended backpack sitting on a street corner alerted event personnel, who quickly enacted their event security plan. event organizers rerouted the parade as the spokane city police department worked in conjunction with the sheriff's office bomb squad. they successfully dismantled a shrapnel bomb coated in an anticoagulant commonly found in rat poison. no injuries were sustained that day, and most event attendees had no idea of a security breach. the large event security procedures enacted that day saved hundreds of lives. two short months later, spokane welcomed over 10,000 guests into the city's core for the world's largest three-on-three basketball tournament, hoopfest. with a recent legitimate event bombing attempt, the approaches and procedures that the city municipalities and event staff used for security policies and communications would affect human lives and determine the outcome of millions of dollars in tourism revenue. a day in the world of event management in spokane can be complicated, to say the least, as dozens of large events are hosted throughout the year with separate event teams residing at convention centers, arenas, city parks, and tourism bureaus. although the events teams are separate, the overlap that a large event causes in a city often brings them all to the table. the need for multilayered communication among event security teams became apparent at the 2013 carrie underwood concert. for concert management to agree to come to spokane, they demanded metal detectors at guest entrances. the arena did not have metal detectors, so the directors of the facility and the security team had to quickly answer these questions: who would pay for those, how do they train security staff to operate them, who pays for training and the extra staffing, and how best should they communicate the new protocols for guests? since each event is unique and has its own set of security challenges, how does such a large, diverse event security team continue to produce successful events on time, on budget, and in a safe pattern? those research questions attracted us to conduct this study. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ senter, a., beattie, m. & deng, d. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-16. 46 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 43-56, doi: 10.18060/25307 copyright © 2021 angela senter, mark beattie and demi deng this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. methods qualitative-oriented research is highlighted by neuendorf (2002) as a method to formulate research questions about how an event proceeds and increase understanding through examination. neuendorf (2002) indicated content analysis as a concrete approach to rely on original textual sources and summarize all details concerning themed research, thereby demonstrating holistic views on event security. regarding content analysis, all the variables occurred in natural settings without any manipulation and served as clues to unlock research questions with rich descriptions (miles et al., 2014; neuendorf, 2002). data collection purposive sampling was utilized in this study to target participants who are at the core of event management in the spokane area. six interviewees heavily involved in event management in the spokane area were recruited via snowballing (table 1). semi-structured interviews were adopted to collect information to illustrate research questions, and nvivo was applied to analyze the data. to assure in-rater reliability, triangulation was utilized by cross-verification among interviewers, interviewees, and coders. participants table 1 – participants’ information no. professional titles 1. customer experience director for city of spokane 2. marketing and programming director, downtown spokane partnership 3. sergeant of special events for the spokane police department 4. park ranger 5. director of entertainment for the spokane public facility district 6. sales and event manager for riverfront park 7. event and sales pavilion manager the participants were interviewed via video conference using the following dimensions and sample questions: • decision-making o what parts of the process would change if given a chance? • human resources o what means of employee communications were used in the implementation? • operations o are you able to attract a more qualified workforce? • public relations o how do the new procedures affect guests? data analysis saldaña’s (2015) two cycles of coding methods were utilized to distill and process the contextual messages. the collected contextual data was initially coded into data chunks conforming to research questions and thenceforth facilitated to pattern coding at the second cycle phase, where https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ senter, a., beattie, m. & deng, d. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-16. 47 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 43-56, doi: 10.18060/25307 copyright © 2021 angela senter, mark beattie and demi deng this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. initial codes were regrouped and reorganized based on significant themes underlying research foci. results almost every interviewee described the essence of event security management in terms of transparency and effective communication regardless of the styles (e.g., intranet communication or planned bi-week meeting) and formats (e.g., in-person or virtual meeting). the themes in regard to communications were classified into two categories. one is task force-related assignment, and the other is the negotiation for mutual grounds involving all the stakeholders. bringing together a consistent task force of event security experts aided the event team in being able to lean on each member’s area of expertise. it also provided a platform to build mutual trust and foster loyal relationships. the data revealed that all the interviewees had worked together on multiple events in the past, which contributed to the positive impact of transparent and bottom-up communications, underlying the trust and support among teams. as the pavilion event and sales manager concluded, “we try to find the mutual ground that we can agree upon within that. so, if they want to do something that is against policy, we will try to find options what would work within our policy. it's really up to the powers to be …but those rules can have some fluidity to it.” however, power hierarchy was recognized during data analysis as a detrimental factor to communication since it is difficult to get all stakeholders around the planning table. for example, the park ranger shared, “i get shut down by administration slightly above me. and so, my voice or concerns don't reach the level they need to effect change.” with such a multiple-faceted stakeholder groups residing in the spokane event teams, it is natural to come up with a large degree of divergence in opinions. additionally, there is no correct answer in how best to proceed with large event security when the protocols and procedures have yet to be written upon agreement. again, this team discussed how they lean on their communication skills and relationships. when other voices were raised among the team, they generally embraced the different opinions, as when the customer experience director stated that “we have open lines of dialogue, and i think most important for us is we want to get to the win.” the pavilion event sales manager likewise explained, “we tried to find the mutual ground that we can agree upon with that. if they want to do something that is against policy, we will try to find options that would work within our policy… everybody just kind of doing the best they can, and there is a consensus. we will get through it. if the hiccup happens, we will work it out.” the relationships that these teams have built with one another help them in moments of conflict to remember that everyone is trying to do the best for the client and the guests (klauser, 2015). keeping the end goal in mind helps eliminate personal feelings of team conflict and drive the conversation forward. most people with experience in events put a high value on collaboration. if it takes a village to raise a child, it takes an entire city to pull off a good event. this situation was abundantly evident in this interview group’s desire to collaborate on projects. the event management teams initiated extensive communication by integrating the team identity values into every message and its relationship with stakeholders and implementing every event operation. by establishing mutual ground via communication, collaboration was built up in various audiences: consumers, shareholders and investors, employees, suppliers, and local communities. to secure the success of each event, collaboration matters. in the words of the customer experience director, “[i]t https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ senter, a., beattie, m. & deng, d. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-16. 48 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 43-56, doi: 10.18060/25307 copyright © 2021 angela senter, mark beattie and demi deng this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. is really about collaboration and working through it and trying to, you know, what is the best outcome and sometimes the answer is just hard.” findings and discussion communication and collaboration can go a long way in building a harmonious team relationship. however, in the context of event security, it needs to go much deeper. the event team frequently discussed their trust in one another. when lives are on the line, you must know that you can trust those around you to make sound judgments and that the policies and procedures put in place are being followed. the team gave an example of this at the robert plant rock music concert in the opera house. an overzealous fan rushed the stage and nearly encountered the singer. later, the team reviewed the case and discussed various places where protocols had broken down, from the floor security not correctly watching the front row fans to the stage security not stopping the individual when the audience member reached the singer. the lack of overall communication and training among the staff was pointed to as the main shortcoming. by integrating communication and collaboration, the team's relationships would be enhanced, and trust better established. trust is the glue that holds event security alliances together. it is about a deep relationship that could impact a more comprehensive array of event participants, customer engagement, local community awareness and commitment, employees' sense of belonging, and even satisfaction. as the park ranger expressed it, “you know when you see something, how important it is to share that to the appropriate person to get some assistance and investigating” (park ranger). the sergeant of special events recounted that in this case, because the rangers “were doing their own research and they wanted to have a safe event…they were the ones that brought it forward to us.” even the best-laid plans go awry at events. all respondents frequently articulated how fast events can change, and they all possessed a positive attitude towards change. most importantly, all respondents could articulate the ability to absorb the change proactively. such an adaptive attitude is developed from three causes based on respondents' feedback. those leaders' characteristics are consistent with the merits of servant leaders who inspire the effectiveness of event management. first, prompt job description and detailed training are provided to event staff: “they’re given the parameters of this is the area that you are working in” (sergeant of special events). second, event operation teams are always prepared for the unexpected scenario and have back-up plans in hand. the director of entertainment explained this outlook and process in the case of hoopfest: “[w]hen you need a police officer and they've worked with homeland security to do drills on various scenarios of what could happen because of the focal point of hoopfest. so, what is the possibility of something catastrophic happening or is it just sort of a, a weekly and smaller event where the environment allows for some control.” the customer experience director added, “[d]epending on events, we can require them (security) to have crowd control.” third, event employees are supported with resources. in spokane, as the marketing and program director recounted, “we have security ambassadors wearing bullet-proof vests...they have not been attacked in the past…. [w]e provide protective equipment for them, but we got a lot of complaints about the perception that downtown is not safe because our ambassadors were wearing bullet-proof vest.” the findings are consistent with the key characteristics of event leadership, which include listening, empathy, healing, awareness, persuasion, foresight, stewardship, and awareness of https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ senter, a., beattie, m. & deng, d. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-16. 49 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 43-56, doi: 10.18060/25307 copyright © 2021 angela senter, mark beattie and demi deng this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. community building (parris & peachey, 2013). however, the application of change is challenging to some employees due to role stress and level of job competency. interviewees reflected that “the staff we hire are young people that are fresh out of high school, a seasonal staff to help out with events and our attractions…. when you work in a potential terrorist target…we try not to scare them away” (park ranger). the nature of change itself is also a variable of concern. as events change, policies and procedures need to change as well. that change does not always occur at the rate that it needs to remain valid. the timeline from policy drafting, change, and implementation may vary from six months up to five years. during this period, procedures or workflows may be adjusted or stalled due to the influence of uncontrollable conditions such as the change of key personnel in authority or the inability to identify critical stakeholders correctly. it was noted also that there is a financial disparity among large or small events that are attempting to have more transparent movements on the cost. the marketing and programming director lamented that “literally for five years now, it’s very political.” in the words of the customer experience director, “it was still too much gray area and then also the concerns of moving to face what we still need to resolve.” the change in events can be best mitigated by correctly identifying the threat spectrum. the contemporary challenge is how to balance the event as both entertaining and safe. when something significant goes wrong at a special event, there can be lasting economic, political, and social consequences. all of respondents encountered unexpected risks or incidents. to control risk, it is not only about recovery strategies but also avoidance strategies. to achieve this outcome, it is necessary to anticipate the spectrum of possible threats in real-world events and help event organizers to think outside of the box: [i]f there is an emergency, a riot or something breaks out to threaten the public because of the social distancing…i think the mindset now is not to have that density of their vendors and the queue lines and pathways open. we always follow the rule that we need to have a space for emergency vehicles to get in and out of. and i think people and really our event organizers are really understanding that now. (pavilion event and sales manager) the marketing and programming director put is simply: “the priority is the physical safety of those that are attending.” questions were raised such as “[d]id anybody give any thought to active shooter? … i am not trying to sound like a nutcase here, but did we give any thought to that because if i were a bad guy, i can look right down onto the crowd and stage, that would be a perfect place for me to be an active shooter” (park ranger). risk avoidance is only one half of the spectrum. risk mitigation has also to be considered. uncertainty and surprise are part of all events' real-world compositions (amorin et al., 2014). the respondents identified the need to be prepared and to have the resources and the mindset to address actual emergencies. one respondent gave a potent example: we had an incident last year…. a major event [hoopfest] in downtown that brings 250,000 people … and a child was sort of stopped and almost abducted and because we had a large police presence at that event, they were able to stop that, otherwise i can’t imagine how the event would have been affected if a child had gone missing. (marketing and programming director). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ senter, a., beattie, m. & deng, d. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-16. 50 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 43-56, doi: 10.18060/25307 copyright © 2021 angela senter, mark beattie and demi deng this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. however, to map out a security strategy in advance requires a cost. event management teams sometimes must negotiate a high cost evoked by the organization of security procedure versus stakeholders' questions. to a degree, they struggled to find a balance between the cost of security and the event’s economic impact. the customer experience director stated that “it is definitely just a trust issue when they came up with what they think is the appropriate level of staffing.” at the same time, “they want to have a safe event, and at the same time you have to tell them it's going to cost 40 grand to have people sit there in their trucks and guard an intersection. there is a little sticker shock with that. so, to me, my role is to make sure is it appropriate… are there alternatives?” (customer experience director). once security threats are identified and plans are put into place, the respondents discussed the need to have clear communication with guests. for instance, adding metal detectors to the carrie underwood concert (2013) was new for guests to the spokane arena. the marketing staff worked hard to put out social media posts and radio announcements telling fans about the new changes, to arrive early, and to be prepared for the enhanced security measures. the communication planned worked well, and there were no issues ushering guests through the new protocols. when neil diamond also requested metal detectors, the marketing team again reached out to social media and the radio stations to make announcements, but they did not consider the guest demographic change and identify that this was not the right platform to communicate with their guests. as a result, long lines formed at the security entry points, and guest satisfaction suffered. to the attendees it was told they should “make sure that they showed up early, or if you are wearing a belt buckle...make sure you have it off by the time you get up to the metal detectors, because it was a long line when we had a lot of people waiting out there and we even held the event, i think, an extra 15 minutes before it started” (director of entertainment). when large-scale events are held outside of a controlled environment like an arena, community communication can play a vital role. one of our participants pointed out the limitation of communication on community awareness: “i would really like to find a way to be able to communicate more effectively when there is an event ongoing in someone’s neighborhood or area that they need to be aware of…but every year we find somebody new to spokane and did not know what they could be exposed to” (customer experience director). this concern was also emphasized by a homeowner on the bloomsday race route: “somebody’s upset that they could not leave the house for a 15-minute period and could not figure out why a group of runners came by” (customer experience director). understanding community impact and finding creative ways to lessen this impact starts with an excellent external communication plan. a robust external communication plan also helps guests and the local community feel safe attending events. most interviewees stated that visitors in this community were quite supportive and comfortable with any security changes. they appreciated the support to the small business development in this community via event management (“it's been really awesome to see the city coming alive and you see the prosperous small businesses…. [h]opefully, they can come back and see the small businesses grow…. i haven't felt this connected to a city and its progression and its momentum moving forward really ever before” (riverfront park sales and event manager). this causes a strong network between the community and event stakeholders. the positive outcome of visitors’ feedback is the key signal. the customer experience director emphasized visitors knowing that spokane is “a great community that really loves events” and that they are “pleased with our improvements in the process and what they would like us to work on” and that “we all can still have our events in a safe manner.” the sergeant of special https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ senter, a., beattie, m. & deng, d. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-16. 51 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 43-56, doi: 10.18060/25307 copyright © 2021 angela senter, mark beattie and demi deng this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events likewise mentioned the goal of impressions being “very positive, they like events when they get down here, safe and secure” (sergeant of special events). the continuation of this level of success greatly depends on the team’s ability to learn from past events, which is not always guaranteed. “[w]e had an event coming up, it was very simple. this is some of the communication stuff, just because i have been doing it. and it is like, okay, everybody should know this. well, no, it wasn't that simple” (sergeant of special events). for some events, like a local fair or an annual special event, institutional memory is a sufficient organizational resource and operational database for reflection and advancement. thorough decision-making stems from three critical components, and institutional memory is one of the core aspects (el sawy et al., 1986). those who host unique or infrequent events can also learn transferable skills from past events. the need for a written post-event assessment was paramount as staffing and stakeholder changes create a need for contingency. completing this stage properly helps leaders begin to identify potential threats and strategies for countering the threats and also draw a salient role of the importance of security control and management among all the parties involved ( fussey & klauser, 2015). conclusion so as our team once again gathered around the table (nowadays on zoom), they reflected on their past successes and the many learning opportunities they have had over the years. not only was guest physical safety on the top of their mind, but now protecting the event guest from a public health crisis was foremost. the last thing any of our team wanted was to end up in the evening news as the cause of a “super-spreader” event. they know they had the relationships, training, and communication to create safe and fun events for spokane once again. they decided to roll up their sleeves and get to work. the first action was to outline all the possible topics to address. • what decision-making strategies make the most sense now? • how will policies affect employees, guests, and the public? • who will train employees and event volunteers? • how will new equipment be paid for and operated under which budgets? • communication will be the key to success. what strategies will be most effective? the team reached out to an event management class at a local university for assistance to gain the broadest perspective. the team was excited and looked forward to the students’ final presentation. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ senter, a., beattie, m. & deng, d. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-16. 52 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 43-56, doi: 10.18060/25307 copyright © 2021 angela senter, mark beattie and demi deng this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. case synopsis event security is becoming a key topic in event planning. cybersecurity of registrations, intruders, food safety, violent actors, and now viruses create a rapidly changing landscape. students and professionals in event planning benefit from the expertise of professionals like the ones featured in this case study. gaining an understanding for the complexity in intersections of multiple kinds of expertise required to approach event security holistically is the main focal point of this case. the long-standing commitment to large-scale events in spokane, wa, has brought together the collection of city officials, public safety, and event management on a standing committee that works together for public events throughout the city. collaboration and communication are the hallmarks of their success. it is these leadership skills that can be applied in other settings where public events take place to ensure guest safety. spokane, wa, (pop. 500,000) is a mid-sized event market that has capitalized on large-scale events, particularly sport related events such as hoopfest and bloomsday. the spokane veterans’ memorial arena is a multi-purpose home to the local hockey team along with concerts trade shows and graduations. avista stadium hosts a single-a baseball team. the spokane convention center and a large adjacent auditorium (first interstate center) have multiple venue spaces. numerous hotels, restaurants, and shopping outlets surround riverfront park in the downtown core. target audience this case would be useful for hospitality, tourism, and business administration students with moderate to extensive knowledge of event management, tourism, destination management organizations, risk management, and large event security issues. it is recommended for use as an introductory exploratory case. it is suggested for use in tourism, event management, or event risk management courses. considering the moderate level of difficulty of the case, it would be appropriate for students in the middle to ending semester of a certificate or undergraduate program. learning objectives the primary objectives of this case are as follows: a. construct a correlation between relationship and collaboration within an event security team. 1) sub-objective: identify roadblocks that impede communication 2) sub-objective: list and categorize stakeholders and their associative roles and responsibilities b. recommend communication strategies that foster trust among stakeholders. 1) sub-objective: explain how power distance affects task force development 2) sub-objective: identify ways to create mutual ground among stakeholders c. evaluate a threat spectrum. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ senter, a., beattie, m. & deng, d. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-16. 53 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 43-56, doi: 10.18060/25307 copyright © 2021 angela senter, mark beattie and demi deng this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 1) sub-objective: compare and contrast risk avoidance verses risk mitigation 2) sub-objective: identify and allocate costs associated with risk avoidance and mitigation d. illustrate the importance of safety training system. 1) sub-objective: discuss the impact of the application of change 2) sub-objective: identify community perspective on policies and training e. create and defend a sample event security communication and relationship building plan for a hypothetical public health crisis. teaching plan and objectives the suggested strategy for a 60-minute discussion is formulated for an undergraduate or certificate program, mid-level course. the table below presents an overview of the proposed classroom activities, the corresponding objectives, and the recommended time allocations. the steps are then explained. step classroom activity objectives time 1. defining the problem read case study and highlight important themes a, a1 5 min 2. setting the stage plenary discussion identifying stakeholder roles, responsibilities, and power distances a2, b, b1, b2 5 min 3. assessing the risk plenary discussion to conduct a risk assessment listing accepted or mitigated risk hierarchies c, c1, c2, 5 min 4. developing the strategy small group communication strategy planning d, d1, d2, b 20 min 5. defending the conclusion group sharing of communication strategies to plenary body e 20 min 6. closing the case plenary summary of key communication and relationship strategies necessary for success b, d, e 5 min step 1: defining the problem: the teacher may elect to allow silent reading or reading aloud by section, instructor, or committee. the teacher then records on the board the key findings and significant themes identified by the students. leading questions the instructor may ask to help the students ferry the key themes might include the following: o what did the interviewees list as communication strategies that worked well for them? o what did the interviewees list as roadblocks in building their team relationships? o how did they factor in community safety perceptions? https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ senter, a., beattie, m. & deng, d. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-16. 54 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 43-56, doi: 10.18060/25307 copyright © 2021 angela senter, mark beattie and demi deng this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. o how did trust factor into their relationships? here the instructor may either allow a robust group to summarize themes as a plenary group or may need to ask the class more leading questions if they have not discovered the full scope of the issue. step 2: setting the stage: given the example of how spokane should move forward into its next large-scale event, the teacher should record the students' aggregate perceptions of all stakeholder groups' identity. columns can be used to list the stakeholder, their roles, their responsibilities, and their degree of influence over the event security strategy. for groups that need more concrete parameters to work under a sample, the event could be given. for example, students could be asked to identify all stakeholders associated with the bloomsday event. guiding questions could be: o who in the community does this event effect? o who would attend this event? o who is covering most of the costs and collecting the revenues? o what are the secondary service providers required to run this event? o who would be most impacted by a catastrophic crisis? step 3. assessing the risk. in a plenary setting, the teacher should record on the board the students' aggregate conclusions of the risks associated with spokane during large scale events. columns can be used to identify the risk, its likelihood to occur, its severity or impact of occurrence, and if the class's consensus is to ignore, mitigate, or accept the risk. for groups that required a concrete example in step 2 carry the example into the risk assessment discussion. for the bloomsday example some leading questions for the class might include: o what are the risks to guests’ health and safety? o what are the risks to the community’s health and safety? o what are the risks to the client’s financial health? o what are the risks to the client’s brand affinity? o what are the risks for employees of the event? o what are the risks to secondary service providers? step 4: developing the strategy. break students into equal groups of 5-8 students per group. assign one student in each group as the recorder with all groups' members providing ideas and content equally. have students also identify one group member as the presenter to summarize the group's conclusion for the class. the teacher should identify to the groups that they are to brainstorm communication and relationship building strategies to help spokane continue to move forward most efficiently in their event security policy creation and implementation. foster a classroom culture of inclusion and acceptance during this period. give time warnings as the clock progresses to help students to stay on task and to reach their conclusions in time. step 5: defending the conclusion. the teacher should bring the class back into a plenary setting, and the designated spokesperson from each group should explain their group’s findings in a 2–5 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ senter, a., beattie, m. & deng, d. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-16. 55 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 43-56, doi: 10.18060/25307 copyright © 2021 angela senter, mark beattie and demi deng this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. minute quick pitch. key points from each group could be captured on the board to see if aggregate themes emerge. step 6: closing the case. the instructor should help the class draw parallels between the information provided in the case and the communication recommendations pitched from each group. the list of key points made during the presentation should show clear themes. ideas presented that deviated from the themes should be explored for validity and inclusion as “out of the box” thinking should be encouraged. encourage the class to come up with a 3 or 4 sentence recommendation for the city of spokane in how best to proceed with creating effective large event security policies in the future. supporting material downtown spokane partnership https://downtownspokane.org/ spokane arena https://www.spokanearena.com/ spokane convention center https://www.spokanecenter.com spokane parks and recreation https://my.spokanecity.org/parksrec/ spokane regional health district https://srhd.org/ bloomsday https://www.bloomsdayrun.org/ hoopfest https://www.spokanehoopfest.net/ pig out in the park https://pigoutinthepark.com/ visit spokane https://www.visitspokane.com references amorin, e., gonçalves gândara, j., tarlow, p., & korstanje, m. (2014). event management, risk and security: brazil 2014 fifa world cup. international journal of safety and security in tourism, 1(6), 42–51. boyle, p., & haggerty, k. d. (2009). spectacular security: mega-events and the security complex. international political sociology, 3(3), 257–274. clouse, t. (2020). pandemic hammers spokane hotel industry. the spokane review. https://www.spokesman.com/stories/2020/jul/30/davenport-owner-lays-off-more-than-100-aspandemic/ disalvatore, a. (2019). hospitality security : procedures, policies, and training. cognella academic publishing. el sawy, o. a., gomes, g. m., & gonzalez, m. v. (1986). preserving institutional memory: the management of history as an organizational resource. academy of management proceedings, 1986(1), 118–122. fussey, p., & klauser, f. (2015). securitisation and the mega-event: an editorial introduction. geographical journal, 181(3), 194–198. klauser, f. r. (2015). interacting forms of expertise and authority in mega-event security: the example of the 2010 vancouver olympic games. geographical journal, 181(3), 224–234. miles, l., & shipway, r. (2020). exploring the covid-19 pandemic as a catalyst for stimulating future research agendas for managing crises and disasters at international sport events. event management, 24(4), 537–552. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ senter, a., beattie, m. & deng, d. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-16. 56 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 43-56, doi: 10.18060/25307 copyright © 2021 angela senter, mark beattie and demi deng this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. miles, m. b., huberman, a. m., & saldana, j. (2014). research design and management. in qualitative data analysis (3rd ed., p. 381). sage publications. neuendorf, k. a. (2002). the content analysis guidebook. sage publications. parris, d. l., & peachey, j. w. (2013). encouraging servant leadership: a qualitative study of how a cause-related sporting event inspires participants to serve. leadership, 9(4), 486–512. saldaña, j. (2015). the coding manual for qualitative researchers. in sage publications ltd (2nd ed.). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/23958 copyright © 2021 blair orlando and yeqiang (kevin) lin this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review june 2021 volume 4 no. 1 the application of data analytics in the events industry blair orlando yeqiang (kevin) lin california polytechnic state university, san luis obispo correspondence: yklin@calpoly.edu (y. lin) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation orlando, b. & lin. y. (2021). the application of data analytics in the events industry. events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-13. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:yklin@calpoly.edu http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr orlando, b. & lin. y. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-13. 2 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/23958 copyright © 2021 blair orlando and yeqiang (kevin) lin this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract this research examined the data analytics practices used within the events industry and the value of such applications. this study consisted of an interpretive case review of current companies within the events industry. the interview process explained the current practices being used to collect and analyze data. the common themes revealed data analytics are being used to evaluate, redesign, and enhance company performance, marketing strategy, decision guidelines, and economics. the study shows data collection and analysis is mostly focused on determining what consumers want and are looking for within the industry. the findings of this study support the importance of applying data analytics within industry-related companies to be financially successful and maintain market-share. both the results from this study and the literature used indicate the significance of data analytics and the tremendous amount of opportunity buried beneath the application of data, although there is still room for growth. keywords: data, analytics, applications, events, technology introduction the use of data within the events industry is expanding and setting the tone for the marketplace’s next big revolution. with data at the forefront of this massive revolution, companies today are taking advantage of adopting data practices to significantly improve businesses by personalizing customer experience. monetate inc. (2019) found 93% of businesses with an advanced personalization strategy, either in the development stage or currently being implemented, experienced revenue growth. this up-and-coming business trend reaches all industries and enormously influences business decisions and actions, both in real time and future thinking. data has emerged as the leading catalyst in changing how companies access information (freeman, 2019), and is a key attribute in being classified as a major component in a worldwide panacea for all corporate ills. with the ability to provide a wealth of information related to many aspects of the life of individuals, organizations, and markets (mayer-schönberger & cukier, 2013), data has given companies the tools necessary to answer and understand new insights about previously unreachable questions. insights generated from data analytics can provide companies a competitive edge to make decisions concerning marketing, sales, and current demands within a market; data can also transform how companies shape their business plan. for 2019, more than 2/3 of the top marketing companies that have previously invested in the collection and processing of data are increasing their investment in marketing data analytics because of the tremendous amount of opportunity data has to offer (freeman, 2019). data are ultimately changing the way society lives, works, and thinks (mayer-schönberger & cukier, 2013) and has the power to revolutionize every aspect of life. the value of data influences society in previously immeasurable ways, which is why it is an integral part of main business tactics and strategies. technological advancements have greatly enhanced the accessibility of data and have allowed for tremendous growth in the business world. collecting and gathering data today can be https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ orlando, b. & lin. y. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-13. 3 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/23958 copyright © 2021 blair orlando and yeqiang (kevin) lin this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. done almost instantaneously. the increasing digitization of society through the combination of devices, such as smartphones and tablets, virtually allows data to be found anywhere at any time (verhoef, kooge, & walk, 2016). specifically for the events industry, data represents the before, during, and after of each event. in 2015, the center for exhibition industry research (ceir) conducted a study on 307 business-to-business exhibition executives, focused on the use of analytics by business-to-business exhibition organizers. this study showed how data can provide exhibition organizers with: statistics providing a better picture of the target audience, insights that help guide planning and strategizing, and translating analytics into the programming of individual records (ceir, 2015). however, there is a lack of academic research on the applications of data analytics in the events industry. thus, the purpose of this study was to examine common data analytics practices within the events industry and determine the value of such practices. this study can contribute to marketing research and act as a reference point for using and applying data that can enhance event marketing strategies and business tactics, while providing clarity about how data analytics are currently being used among top industry-related organizations. it also allows marketing researchers to investigate the diversity data can provide in the events industry, primarily about consumer interactions within markets and the products they consume. review of literature the nature of data analytics data are everywhere, and today data are proliferating at an extraordinary rate (davenport, 2013). the world relies on data every day, whether it stems from social media channels, registration platforms, site clicks, or feedback from surveys (curran, 2019), data are constantly being collected and later reviewed and analyzed. for example, approximately 72,698 google searches worldwide are happening this very second (internet live stats, 2019). those searches are contributing to the 2.5 quintillion bytes of data created everyday (marr, 2019) further explaining how data are influencing the world today. there are four dimensions to data: volume, velocity, variety, and veracity (troester, 2012). these dimensions acknowledge the scale of data, analysis of streaming data, the different forms of data, and the uncertainty of data (ayisi, 2014). these four dimensions offer a guide for analysts to use and follow in trying to accomplish the large task of applying data to a market. researchers have classified the main sources of different types of data as: (1) public data, (2) private data, (3) data exhaust, (4) community data, and (5) self-quantification data (george, haas, & pentland, 2014). each type of data represents a certain niche that is often combined with other sources to be used in providing some type of insight to a particular scenario, commonly known as analytics. data analytics represents specific techniques that examine large amounts of data to uncover hidden patterns and other insights. data analytic techniques are situational and encompass a variety of different disciplines (pantelis & aija, 2013), most commonly involving statistical analysis and categorical analysis (mariani et al., 2018). analysis results are useful to all industries and have become necessary to produce within the world of business (scott, 2018). the benefits of analyzing data are limitless and act as a key component in improving business decisions and maintaining the relevancy of markets (jewoo & jongho, 2018). thinking analytically is now seen as necessary for success throughout all industries (mcguire & osborn, 2017). having an analytical mindset is classified as an individual or group that is engrossed and perceptive to their surroundings and demonstrates the ability to think deeply and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ orlando, b. & lin. y. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-13. 4 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/23958 copyright © 2021 blair orlando and yeqiang (kevin) lin this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. respond flexibly to changing circumstances (alexander, 2014; ku, 2009). data-driven decisions within an organization are guiding how businesses are run, both internally and externally. the rapid growth of analytical thinking has allowed companies to better understand certainties about trends while providing more evidence for identifying areas where data can further inform one’s interpretation about why trends occur (mayer-schönberger & cukier, 2013). regarding how companies are thinking and treating data, shifting from simply producing data to instead consuming data can be the difference between successful and unsuccessful marketing (fisher, 2009). applying data analytics within a business can heavily influence marketing strategies and provide clarity about the significance in changing such strategies. applications of data analytics data analytics applications act as the main players in today's data-driven world and practically any topic or question can be explored with analytics (davenport, 2013) and has the potential to greatly impact the events industry. essentially, such applications represent how data science gets operationalized, meaning how end-users interact with data, both big and small (perez, 2019). there are various types of data applications that serve different purposes for data analysts including: artificial intelligence, statistics, forecasting, predictive thinking, data and text mining, optimization, and experimental design (davenport, 2013). the integration of data analysis and applications techniques within technology is used throughout multiple sectors of the events industry including conventions and meetings, tourism and travel, and sports. various techniques and their accompanying results can be extremely influential in making decisions. one popular application of data analytics in the events industry is target marketing. for example, social media platforms, such as facebook, instagram, snapchat, and twitter, have created an endless stream of data through impressions, likes, and views (hu & zhang, 2018). platforms like these have allowed companies to access valuable data including information about users’ photos and location data (suo & zhang, 2015). hence, the information provides companies with the necessary data to adjust their marketing strategies and to predict the desires of where the target audience wants to be spending their time. data generated from social media is another key driver in successfully measuring business performance. metrics from various social platforms can provide marketers with information that shows how users share, view, or engage with their content or profiles (barnhart, 2018). social media networks have now created platform tools available for content analysis such as facebook insights, twitter analytics, and google analytics. these tools allow brands to target current and potential customers, drive engagement and conversions, find out what content best performs and how to leverage social networks accordingly (sears, 2019). this information is used to assess campaign performance, understand the target audience, develop creative content, report to upper management, optimize campaign performance, and measure return on investment (barnhart, 2018). the evolution of technology has created a resource to attain endless opportunity for data usage. another application currently being used among the events industry, more specifically among high budgeted mega-events, is radio frequency identification (rfid) wristbands. rfid wristbands have electronic chips inside them that collect and track data. large events, such as festivals, use rfid wristbands to track attendees’ actions regarding location, spending, and interests in real time (hernandez, 2016). by collecting data and understanding the demands and needs of consumers, companies can improve business efficiency, finances, and customer satisfaction and retention (eventbrite, 2019). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ orlando, b. & lin. y. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-13. 5 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/23958 copyright © 2021 blair orlando and yeqiang (kevin) lin this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. data applications provide event professionals the information necessary to offer more personalized experiences, by catering to specific needs. in addition, this information allows event companies the ability to better plan and structure their events. for example, data from an annual event showing the number of attendees, sales, and costs act as the foundation for predicting the next event. having this prediction informs companies about changes that would be most beneficial to implement in the future. barriers and challenges to data analytics adoption data are constantly evolving and always being thought about and processed to develop new systems and perspectives on how to tackle the ongoing challenge of applying data effectively and efficiently. it is important to understand the complexity and challenges behind data. data, though extremely valuable, represents a mass amount of information that can be difficult to interpret and use successfully. technology has allowed for the digitalization of large amounts of data at an incredibly fast rate (jewoo & jongho, 2018). although it is inevitable that technological advancements are going to continue to grow rapidly, issues associated with using data are also emerging alongside that growth. data analytics can be intimidating to work with due to the influx of opportunity that lies within data. the hierarchical constraints most frequently explained in literature are (1) cost and time (jain, sharma, & jayaraman, 2014), (2) correctness in conclusions (ding & simono, 2010), (3) combining extremely different sources of information (bedeley & nemati, 2014), and (4) information overload (leeflang et al., 2014). data, when used correctly and effectively, can strengthen any business, but unfortunately, the limitations involved with collecting and analyzing data can be overwhelming. two of the biggest challenges come from a lack of funding and time. it costs and takes a lot of time to find, hire, and invest in a team of data analysts that have proper knowledge of the events industry and know how to process industry-related data. although some data comes at little to no cost, the problem still lies with finding the right people to be able to examine and highlight key insights about that data. another major contributor in limiting companies from using data analytics to their advantage is avoiding falsifying conclusions from data. today, more than 80% of data is unstructured (grimes, 2018) and refers to data that simply does not fit neatly in traditional relational databases, mainly because it represents information related to multiple industries and sectors within such industries (mongodb, 2019). the scale of unstructured data can have some complications relating to the missing values within data that can lead to data being misused and can cause false interpretations or bias results (jewoo & jongho, 2018). developing a system that can combine big and small data is another issue companies face regarding data application (ayisi, 2014). though valuable, the rapid proliferation of data available today makes it difficult to weed through the data and come up with a compelling narrative to share with key stakeholders within a company (berland, 2017). this goes hand in hand with the issue of information overload caused by the unstructured nature of large volume data. managers are faced with the demanding task of organizing and determining the best way to strategically use data as an advantage within their businesses (saxena & lamest, 2018). information overload is usually characterized by feeling overwhelmed (savolainen, 2007) by the sheer capacity of data and the paucity of time (ayyagari et al., 2011). the main connection among all these challenges is simple, finding value in data. to overcome these challenges, companies must investigate the purpose behind using and analyzing data. nevertheless, companies must embrace the opportunity within data and develop a system that https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ orlando, b. & lin. y. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-13. 6 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/23958 copyright © 2021 blair orlando and yeqiang (kevin) lin this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. aligns with their business plan and use that as a guide for making decisions and changing business. although several studies have investigated the impact data can have within a business, few have investigated this topic in relation to the events industry. this study specifically addresses the challenges and benefits of adopting data analytics among top industry performers. methods this research adopted an interpretive case research strategy to examine how data analytics is being used within the events industry and determine the value of collecting and analyzing large quantities of data. the research was focused on addressing the strategies being used to collect data and its impact on business changes and improvements. industry leaders from the events, experiential marketing, tourism, travel, and sports sectors were identified to participate in the study. due to the time-sensitive nature of this study, phone interviews allowed greater access to participants. data collection took place between june 2018 and february 2019. an interview technique called “responsive interviewing,” in which the participants’ responses throughout the interview created the remaining interview guide was used for the study (rubin & rubin, 2012). furthermore, the research focused on event companies that have already adopted using data and applying it to their organizations. with the event industry being highly exposed to user-generated content through websites among all sectors of the industry, such content was heavily utilized to benefit this study. twenty-five companies within the events industry were contacted via email and phone about participating. to qualify for this study, participants were required to be working at an industry related company currently using data analytics to directly influence their events. all participants contacted to be a part of this study are in california, however their respective employers are headquartered all over the united states of america, with various clients around the world. participant selection was focused on industry leaders, located in california, throughout all sectors (see table 1) related to the events industry. a total of fifteen interviews were conducted with industry leaders, who use data to improve business and make decisions. the companies contacted to participate in this study represent multiple sectors of the events industry including tourism, corporate, convention and meetings, sales, technology, weddings, wine tourism, travel, recreation, and sports (see table 1). table 1. description of respondents & sector represented in the events industry title of interviewee participants sector in the events industry case 1 vice president of marketing corporate case 2 director of field marketing technology and sales case 3 senior program manager sports case 4 senior manager of marketing operations technology and sales case 5 vice president of communications travel & tourism https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ orlando, b. & lin. y. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-13. 7 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/23958 copyright © 2021 blair orlando and yeqiang (kevin) lin this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. case 6 strategic marketing research consultant travel & tourism case 7 executive vice president of operations corporate case 8 president & ceo travel & tourism case 9 assistant general manager sports case 10 sector analyst convention, meetings case 11 senior event director weddings case 12 senior program director recreation case 13 operations manager travel & tourism case 14 global director of media product marketing & management travel & tourism case 15 senior account manager corporate interviews ranged from twenty-five to forty minutes and were either in person or conducted over the phone. a series of open-ended interview questions were used as a guide to provide in-depth research regarding how data was being produced, assessed, and implemented at the time of this study. based on the literature reviewed, three variables were used to measure the use of data analytics within the companies involved in the study: applications, insights, and challenges. for applications, two questions addressed how companies are gathering and collecting data. for insights, four questions lead to a discussion about the value behind data and addressed how the results from the data collected was being used. for challenges, participants were asked to explain any current or potential barriers their company has faced from incorporating data analytical practices into their companies. to ensure honesty and comfort, each interview began with an explanation of the research project. additionally, the participants were informed that their responses would remain confidential and anonymous. the purpose of these standards was to help increase participation due to the nature of sensitive information about the companies involved. interviews were recorded on a laptop and then coded to find patterns that emerged. the goal of coding all responses was to identify key terms, recurring themes, and ideas that were later used to build conclusions about the study. results this section presents the major themes that emerged from a thematic analysis. this study follows an interpretive research design; therefore, the themes use the language of the study participants. four themes emerged after analyzing the transcription of the interviews: (1) the overwhelming feeling about the potential of using data, (2) the marketing benefits and influences from using data in enhancing customer experience, (3) data as financial justification for event value https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ orlando, b. & lin. y. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-13. 8 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/23958 copyright © 2021 blair orlando and yeqiang (kevin) lin this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. and investment, and (4) the current concerns related to data type and source. overwhelming feeling about the potential of using data relatively early during the interview, participants made frequent references about feeling overwhelmed about incorporating data into their organizations. during the interview, these references amounted to a significant amount of the participants’ time and were constantly being revisited. another common trend participants spoke about was how limited resources, for example, accessibility of data, personnel, and budget, acted as main contributors to feeling overwhelmed: the hardest thing about the new ‘data revolution’ … is it’s hard to figure out where to start, especially when you don’t have the time or money to put into it. (case 8, president & ceo) this notion of feeling overwhelmed was most noticeably related to the problem of data ownership. the study revealed that most of the relevant customer-related information organizations want to access and utilize is sourced from outside organizations. this information, unstructured in nature, was deemed as the key to truly understanding what customers value and want in an event. however, participants continued to share their frustrations about attaining such valuable information: how do you find the balance between finding data to use and then, in turn, using that data to influence decisions and proceed to turn into actions… it is an issue that we are still trying to solve? (case 12, senior program director) despite the overwhelming feelings that participants experience, they still use a wide range of data techniques and practices throughout their organizations. marketing benefits and influences using data in enhancing customer experience for all the organizations involved in this study, it was clear that data reveals necessary insights, about their events and customers, that heavily influence their marketing decisions. to a large extent, participants attested to using data as the main source of monitoring their market, driving strategy and change, attaining, and retaining customers, improving financial performance, and assessing products and services. a common example mentioned was how data can represent metrics related to specific marketing campaigns. metrics such as website page volume, social media impressions, and conversions from the event website to the selected ticketing system can be used to produce insights about the targeted audience. essentially, participants explained how data can be incorporated into every aspect of their company’s business plan and measure the overall success of an event: data is the middle ground between flying blind in understanding your market and having deep personal identifiable information that can prove what customers are looking for in their experience. (case 1, vice president of marketing) across case studies, participants described a core function of using data as real-time analysis. at an educational conference, for example, data is derived from scanning each attendee’s badge upon entering a specific educational session. this data provides information to understand what attendees are doing in real-time. this information can add value to event planners because it can be applied to personalized messages sent to individual attendees, suggesting further sessions that relate to their interests. real-time analysis, explained by multiple participants, allows their companies to make decisions before, during, and after their events. this contributes to creating memorable and personalized experiences for their customers, which relates to the mission of all the participants’ organizations: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ orlando, b. & lin. y. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-13. 9 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/23958 copyright © 2021 blair orlando and yeqiang (kevin) lin this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. capturing, reviewing, and processing data is one of our main priorities in order to have a successful event. it starts with before the event by looking at how attendees respond to the schedule of planned events and what they signed up for. then during the event, looking at whether attendees are sticking to their original plan and making changes based on that information to send them updated suggestions. after the event is over, a comparison between their original plan and what they did at the event is used to predict their behavior next time. (case 7, executive vice president of operations) data as financial justification for event value and investment another related theme that emerged from the interviews is that data contributed to the rationalization of various financial concerns and questions. participants revealed that investigating quantitative data about event sales, number of attendees, and attendee actions can act as the main source for justifying the importance of an event. there was a standard among case companies explaining the financial power of data, and its ability to significantly increase companies’ ability to measure return on investment. participants also explained how event planners use data to justify the budget for an event and prove the value of having such events. for example, data showing the percent of total attendees who attended a particular speaker at a tradeshow provides valuable insights about whether investing in that speaker was advantageous: we scan a barcode at all our different smaller event sessions (i.e., presentation, activity) to view attendance and be able to compare different sessions… then looking at that information and determining what sessions are necessary for the next year and what people are interested in. (case 3, senior program manager) current concerns related to data type and source concerning data type and source, participants expressed the difficulty of managing data, allocating resources, and remaining ethical. participants explained how deciding what type of data collection and analysis methods they should use is a harsh reality. this is because of the large amount of effort, time, and money it takes to process data effectively and ethically. furthermore, the cryptic nature data possesses and the unfathomable amount of data accessible was explained by participants as a difficult task to tackle and use successfully: though there is a lot of data out there, it’s not all focusing on the same thing and depending on resources available within your organization you have to choose what data source/s to invest in and then try to gain the most value from the/those chosen source/s. (case 14 global director of media product marketing and management) connecting and determining whether there is any correlation between different data points and insights is not an easy task. we reference this issue as triangulation meaning if you see a spike in one data set, but not the other/s and vice versa, it is hard to pinpoint and confidently understand what is causing that change or spike. (case 6strategic marketing research consultant) another similar topic that was frequently shared among participants was the issue of privacy associated with adopting data analytics throughout their organizations. participants revealed the necessary caution associated with and using data legally and ethically: no brand wants to be seen as insensitive in invading people’s privacy in general, but especially in relation to data. this is something we are extremely careful about because we would never want to damage the relationship and trust we have built with our customers. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ orlando, b. & lin. y. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-13. 10 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/23958 copyright © 2021 blair orlando and yeqiang (kevin) lin this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. (case 4, senior manager of marketing operations) though companies involved in this study revealed that client privacy is an issue on its own, participants speaking on behalf of those companies also shared that this issue has majorly contributed to some hesitation associated with the overall adoption of data analytics practices. furthermore, participants explained how these issues have led to slow progression in taking advantage of this up-and-coming data forward approach to business. discussions, limitations, and conclusions this study aimed to extend the existing knowledge about how data can positively impact the events industry by investigating what current data analytical practices are being used throughout the events industry and determine the value of such practices. although previous literature has revealed the importance of using data to better understand customer expectations and behaviors (verhoef, kooge, & walk, 2016), the present study found that the benefits of applying data throughout the events industry directly contribute to enhancing customer experience and improving future events. this suggests that data analytics can be used as a valuable resource for companies looking to provide their customers with memorable experiences in a more precise manner (mayer-schönberger & cukier, 2013). data analytics, when used ethically, can directly influence, and improve how event companies make decisions and cater to customer needs and expectations (fisher, 2009). event planners should allocate a portion of their marketing dollars to collecting, processing, and analyzing data to act as the main source in continually improving their events. for example, venues used for events and vendors associated with events should be evaluating the attractiveness in, the interest of and why customers decide to use their venue for specific events. another example related to vendors associated with events, specifically food vendors, is reviewing data about customer satisfaction via survey, comments, and reviews. data produced through observing attendee actions and behaviors, such as their decision process, can be used to verify the products consumers want and provide insight about what vendors should be offering to match customer needs. additionally, the results of this study show how data can provide the evidence necessary to predict the success of future events and justify an event budget. this indicates that the greater number of resources devoted to developing and analyzing data, the better financial success of a business. at a large music festival, for example, stakeholders can monitor the number of attendees at each different performer's show. this information not only shows what attendees are interested in and how they are spending their time, but also provides evidence about each specific shows return on investment, sales, and other financial measures (barnhart, 2018). moreover, the study also revealed a few complications associated with adopting data into the participants' organizations, such as time, cost and resources needed to collect and process data (bedeley & nemati, 2014; ding & simono, 2010; jain, sharma, & jayaraman, 2014; leeflang et al., 2014). to overcome these obstacles event planners should become more educated on the subject and how other companies are successfully incorporating data analytics into everyday business (fisher, 2009). other ways event planners could overcome the overwhelming feeling of using data could be by attending conferences on data analytics and their applications, joining associations related to data practices, and participating in workshops showing the benefits and challenges of using data. these solutions could act as a defining factor in effectively improving the events industry. the information is out there (davenport, 2013), it is now up to event planners and stakeholders to take advantage of it and turn it https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ orlando, b. & lin. y. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-13. 11 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/23958 copyright © 2021 blair orlando and yeqiang (kevin) lin this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. into useful insights that will benefit their organization. despite the various evaluations and assessments employed in this study, three limitations can be identified. although this study has a diverse representation of sectors within the events industry, the size of this study cannot be generalized to a larger population. unfortunately, the nature and scope of the events industry make finding probability samples difficult and costly. the sample size for this study must be considered with respect to the recency of this type of research regarding data analytics within the events industry. thus, future studies should continue to examine this new topic at a larger scale and reveal the progression of this major revolution. additionally, revealing the benefits and challenges of data analytics for smaller-scale businesses in the events industry remained uncovered since the sample of this study was restricted industry leaders. therefore, further research focusing on smaller companies within the events industry, maybe on a state level, would be beneficial. lastly, because of time constraints with this study the specific techniques event companies use to collect and analyze data were not explored. this includes addressing the development of incorporating data analytics into sector-specific companies and interviewing companies that own, gather, and analyze data that is then outsourced and used within hiring event companies, in more detail. another possible research direction would be a longer study looking at the specific systems in place among event companies that are solely devoted to data analytics. although what we aim for is a theoretical generalization, we cannot claim for empirical generalization, as findings are context specific. therefore, to achieve empirical generalization, the future work researching how data analytics can be applied and used within the events industry may engage in investigating case companies from other sectors and countries to explore their practices. despite its limitations, this study discussed the concept of applying data analytics in the context of top industry performers within the events industry and shared the findings from fifteen case studies. the industry is still learning how to properly define this tactic and is working on developing efficient, low-cost ways to gather and collect data to improve company success. the results have provided researchers and practitioners with new insight regarding the benefits, challenges and applications associated with applying data analytics to the events industry. overall, the events industry is lacking in supporting the application of data analytics and needs to make researching this topic a higher priority. references alexander, p. (2014). thinking critically and analytically about critical-analytic thinking: an introduction. retrieved from https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10648-0149283-1.pdf ayisi, s. (2014). why big data matters to you. hospitality upgrade (pp. 10-26). roswell, ga: siegel communications, inc. ayyagari, r., grover, v., & purvis, r. (2011). technostress: technological antecedents and implications. mis quarterly, 35(4), 831-858. barnhart, b. (2018). how to mine your social media data for a better roi. retrieved from https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-data/ bedeley, r., & nemati, h. (2014). big data analytics: a key capability for competitive advantage. paper presented at the 20th americas conference on information systems, savannah 7-9. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10648-014-9283-1.pdf https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1007/s10648-014-9283-1.pdf https://sproutsocial.com/insights/social-media-data/ orlando, b. & lin. y. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-13. 12 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/23958 copyright © 2021 blair orlando and yeqiang (kevin) lin this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. berland, m. (2017). constructivist analytics: using data to enable deeper museum experiences for more visitors—lessons from the learning sciences. visitor studies, 20(1), 3-9. doi: 10.1080/10645578.2017.1297116 center for exhibition industry research (ceir). (2015). use of analytics today by business-tobusiness exhibition organizers. retrieved from https://www.ceir.org/products/2598 curran, w. (2019). “2019 event trends that will change the path of events.” retrieved from https://helloendless.com/2019-event-trends/ davenport, t. (2013). keeping up with the quants: your guide to understanding and using analytics. boston, ma: harvard business review press. ding, y., & simono, j. s., (2010). an investigation of missing data methods for classification trees applied to binary response data. journal of machine learning research, 11, 131-170. eventbrite. (2019). the top 10 benefits of using rfid for events. retrieved from https://www.eventbrite.com/blog/academy/the-top-10-benefits-of-using-rfid-for-events/ fisher, t. (2009). the data asset: how smart companies govern their data for business success. (wiley and sas business series). hoboken: john wiley & sons. freeman. 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(2019). 1 second. retrieved march 11, 2019, from http://www.internetlivestats.com/one-second/ jain, p., sharma, p., & jayaraman, l. (2014). behind every good decision: how anyone can use business analytics to turn data into profitable insight. retrieved from https://ebookcentral.proquest.com jewoo, k., jongho, i., (2018) proposing a missing data method for hospitality research on online customer reviews: an application of imputation approach. international journal of contemporary hospitality management, 30(11), 3250-3267. doi: 10.1108/ijchm-10-20170708 ku, k. y. (2009). assessing students’ critical thinking performance: urging for measurements using multi-response format. thinking skills and creativity, 4, 70–76. leeflang, p., verhoef, p., dahlström, p., & freundt, t. (2014). challenges and solutions for marketing in a digital era. european management journal, 32(1), 1-12. doi: 10.1016/j.emj.2013.12.001 mariani, m., baggio, r., fuchs, m., & höepken w. (2018). business intelligence and big data in hospitality and tourism: a systematic literature review. international journal of contemporary hospitality management, 30(12), 3514-3554. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://helloendless.com/2019-event-trends/ https://www.eventbrite.com/blog/academy/the-top-10-benefits-of-using-rfid-for-events/ https://www.freeman.com/resources/data-report https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianhernandez1/2016/04/15/cashless-coachella-mobile-payments-apple-android-samsung-pay/#69309d44661e https://www.forbes.com/sites/brianhernandez1/2016/04/15/cashless-coachella-mobile-payments-apple-android-samsung-pay/#69309d44661e http://www.internetlivestats.com/one-second/ https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/ orlando, b. & lin. y. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 1-13. 13 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/23958 copyright © 2021 blair orlando and yeqiang (kevin) lin this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. marr, b. (2019). “how much data do we create every day? the mind-blowing stats everyone should read.” retrieved from https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/05/21/howmuch-data-do-we-create-every-day-the-mind-blowing-stats-everyone-shouldread/#7783591760ba mayer-schönberger, v., & cukier, k. (2013). big data: a revolution that will transform how we live, work, and think. boston, ma: houghton mifflin harcourt publishing company. mcguire, k., & osborn, n. (2017). we’re living in a big data world. hospitality upgrade, 114-118. monetate inc. (2019). 2019 personalization development study [pdf file]. retrieved from https://info.monetate.com/2019-personalization-study.html mongodb. (2019). unstructured data in big data. retrieved from https://www.mongodb.com/scale/unstructured-data-in-big-data pantelis, k., & aija, l. (2013). understanding the value of (big) data. 2013 ieee international conference on big data. doi: 10.1109/bigdata.2013.6691691 perez, m. (2019). what is a data application? retrieved from https://www.exaptive.com/blog/whatis-a-data-application rubin, h., & rubin, i. (2012). qualitative interviewing: the art of hearing data (3rd ed.). thousand oaks: sage. savolainen, r. (2007). filtering and withdrawing: strategies for coping with information overload in everyday contexts. journal of information science, 33(5), 611-621. saxena, d., & lamest, m. (2018). information overload and coping strategies in the big data context: evidence from the hospitality sector. journal of information science, 44(3), 287297. scott, d. (2018). a seismic shift regarding big data: you can't open an industry publication or attend a conference without seeing a discussion about big data or analytics. casino journal, 31(5), 14. sears, h. (2019). how to use social data analytics to inform your marketing strategy. retrieved from https://www.pixlee.com/blog/how-to-use-social-data-analytics-to-inform-your-marketingstrategy/ suo, c.; zhang, h. (2015). influencing factors and development proposals of business space around hsr station – a case study of cities along shanghai-nanjing hsr with poi data. city planning review, 39(7), 43-49. troester, m. (2012). big data meets big data analytics, three key technologies for extracting real-time business value from the big data, that threatens to overwhelm traditional computing architectures. sas institute. sas institute inc. white paper. verhoef, p. c., kooge, e., & walk, n. (2016). creating value with big data analytics: making smarter marketing decisions. london: routledge. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/05/21/how-much-data-do-we-create-every-day-the-mind-blowing-stats-everyone-should-read/#7783591760ba https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/05/21/how-much-data-do-we-create-every-day-the-mind-blowing-stats-everyone-should-read/#7783591760ba https://www.forbes.com/sites/bernardmarr/2018/05/21/how-much-data-do-we-create-every-day-the-mind-blowing-stats-everyone-should-read/#7783591760ba https://info.monetate.com/2019-personalization-study.html https://www.mongodb.com/scale/unstructured-data-in-big-data https://www.exaptive.com/blog/what-is-a-data-application https://www.exaptive.com/blog/what-is-a-data-application https://www.pixlee.com/blog/how-to-use-social-data-analytics-to-inform-your-marketing-strategy/ https://www.pixlee.com/blog/how-to-use-social-data-analytics-to-inform-your-marketing-strategy/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 7-12, doi: 10.18060/23594 copyright © 2020 faranak memarzadeh & sulekha anand this work is licensed under a creative commons attribuion 4.0 international license. events and tourism review june 2020 volume 3 no. 1 male vs. female sustainable technology usage in the lodging industry faranak memarzadeh san jose state university sulekha anand san jose state university for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation faranak, m. & sulekha, a. (2020). male vs. female sustainable technology usage in the lodging industry. events and tourism review, 3(1), 7-12. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr faranak, m. & sulekha, a. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 7-12. 8 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 7-12, doi: 10.18060/23594 copyright © 2020 faranak memarzadeh & sulekha anand this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract although sustainability applications/technology are a key focus in the lodging industry, this area of study is relatively new and requires more investigation. the current study examined whether there are gender differences in the perceptions of sustainable practices and technology in the hotel industry. an online survey asked participants’ opinions about sustainable practices and technology such as eco-friendly heating and energy, waste reduction technology, sustainable laundry, lighting technology, paperless transactions, and hotel specific sustainable apps. the result indicated that ease of use is perceived differently by females and males. keywords: sustainable practices, sustainable technology, gender, lodging industry, assessment introduction although previous studies indicate that both males and females believe that sustainable practices and technology are an effective solution to preserve the environment, these two groups have different approaches to environmental issues (arora-jonsson, 2011). arora-jonsson (2011) found that females are more affected by environmental changes than males, which raised the question of how differently these two groups evaluate sustainable practices and technology in hotels. sustainable practices and technology are being implemented from a fundamental level such as recycling waste (berezan, millar, & raab, 2014) to an advanced level such as reducing energy and water use, replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy systems, and controlling food waste. considering the importance of service personalization in customer satisfaction (ball, coelho, & vilares, 2006), understanding the differing mindsets of male and female travelers and the way they view sustainable practices and technology in the hotel is essential. this understanding has two advantages: first, it benefits hotel managers to adopt sustainable practices and technology that meet both genders’ needs and desires. second, it helps sustainable equipment inventors and developers to design more user-friendly technology for both genders. literature review the study conducted by miller, rathouse, scarles, holmes, and tribe (2010) highlighted the importance of research on the effects of tourism and hospitality on the environment of the destination. the study emphasized a gap between destination communities’ eco-friendly approaches and travelers’ behavior. for instance, saving energy or water is not considered an essential practice by travelers, while it is important for destination communities. however, the travelers’ growing desire to travel changed their perspective on the significant impact of traveling on the destination’s environment. besides the well-recognized importance of environmental considerations and sustainability to enhance the effectiveness and efficiency of the hospitality and tourism industry https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ faranak, m. & sulekha, a. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 7-12. 9 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 7-12, doi: 10.18060/23594 copyright © 2020 faranak memarzadeh & sulekha anand this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. (miller et al., 2010), understanding gender preferences is a key factor in developing successful marketing strategies (suki, 2014). service or product providers must understand females’ and males’ perceptions and desires in order to meet their needs (arora-jonsson, 2011). according to the study by sánchez-hernández, martínez-tur, peiró, and moliner (2010), females and males evaluate service quality differently. in this study, two important factors were highlighted to evaluate service quality, the functionality of the service, and the quality of personalized service. while the functionality of the offered service is more appreciated by males, females identified the quality of personalized service to be more important. these findings can be utilized to not only enhance guest satisfaction but also to increase loyalty to the service provider’s brand. sánchez-hernández et al.’s (2010) study support the importance of the current study’s purpose to understand how different genders perceive sustainable practices and technology in the hotel and how these practices and technology can be improved to satisfy males’ and females’ different preferences. methodology the study was based on the technology acceptance model (tam), developed by davis (1989). in this model, davis introduced four fundamental factors associated with the degree to which a technology is accepted, perceived usefulness, behavior intention, and perceived convenience (davis, 1989). we employed an online survey to evaluate gender differences in the assessment of sustainable technology in the hotel industry. the survey was focused on four different topics, behavioral beliefs on sustainable technology in hotels, opinions on ease of use of sustainable technology in the hotel, the usefulness of sustainable technology, and intention to employ sustainable technology. the response for each survey question was on a 5-point likert scale with 1, representing “strongly disagree”, and 5, representing “strongly agree” with the statement. the survey was completed by 209 respondents on qualtrics and recruited via qualtrics. the inclusion criteria for respondents were: at least 18 years of age, familiar with sustainable technology such as energy-saving mobile apps, stayed in a us hotel within the last year, and utilized the hotel’s sustainable practices during their stay. spss 25 was used for computation of two-sample t-tests comparing the responses of females and males, and for pearson’s correlations between responses to pairs of questions. reverse coding was applied for negatively worded questions before scale scores were calculated for the following four constructs; the responses to relevant questions were summed to compute scale scores on behavioral belief, ease of use, usefulness, and intention to utilize. results and discussion sixty-five percent of respondents were female, and 35% were male, and more than 70% of respondents used sustainable technology during hotel stays. female and male participants equally agree that utilizing sustainable technology affects the quality of the hotel service (p = 0.933). all participants perceive these practices and technology to be environmentally responsible, and female and male participants are equally satisfied if the hotel uses sustainable technology (p = 0.277). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ faranak, m. & sulekha, a. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 7-12. 10 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 7-12, doi: 10.18060/23594 copyright © 2020 faranak memarzadeh & sulekha anand this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. males and females do not differ in their evaluation of the usefulness of sustainable technology (p = 0.554), the impact of sustainable technology on human health (p = 0.599), that sustainable hotels protect the environments (p = 0.557), and the belief that sustainable hotels reduce energy, water, and paper consumption (p = 0.178). they are both willing to continue to use sustainable technology. ease of use, on the other hand, was perceived differently by females and males (p = 0.005). females report greater ease of use of sustainable technology, indicating that they find sustainable applications to be more user-friendly and less complicated than males do. all pairwise correlations between the scale scores for behavioral belief, usefulness, and intention to use were statistically significant and positive for females and males (p ≤ 0.05). the correlations between ease of use and the other variables, however, were not statistically significant (p > 0.05) (table 1). table 1: independent samples test sig. (2-tailed) mean difference std. error difference my evaluation of the hotel’s service quality will be impacted if the hotel uses sustainable technology. .933 -.016 .185 i will be more satisfied with my hotel experience if i use sustainable technology at the hotel. .277 -.186 .170 sustainable technology in the hotel has a significant impact on protecting the environment. .557 -.092 .156 using sustainable technology in the hotel will significantly reduce energy, water, and paper consumption. .178 -.216 .159 using sustainable technology in the hotel will directly impact human health. .599 -.088 .167 behavioral belief .429 -.467 .590 usefulness .554 -.401 .677 intention to utilize .405 -.438 .524 ease of use .003 -2.755 .922 for male participants, the evaluation of the service quality of the hotel was positively correlated with the use of sustainable technology at the hotel (r = 0.809), and satisfaction with service quality was linked to the degree to which they practice environmental responsibility (r = 0.812). since being satisfied with the hotel typically increases the chance that the hotel is booked, utilizing sustainable technology can be advantageous to the hotel (r = 0.818), (table 2). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ faranak, m. & sulekha, a. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 7-12. 11 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 7-12, doi: 10.18060/23594 copyright © 2020 faranak memarzadeh & sulekha anand this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. table 2: correlations for male service quality of the hotel was positively correlated with the use of sustainable technology at the hotel. pearson correlation .809** sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 n 73 73 satisfaction with service quality was linked to the degree to which they practice environmental responsibility. pearson correlation .812** sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 n 73 73 hotels with sustainable technology have a greater chance of being booked. pearson correlation .818** sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 n 73 73 **correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). for female participants, the perceived reliability of sustainable technology is positively correlated with the ease of use of the application (r = 0.709). for females, the intention to use sustainable technology is positively correlated with the feeling of satisfaction with the hotel experience when using sustainable technology (r = 0.687), the belief that sustainable technology has an impact on protecting the environment (r = 0.815), and what the technology is used for (r= 0.699), (table 3). table 3: correlations for female ease of use of the application pearson correlation .709** sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 n 136 136 feeling of satisfaction with the hotel experience when using sustainable applications. pearson correlation .687** sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 n 136 136 sustainable applications have an impact on protecting the environment. pearson correlation .815** sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 n 136 136 what the technology is used for. pearson correlation .699** sig. (2-tailed) .000 .000 n 136 136 **correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed) conclusion and implications according to the results of the current study, both males and females believe that sustainable practices and technology are environmentally responsible and are associated with satisfaction with the hotel experience. the positive correlations between behavioral belief, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ faranak, m. & sulekha, a. (2020) / events and tourism review, 3(1), 7-12. 12 events and tourism review vol. 3 no. 1 (spring 2020), 7-12, doi: 10.18060/23594 copyright © 2020 faranak memarzadeh & sulekha anand this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. usefulness, and intention to use for both genders provide valuable insights for hoteliers. beliefs are related to guests’ behavior and the use of sustainable technology is related to intention to use for both male and female guests. this means that there is a promising potential acceptance of sustainable practices and technology in the hotel industry. males and females agree on the usefulness and various impacts of sustainable practices and report their intention to continue using sustainable technology. however, females report greater usability of sustainable technology than males do. for females, the type of application that is being used is important as well. this study’s findings differ from the study conducted by venkatesh and morris (2000), which found that males’ technology usage decisions can be affected by the usefulness of the technology or equipment, while females are influenced by the ease of use of the technology. since competition in the lodging industry is intense, it becomes more essential for hoteliers to differentiate themselves from other service providers. knowing the guests’ perceptions of the hotel’s personalized and customized technology/applications captures guests’ attention, which consequently leads to loyalty. knowledge of males’ and females’ perceptions of sustainable practices and technology could help service providers to customize these technologies to be more user-friendly and support the needs of different genders. therefore, it is essential for service providers to evaluate hotel guests’ opinions to assure the effectiveness of the technology and any necessary modifications. as a result, guests’ engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty will be enhanced. reference arora-jonsson, s. (2011). virtue and vulnerability: discourses on women, gender and climate change. global environmental change, 21(2), 744-751. ball, d., coelho, p. s., & vilares, m. j. (2006). service personalization and loyalty. journal of services marketing, 20(6), 391-403. berezan, o., millar, m., & raab, c. (2014). sustainable hotel practices and guest satisfaction levels. international journal of hospitality & tourism administration, 15(1), 1-18. davis, f. d. (1989). perceived usefulness, perceived ease of use, and user acceptance of information technology. mis quarterly, 13(3), 319-340. miller, g., rathouse, k., scarles, c., holmes, k., & tribe, j. (2010). public understanding of sustainable tourism. annals of tourism research, 37(3), 627-645. sánchez-hernández, r. m., martínez-tur, v., peiró, j. m., & moliner, c. (2010). linking functional and relational service quality to customer satisfaction and loyalty: differences between men and women. psychological reports, 106(2), 598-610. suki, n. m. (2014). moderating role of gender in the relationship between hotel service quality dimensions and tourist satisfaction. journal of quality assurance in hospitality & tourism, 15(1), 44-62. venkatesh, v., & morris, m. g. (2000). why don't men ever stop to ask for directions? gender, social influence, and their role in technology acceptance and usage behavior. mis quarterly, 115-139. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 13-27, doi: 10.18060/22726 copyright © 2018 jeeyeon hahm. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribuion 4.0 international license. events and tourism review volume 1 no. 1 important secondary information sources to form destination image jeeyeon (jeannie) hahm university of central florida for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation hahm, j. (2018). important secondary information sources to form destination image. events and tourism review, 1(1), 13-27. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr hahm, j. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 13-27. 14 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 13-27, doi: 10.18060/22726 copyright © 2018 jeeyeon hahm this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract this study examined what secondary information sources were important in forming individuals’ image of a destination. in addition, this study looked into the differences in important information sources based on sociodemographic variables. the results of the comparative analyses showed some significant differences in information sources for destination image among four country context groups. of the sociodemographic variables, differences were found between certain information sources and education level. also, significant relationships were found between information sources and age. this study has implications for destination marketing organizations. keywords: information sources, destination image, sociodemographic variables, comparative analysis introduction there are numerous destinations in existence, which translates to intense competition among them. people may not be aware of destinations due to the lack of information or perceived negative image that can lead to an adverse chance of being selected as a potential site for visit. there are an abundance of research findings that point to the fact that image has a major influence on the decision-making process and post-decision behaviors, especially for destinations (e.g., balouglu & mccleary, 1999; beerli & martín, 2004; castro, amario, & ruiz, 2007; chen & kerstetter, 1999; chen & tsai, 2007; kaplanidou & gibson, 2012). therefore, it is important for destination marketing organizations (dmos) to understand how people form an image in an effort to sway them at the right time using the right communication channel. image is formed by an individual’s rational and emotional interpretation based on cognitive evaluations (i.e., perceptions, knowledge, and beliefs) of the product and affective assessment (i.e., feelings) of the product (baloglu & brinberg, 1997; baloglu & mccleary, 1999; beerli & martín, 2004; gartner, 1993; gwinner, 1997). there are many factors that influence image formation. these factors include physical stimulus factors, such as various information sources, previous experience, and distribution and personal factors, such as characteristics of the person (baloglu, 1997; baloglu & mccleary, 1999; crompton, 1979; fakeye & crompton, 1991; gunn, 1972; stern & krakover, 1993; um & crompton, 1990). without first-hand experience, people tend to search for information and form a perception about a destination or an event through a multitude of sources, such as friends and family, books, tv, advertisements, movies, internet, and social media. what people see and hear from these various information sources become a perception in their minds and develop into an image of the destination. moreover, where individuals get their information from and how it is perceived might differ based on personal characteristics. there is a general understanding that people are different and how they acquire information and process it varies. therefore, destination marketers might need to tailor their marketing accordingly. with the increasingly diversified global market, a standard one-size-fits-all marketing campaign might not be the most effective. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hahm, j. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 13-27. 15 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 13-27, doi: 10.18060/22726 copyright © 2018 jeeyeon hahm this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. the purpose of this study is to understand what secondary information sources were important in forming individuals’ image of a destination. in addition, this study attempted to identify differences in the importance of information sources based on sociodemographic characteristics. this study will suggest information sources and personal factors that marketers should pay attention to when sending out information regarding the destination. lastly, this study will add to the limited and dated literature regarding information sources and sociodemographic characteristics. literature review image formation for the past couple of decades, research related to destination image has evolved to include different aspects in an effort to gain a better understanding of it. of those studies, both how people form an image of a destination and what influences the formation have been an interest of many researchers (e.g., baloglu & mccleary, 1999; beerli & martín, 2004; mackay & fesenmaier, 1997; tasci & gartner, 2007). first-hand experience and various information sources have an imperative role in forming an image of a destination. individuals learn about a destination through actual visitation or search of information including the amount of time spent on processing the information (gursoy, 2011; prentice & andersen, 2003). according to gartner (1993), the image forming process can be described as a continuum of different information sources that operate separately to form one single image in people’s minds. gartner (1993) identified five agents or information sources: (1) overt induced – traditional advertising in mass media; (2) covert induced – using celebrities in promotion activities, reports, or articles; (3) autonomous – mass media broadcasting news, documentaries, films, television programs about the destination; (4) organic – information received from friends and relatives based on their knowledge or experience; and (5) a visit to the destination – the final point of the continuum in the image formation process. based on this continuum, gartner (1993) suggested that an actual visit is a secondary image that is formed after the other agents. on the contrary, phelps (1986) considered the first-hand experience the primary image. phelps (1986) also implied that image formed by organic, induced, and autonomous information sources are secondary images. govers, go, and kumar (2007) proved that secondary information sources were important in influencing image prior to visitation. however, in the existence of previous experience, an actual visit may be more influential than information gained from other information sources when making a decision (mazursky, 1989). when there is a first-hand experience, the individual might not feel the need to search for additional information (beerli & martín, 2004). based on the above discussion, this study will categorize information sources by primary and secondary where primary information source is related to first-hand experience and secondary information sources are related to other induced, autonomous, and organic sources that are not based on the actual visit. primary information sources information sources are called stimulus factors (baloglu & mccleary, 1999) or image forming agents (gartner, 1993) that affect the formation of perceptions and evaluations. they are related to the amount and variety of information sources people are exposed to (beerli & martín, 2004). this includes information gathered about a destination after visiting, which is first-hand https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hahm, j. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 13-27. 16 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 13-27, doi: 10.18060/22726 copyright © 2018 jeeyeon hahm this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. experience. several researchers have found that a first-hand experience with a destination influences its image. these researchers advised that images formed during an actual visit tend to be more realistic, complex, and different from images formed through secondary sources (gartner & hunt, 1987; pearce, 1982; phelps, 1986). in addition, the more frequent the actual experience, a more positive image will be generated (beerli & martín, 2004; kerstetter & cho, 2004; milman & pizam, 1995; sharifpour et al., 2014). however, beerli and marín (2004) found that the number of past visits to a destination influenced the cognitive image, which could be rather negative. milman and pizam (1995) and sharifpour et al. (2014) suggested that experience and familiarity with a destination increased the interest in visiting and lessens risk perceptions of the destination. echtner and ritchie (1993) suggested that people that are more familiar with a destination hold more holistic, psychological, and unique images. on the other hand, people that are less familiar have images based on attributes, functional aspects, and common features (echtner & ritchie, 1993). on the contrary, sparks and pan (2009) did not find prior visit as a significant factor in influencing destination image. secondary information sources without the existence of first-hand experiences, people seek information from a mixture of sources to acquire knowledge regarding the destination. fodness and murray (1998, 1999) found that tourists ranked the use of brochures, friends/relatives, social clubs, and personal experience highly. however, the authors noted that the sources used depended on the phase of travel. according to beerli and martín (2004), word-of-mouth from friends or family is considered to be the most influential communication channel. based on their findings, the authors suggested that it is important to match the reality of the destination when transmitting information out to the market. govers et al. (2007) found that overall covert induced and autonomous agents – television, literature, the internet, pictures, and movies – were important information sources for destinations. of those sources, television was ranked as the number one information source, closely followed by direct experience (first-hand experience). word-ofmouth, magazines, and the internet were also ranked in the top five. the authors also found that different information sources influenced perceptions based on the destination. for example, their study of seven destinations showed that information related to florida was collected via television, movies, and magazines, compared to dubai, where information was gathered through word-of-mouth. similar to govers et al. (2007), sparks and pan (2009) found that television programs were the top source for chinese tourists when collecting information about australia as a destination. the second most important source was friends followed by fashion magazines and travel books, then newspapers and tourist brochures. about half of their respondents gathered information on chinese websites. based on the literature, the following hypothesis was developed: h1: important information sources for destination image are different among destinations. the advancement of technology and global media in modern society influence the types of information sources, and the way information is searched, received, and processed (frías et al., 2012). the internet has become a major source of information for tourists (buhalis & law, 2008; buhalis & licata, 2002; pan & fesenmaier, 2006; wu, wei, & chen, 2008). with the massive amount of information available, searching on the internet has increasingly become the https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hahm, j. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 13-27. 17 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 13-27, doi: 10.18060/22726 copyright © 2018 jeeyeon hahm this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. leading source of travel information (xiang & gretzel, 2010). the internet and social media are interactive in nature (govers et al., 2007) and are platforms where people are able to not only retrieve comprehensive and up-to-date information (vich-i-martorell, 2004) but also freely publish information about a destination (llodrà-riera et al., 2015). people are no longer passive consumers. they generate content, collaborate, and comment through social networks (llodràriera et al., 2015). it has become a challenge for destination marketers because people tend to believe and rely on user-generated content (ugc) than what is disseminated by marketers (munar, 2011). llodrà-riera et al. (2015) focused on web platforms as an information source construct that influences destination image formation. the authors incorporated web 1.0, which offers first-hand information about a destination and suppliers and web 2.0, which offers ugc as sources of information about a destination. unlike previous studies that suggest the internet, as a whole, as an induced source that influences the perceived image of a destination (e.g., beerli & martín, 2004), the authors suggested that there are various web platforms of the internet that can be classified as either organic, induced, or autonomous. for web platforms, the authors used web pages, blogs, social networks, portals, photo or video sharing applications, forums, and even maps. of the different web platforms, search engines (e.g., google) were the most important, followed by online maps. of the web pages that offered ugc, user appraisals (e.g., tripadvisor) and social networks were the most important. overall, web pages by intermediaries and suppliers were not as useful as the abovementioned (llodrà-riera et al., 2015). personal factors besides past experience, sociodemographic characteristics and information sources are important factors that form images of destinations. people develop images of a destination via the exposure to various stimulus factors – information sources – but how the attributes and aspects that make up that image is perceived vary based on individual characteristics (um & crompton, 1990). in other words, how people receive information that is funneled through a variety of sources will be different depending on personal factors. these personal factors are composed of psychographic characteristics (e.g., motivations, values, personality, lifestyle, etc.) and sociodemographic characteristics (e.g., age, gender, education level, income level, family lifecycle, place of residence, etc.) (ashworth & voogd, 1990; bramwell & rawding, 1996; gartner, 1993). individuals’ information search behavior is influenced by personal factors, such as learning, perception, motivation, personality, and attitude (luo, feng, & cai, 2004). it has been found that demographic characteristics can be used to represent individual factors that affect information search behavior (luo et al., 2004). woodside and ronkainen (1980) reported that people with a higher socioeconomic class preferred the use of travel agents as an information source. gitelson and crompton (1983) found that older people tend to use travel agents and people with higher education levels (college-educated) were more likely to use destination specific literature. on the other hand, schul and crompton (1983) did not find any statistical significance between sociodemographic variables and travelers’ information search behavior. the authors suggested that psychographic variables are more effective than sociodemographic variables in explaining external search behavior of international leisure travelers. pitkow and kehoe (1996) stated that people that use the internet as an information source tend to be white males who represent a higher socioeconomic status. another study on the usage of the internet https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hahm, j. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 13-27. 18 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 13-27, doi: 10.18060/22726 copyright © 2018 jeeyeon hahm this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. by bonn, furr, and susskind (1998) noted that gender, education, income, race, and occupation have an influence. luo et al. (2004) found that gender and household income influenced information search preference. more specifically, they found that males with higher household incomes were more likely to use the internet. the same study did not find any difference in information source preference based on age, education, and occupation. in their study of gender differences in online travel information search, kim, lehto, and morrison (2007) showed that females value general websites and official destination websites more than males. in addition, females rated printed materials (e.g., brochures, travel guidebooks) higher than males. on the other hand, tv, newspaper, and travel agents did not show any significant gender differences. based on the literature on personal factors, the following hypothesis was developed to test the relationships between information sources and gender, age, marital status, educational level, income, and ethnicity: h2: important information sources for destination image are different based on sociodemographic variables. methodology a structured survey was designed with items adopted from past literature. the importance of information sources for destination image (6 items) and the importance of information sources for the olympics games image (6 items) were measured on a 7-point importance scale (1=extremely unimportant, 7=extremely important). the importance of information sources items were based on several studies (e.g., beerli & martín, 2004; fodness & murray, 1998, 1999; govers et al., 2007; llodrà-riera et al., 2015). the current study will only focus on the information sources for destination image. the main part of the survey included country image (9 items based on kim, kang, & kim, 2014; lai, 2015), destination image (12 items based on tasci, 2009; tasci and gartner, 2007; tasci, gartner, & cavusgil, 2007), and olympic games image (10 items based on deng and li, 2013; florek and insch, 2011; hallmann, kaplanidou, and breuer, 2010; kaplanidou, 2009). however, these items were not the focus of the current study. items related to past experience with the country and the olympics as well as familiarity with the olympics and interest in the olympics were included in the questionnaire. lastly, sociodemographic information was collected at the end of the survey (i.e., gender, age, education level, marital status, residence state, annual income, and ethnicity). data were collected for four host destinations of past olympic games: england – the host of 2012 summer olympics (n=97), greece – the motherland of the olympics (n=97), brazil – the host of 2016 summer olympics (n=94), and russia – the host of 2014 winter olympics (n=95). although it is the city that technically hosts the olympics, there are lasting impacts not only on the city but also on the host region and host country, such as host country’s image and economy (e.g., kang & perdue, 1994; kasimati & dawson, 2009; min han, 1990). in addition, since the whole nation is involved in the bidding process, planning, organizing, and participating in the mega event, the spotlight is on the entire country. for this reason, the images at the country level rather than city level were measured. mturk participants were randomly assigned to one of the four country contexts once they signed the online consent. except for one comparative analysis of the four destination groups, the present study used the combined data https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hahm, j. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 13-27. 19 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 13-27, doi: 10.18060/22726 copyright © 2018 jeeyeon hahm this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. set. descriptive statistics, frequencies, correlations, independent samples t-test, and one-way anova tools of spss 23 were used to analyze the data set. a random sample of 422 was obtained from an internet survey marketplace of voluntary survey takers – amazon’s mechanical turk (mturk). data were checked for any missing values and outliers. there were only 25 responses from outside of the united states. since the study focused on u.s. residents’ perceptions, these cases were excluded from the study. after deleting those cases, a sample of 383 was used for comparison analyses. in preparation for comparative analyses, the normality of the distribution of values was assessed by inspecting the skewness and kurtosis values as well as the shape of the distribution. in addition, data is independent of one another. the data showed no violations of assumptions. the cronbach alpha coefficient for the importance of information sources scale was 0.71, slightly above the 0.70 threshold (nunnally, 1978). results and discussion the demographic profiles of respondents are provided in tables 2, 3, and 4. the age of respondents ranged from 18 to 74 with the majority in their 30s (37.9%) or 20s (32.9%). the sample was almost an even split between males (54.3%) and females (45.7%). slightly more than half have graduated from college/university (52.8%), and less than half are single (48.8%). the majority is white/caucasian (73.8%). income levels were almost evenly distributed. in addition to the demographic information, some travel information related to the olympic games were collected. most of the respondents (93.9%) have never attended the olympic games. there were a total of 18 respondents that have been to the olympics and of those, 45.5% were the olympics held in the united states – the 1984 los angeles olympic games or the 1996 atlanta olympic games. a small percentage of respondents (25.2%) expressed their interest in attending the olympic games in the future. the majority of respondents (91.9%) have never been to the destination they were assigned to. table 1. importance of information sources for different groups in different country contexts (anova) information sources england (n=97) greece (n=97) brazil (n=94) russia (n=95) one-way anova test significance prior visit 3.91 (1.963) 3.78 (1.804) 3.51 (1.849) 3.73 (1.910) .637 general knowledge from school 4.83 (1.083) 4.89 (1.030) 4.29 (1.569) 4.81 (1.104) .001** tv programs 4.98 (1.196) 4.73 (1.254) 4.80 (1.295) 4.67 (1.125) .186 word-of mouth 5.22 (1.283) 5.43 (1.172) 5.02 (1.336) 4.94 (1.428) .030* printed or online news media 5.18 (1.170) 5.09 (1.242) 5.45 (1.322) 5.34 (1.017) .172 social media 4.43 (1.547) 4.70 (1.260) 4.97 (1.763) 4.69 (1.445) .093 note: 7-point likert scales (1 = extremely unimportant to 7 = extremely important), * p<.5, **p<.01 table 1 presents the important information sources for destination image. word-of-mouth and printed or online news media were the highest rated information sources, on average. wordof-mouth was rated the highest for the england group (5.22) and the greece group (5.43). it was rated the second highest for the brazil group (5.02) and the russia group (4.94). printed or online news media was rated the highest for brazil (5.45) and russia (5.34) and second highest https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hahm, j. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 13-27. 20 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 13-27, doi: 10.18060/22726 copyright © 2018 jeeyeon hahm this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. for england (5.18) and greece (5.09). prior visits were the lowest rated information source for all groups. the information sources that showed a statistically significant difference among the groups were word-of-mouth (p<.05) and general knowledge from school (p<.01). post-hoc scheffe tests were run to find exactly where the differences were; however, the results showed that the groups are actually similar. therefore, h1 was not supported. table 2 shows the correlation between age and important information sources. the results show that age has a small to medium negative relationship with three information sources. to be more specific, the older the age, prior visit, general knowledge from school, or social media is considered a less important information source. based on the results in table 3, there were no significant differences found between males and females. table 2. correlations of information sources and age (n=381) pearson correlation sig. (2-tailed) age prior visit general knowledge from school tv programs wordofmouth printed or online news media social media information sources for destination image age 1 prior visit -.166** 1 general knowledge from school -.145** .094 1 tv programs .057 .087 .281** 1 word-of-mouth .014 .126* .146** .295** 1 printed or online news media .007 .012 .219** .354** .277* * 1 social media -.192** .220** .196** .239** .301* * .282** 1 *: correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed). **: correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). table 3. importance of information sources comparison between males and females (t-test) information sources males (n=207) females (n=174) t sig. prior visit 3.81 (1.882) 3.68 (1.914) .655 .513 general knowledge from school 4.78 (1.136) 4.74 (1.042) .375 .708 tv programs 4.77 (1.243) 4.70 (1.165) .624 .533 word-of mouth 5.07 (1.287) 5.25 (1.273) -1.363 .174 printed or online news media 5.23 (1.215) 5.15 (1.026) .666 .506 social media 4.68 (1.434) 4.49 (1.405) 1.286 .199 note: 7-point likert scales (1 = extremely unimportant to 7 = extremely important) tables 4 presents the differences in important information sources depending on education level, marital status, ethnicity, and annual income. when comparing the different groups based on the education level of the respondents, statistically significant differences were found in word-of-mouth. the post-hoc scheffe test revealed that the actual difference lies between respondents with a high school degree and those that have a vocational school/associate degree (p<.5). for marital status and ethnicity, there were no statistically significant differences found between the groups. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hahm, j. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 13-27. 21 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 13-27, doi: 10.18060/22726 copyright © 2018 jeeyeon hahm this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. table 4. importance of information sources comparison based on sociodemographic variables (anova) information sources sociodemographic variable oneway anova education level high school (n=80) vocational school/ associate (n=44) college/ university (n=201) master’s or phd (n=56) prior visit 3.65 (1.801) 3.66 (1.892) 3.68 (1.889) 4.25 (2.020) .211 general knowledge from school 4.73 (.856) 4.80 (1.091) 4.68 (1.203) 5.05 (.942) .157 tv programs 4.78 (.941) 4.82 (1.147) 4.73 (1.288) 4.66 (1.311) .916 word-of mouth 4.88 (1.236) 5.59 (1.106) 5.18 (1.284) 5.09 (1.392) .027* printed or online news media 5.16 (1.024) 5.20 (1.002) 5.16 (1.231) 5.34 (1.014) .760 social media 4.40 (1.249) 4.48 (1.486) 4.64 (1.467) 4.77 (1.440) .417 marital status single (n=186) married (n=124) divorced/ separated (n=33) other (n=38) prior visit 3.80 (1.911) 3.83 (1.886) 3.18 (1.868) 3.76 (1.786) .345 general knowledge from school 4.76 (1.040) 4.79 (1.191) 4.82 (.805) 4.61 (1.215) .814 tv programs 4.72 (1.185) 4.76 (1.278) 4.79 (1.213) 4.74 (1.017) .984 word-of mouth 5.17 (1.282) 5.04 (1.271) 5.27 (1.295) 5.32 (1.037) .600 printed or online news media 5.23 (1.156) 5.15 (1.190) 5.30 (.907) 5.03 (1.014) .684 social media 4.61 (1.396) 4.60 (1.464) 4.27 (1.634) 4.74 (.963) .555 ethnicity white/ caucasian (n=281) african american (n=23) hispanic (n=25) asian (n=39) others (n=13) prior visit 3.68 (1.953) 3.70 (1.329) 4.40 (1.323) 4.15 (1.899) 3.08 (2.221) .147 general knowledge from school 4.77 (1.117) 4.87 (.869) 4.64 (.860) 4.74 (1.186) 4.54 (1.059) .894 tv programs 4.69 (1.233) 4.78 (.998) 4.84 (1.281) 4.97 (1.112) 4.69 (1.135) .720 word-of mouth 5.14 (1.309) 5.17 (1.114) 5.12 (1.364) 5.26 (1.044) 5.08 (1.729) .986 printed or online news media 5.16 (1.168) 5.00 (1.279) 5.44 (.821) 5.33 (.955) 5.31 (1.160) .589 social media 4.54 (1.471) 4.61 (1.118) 4.88 (1.166) 4.85 (1.226) 4.23 (1.687) .491 annual income under $15,000 (n=75) $15,000$24,999 (n=72) $25,000$34,999 (n=64) $35,000$49,999 (n=55) $50,000$74,999 (n=75) $75,000 or above (n=40) prior visit 3.48 (2.120) 3.46 (1.711) 3.61 (1.882) 3.98 (1.769) 4.07 (1.913) 4.13 (1.991) .152 general knowledge from school 4.80 (1.013) 4.76 (1.055) 4.72 (.983) 5.00 (1.247) 4.65 (1.121) 4.60 (1.265) .493 tv programs 4.64 (1.111) 4.75 (1.097) 4.72 (1.315) 4.96 (1.465) 4.73 (1.131) 4.63 (1.329) .735 word-of mouth 5.03 (1.294) 5.15 (1.252) 4.95 (1.463) 5.25 (1.205) 5.41 (1.209) 5.05 (1.085) .309 printed or online news media 5.04 (1.224) 5.25 (.946) 5.20 (1.237) 5.25 (1.092) 5.29 (1.075) 5.08 (1.204) .742 social media 4.35 (1.428) 4.72 (1.406) 4.41 (1.706) 4.93 (1.152) 4.72 (1.279) 4.40 (1.532) .138 note: 7-point likert scales (1 = extremely unimportant to 7 = extremely important) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hahm, j. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 13-27. 22 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 13-27, doi: 10.18060/22726 copyright © 2018 jeeyeon hahm this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. for annual income, there was an interesting result in prior visits. it is the only information source that showed a steady increase in importance rating as the income level rises. the results of the correlation, t-test, and anovas show partial support for h2. conclusion and implications the purpose of this study was to identify important sources people use when searching for information about a destination. in addition, this study looked into whether different information sources are important depending on the destination in question. lastly, this study examined the important information sources based on sociodemographic variables. the study results showed some significant differences in information sources for destination image among the four country context groups. word-of-mouth and printed or online news media were the top two information sources people used to form their images of countries. more specifically, the england group and greece group considered word-of-mouth as the most important information source, whereas the brazil group and russia group rated printed or online news media the most important. the results indicate that england and greece depend more on word-of-mouth than brazil and russia for individuals’ forming an image. beerli and martín (2004) also found word-of-mouth to be the most influential communication channel in their study. this could be due to the fact that people are more familiar with england and greece by previous experience. england was the most visited destination of the four (22.7%). of the four destinations, brazil and russia have been in the news related to the olympic games more recently than the other two destinations due to the fact that the games were held in 2016 and 2014, respectively. in addition, there was a good amount of negative publicity that could have left a more lasting effect on people. destination marketers of brazil and russia should strategically target various print and online news media for positive image formation. govers et al. (2007) found that different information sources influenced perceptions depending on the destination, which is confirmed by the current study. the lowest rated information source for destination image was related to prior visits. this means that the respondents did not see the importance of actual visit in forming their image of a destination, which agrees with sparks and pan (2009). it shows that destination image can be formed through secondary information sources. in this case, where the majority of respondents do not have the first-hand experience, this finding is in line with gartner (1993) that suggests an actual visit to be the secondary image and govers et al. (2007) that proved secondary information sources to be important in influencing the image prior to visitation. another part of this study was to find differences in important information sources based on sociodemographic variables. the findings of the correlation analysis of age and information sources showed a small to medium negative relationship between age and prior visits, general knowledge from school, and social media. the results indicate that the older the age, the importance of prior visit, general knowledge from school, and social media decreases. in other words, the younger the respondent, the more important the individual considered those three information sources. of the three, the negative relationship is strongest in social media. this result is understandable because studies show that the younger generation is more dependent on social media for collecting information (e.g., llodrà-riera et al., 2015). when asking about an information source related to general knowledge from school, the respondent is answering based on his/her memory. therefore, the younger the respondent, their recollection of what they https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hahm, j. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 13-27. 23 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 13-27, doi: 10.18060/22726 copyright © 2018 jeeyeon hahm this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. learned in school might be livelier. this finding indicates that what is taught during school years do have an impact on forming people’s perceptions. when comparing the information sources based on education level, overall, there were no significant differences except for word-of-mouth between high school graduates and vocational school/associate degree holders. this shows that education level is not a good predictor for understanding what information sources will be used to form an image. similar to education level, the income level of respondents is not a good variable to provide an understanding of information source selection. in contrast, pitkow and kehoe (1996), bonn et al. (1998) and luo et al. (2004) found that income influenced information search preference online. for the remaining sociodemographic characteristics, gender, marital status, and ethnicity were examined. there were no statistically significant differences found in important information sources based on those characteristics. along the same vein, schul and crompton (1983) did not find any statistical significance between sociodemographic variables and travelers’ information search behavior. the authors suggested psychographic variables to explain the external search behavior of international leisure travelers. unlike previous studies conducted by pitkow and kehoe (1996), bonn et al. (1998), luo et al., (2004), and kim et al. (2007), the current study did not find significant differences between males and females. in terms of ethnicity, bonn et al. (1998) had found that race influenced the usage of the internet as an information source. there are previous studies that found cultural differences (chen and kerstetter, 1999; frías et al., 2012). however, the respondents of this study all reside in the u.s., although there are different ethnicities. this could have influenced the study results. the findings of this study suggest that destination marketers should seek and understand the factors that influence information search behavior, including the internet, social media, and psychographic characteristics. word-of-mouth consistently ranked highest or second across the board. it seems that individuals are able to obtain information about destinations more easily through organic and personal experiences. printed or online news media was another information source along with word-of-mouth that ranked highest. therefore, destination marketers need to remain cognizant of what is being portrayed in the media and continue with strong marketing campaigns that highlight the positive side of the destination. the key implication for marketers of destinations is to make sure they do their best to convey realistic and consistent messages across all communication channels. for information sources like social media where control is difficult, destination marketers need to be aware of what information is being disseminated. this study also suggests that other than age, sociodemographic characteristics do not provide destination marketers with strong suggestions for information sources to focus on to form destination image. regarding age, destination marketers can concentrate resources on social media for image formation of the younger generation. for academia, this study was able to add to the limited and dated body of literature regarding sociodemographic variables and the important information sources for destination image. limitation and suggestions for future research the limitations of this study present opportunities for future research. first, this study only compared important information sources based on sociodemographic variables. future research should include psychographic characteristics such as motivation, cultural interest, familiarity, activity, and travel-specific behaviors to see if these variables can better explain https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hahm, j. (2018) / events and tourism review, 1(1), 13-27. 24 events and tourism review vol. 1 no. 1 (december 2018), 13-27, doi: 10.18060/22726 copyright © 2018 jeeyeon hahm this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. information source selection. secondly, this study only conducted comparative analyses. causal relationships were not examined in this particular study. it would be interesting to see which information sources have a stronger influence on destination image. third, the majority of respondents have not been to the destinations in question. future studies should include a larger sample of people that have first-hand experience with the destination. in addition, the number of visits, the duration of the visit, and the degree of involvement with the destination during the stay should be collected for more meaningful interpretation of results. fourth, in terms of information sources, future studies should be more specific about the categorization of the sources. for example, this study only had one option for news media that included both printed and online sources. therefore, it is difficult to fully understand whether it is the printed news media or online news media that is important. similarly, there was only one category for social media. with social media becoming a major information source, having it further classified based on the different social media platforms would provide a better understanding of important information sources. in addition, it would be interesting to compare the results with a more diverse sample, in terms of ethnicity or diverse cultures. lastly, this study only focused on destination image. a future study can concentrate on information sources for event image and see how the results differ from the current study. references ashworth, g. & voogd, h. 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(2010). role of social media in online travel information search. tourism management, 31(2), 179-188. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 14-29, doi: 10.18060/25392 copyright © 2021 siriporn mcdowall and weijia jia this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review june 2021 volume 4 no. 1 dining satisfaction with quick service restaurants among college students siriporn mcdowall weijia jia arkansas tech university correspondence: smcdowall@atu.edu (s. mcdowall) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation mcdowall, s. & jia, w. (2021). dining satisfaction with quick service restaurants among college students. events and tourism review, 4(1), 14-29. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:smcdowall@atu.edu http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr mcdowall, s. & jia, w. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 14-29. 15 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 14-29, doi: 10.18060/25392 copyright © 2021 siriporn mcdowall and weijia jia this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract the purposes of this research were to investigate the reasons why college students enjoy fast food and why fast food is popular among college students. there were 313 respondents participating in this study. the majority of them were male, between 18-24 years of age, single, and they were freshmen and sophomores. on average, they visited the restaurant 3 times a week. friends and family were their major source of information, followed by driveby, the restaurant sign, social media, and billboard. respondents were most satisfied with billing was accurate, operation hours were convenient, received food as ordered, menu was easy to read and order, and seat availability. those who were satisfied with the restaurant would come back and recommend their friends and relatives to patron the restaurant. keywords: fast food, quick service restaurant, college students, customer satisfaction introduction “which quick service restaurants do college students like to eat?”, “why do they eat there?”, “who went with them?”, and “how often do they go there?” these are questions come to mind for this study when seeing the main street of the main campus of nearly every university in the united states is surrounded by fast food restaurants and crowded by college students. it is evident that fast food restaurants must offer what college students want at the price they can afford to have them as their clientele. quick service restaurants (qsr) foodservice includes restaurants and qsrs is a major segment of the hospitality industry. unique characteristics of the hospitality industry, such as intangibility, inseparability, perishability, and variability create challenges for conducting business. in restaurants, there is interaction between service providers who provide and deliver food to customers and customers who receive such services. service providers vary in skill and passion to provide service. simultaneously, customers differ in taste, choice of food, experience, and expectations. differences in service providers and customers, together with the required customer involvement in the delivery process intensify the relationship between service providers and customers and create a challenge for customers to evaluate the quality of food or quality of service they received. like with other businesses, the goal of restaurants is to make a profit, and in order to do so restaurants need to pay attention to their customers whose evaluations and satisfaction with products and services received impact their experiences and decisions to support the business (walker, 2017). for this study, a fast food or qsr is defined as a type of establishment that offers a limited menu at an inexpensive price, with limited food preparation time, providing fast service although employing a minimum number of employees. limited menus enable customers to make quick decisions, leading to shortened waiting and order lines, and increasing customer satisfaction. they enable restaurants to hire unskilled employees and spend limited time in training them to cook or https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mcdowall, s. & jia, w. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 14-29. 16 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 14-29, doi: 10.18060/25392 copyright © 2021 siriporn mcdowall and weijia jia this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. serve, leading to less food preparation time. location strategies (makes it convenient for people to find qsrs), limited menus, and fast service contribute to the popularity of fast food (walker, 2017). throughout the history, qsrs seem to adapt very well with the crises (i. e., 2008 recession and 2019 covid-19 pandemic). this is mainly due to their unique characteristics of being inexpensive, quickly prepared and served food, convenient locations, and less contact or interaction between the service provider and the customers. these have helped qsrs to survive and sustain during the pandemic which requires less contact or contactless service compared to other types of restaurants or businesses. purpose of the study: as previously stated, qsrs play an important role in american’s economy because of its affordable price, limited menu selection, convenient location, and efficient serving time, which fit college students’ lifestyles. therefore, the purpose of this study is as follows: 1. to analyze characteristic of college students who patronize qsrs. 2. to analyze factors affected satisfaction among college students when dining at qsrs. 3. to analyze a relationship between the affected factors and college students’ loyalty (return to the qsr and/or recommend that qsr to their friends and relatives). literature review this study was the application of the “reasoned action” theory, which was developed by ajzen & fishbein (1992). this theory stated that a person’s emotional attachment (like or dislike) with the object is an outcome of how that person perceives the object’s characteristics. this object’s attachment led to future actions with that object. this implies that consumers’ perceptions of qsrs affect their satisfaction or dissatisfaction, leading to their behavioral intention (i.e., repurchase or recommendation) for that qsrs (mason et al., 2016). customer satisfaction customer satisfaction plays a major role for a company’s success and has been a focus of study for nearly four decades (gupta, mclaughlin, & gomez, 2007). qsrs are similar to other businesses, which are to satisfy customers and gain competitive advantage in order to sustain the business or make profits. customer satisfaction comes from their comparing purchased products/services against their expectations, and they are satisfied when the products/services they received meet or exceed their expectations. on the other hand, dissatisfied customers will take their business elsewhere and actively convince others to do the same (gilbert, veloutsou, goode, & moutinho, 2004). to prosper, restaurants must cultivate customer loyalty through delivering quality products or services as well as a high level of dining satisfaction. customer loyalty can be measured by the extent to which patrons revisit restaurants and/or recommend the restaurants to others through positive word-of-mouth (kivela, reece, & inbakaran, 1999). in this study, customer satisfaction is used interchangeably with dining satisfaction. factors that affect customer satisfaction numerous researchers (parasuraman, et al., 1988; kara, et al., 1995; lee & ulgado, 1997; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mcdowall, s. & jia, w. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 14-29. 17 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 14-29, doi: 10.18060/25392 copyright © 2021 siriporn mcdowall and weijia jia this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. qin & prybutok, 2008) devoted their studies to determine factors affected customer satisfaction. there is no consensus regarding the number of factors, type of factors, and how to classify such factors. this might be because the research was conducted with different samples, different type of restaurants, age groups, and countries. the present study identified three factors (service quality, food quality and reliability) as main factors affect customer satisfaction in qsrs. service quality service quality is the extent to which intangible economic activities which are consumed at the point-of-sale meet customers’ expectations and satisfy their needs and requirements. qsrs have improved their service quality due to increased competition among qsrs and a rise in number of qsrs (qin & prybutok, 2008). using servqual to measure customer perceptions of service quality in service and retailing businesses in 1988 by parasuraman et al. gave rise to the study of the service quality. in this study, parasuraman et al. (1988) stated that intangibility, heterogeneity, and inseparability of production and consumption of services make it difficult to measure the level of service quality objectively. service quality is determined by the discrepancy between customers’ expectations of the services offered and their perceptions of the actual performances of the service providers. a negative gap between perceptions and expectations will result in customer dissatisfaction. on the other hand, a positive gap will result in satisfaction. the five dimensions in the 1988 study used to assess service quality were tangibles, reliability, responsiveness, assurance, and empathy. since then, numerous other studies and measurement instruments have emerged based on parasuraman, et al. and their famous servqual. globalization, the popularity of qsrs, especially in the u.s. market, and the opportunity to capture new markets and expand market share have inspired qsrs expansion overseas and accompanying research. kara, kaynak, and kucukemiroglu (1995) compared similarities and differences in customers’ perceptions and preferences for qsrs between 179 u.s. and 141 canadian customers. the results revealed that hamburgers, pizza, and chicken were the top three fast food items among americans, whereas seafood, hamburgers, and chicken were the top three items preferred by canadians. delivery service, variety of menu, service speed, quality, cleanliness and friendliness of personnel were important criteria among americans in selecting qsrs, whereas seating capacity, cleanliness, nutritional value, friendly personnel and menu variety affected canadians’ choice of qsrs. qin and prybutok (2008) examined the relationships among and between service quality, food quality, price/value, customer satisfaction, and behavioral intentions using the modified servperf to measure qsr service (servperf was developed by cronin and taylor in 1992 and was based on servqual). this study used an online survey with 203 respondents. satisfied customers were more likely than others to become repeat patrons, recommend a given qsr to others, or say good things about it. however, providing quality service alone does not guarantee that customers will be satisfied, for attributes such as food quality and short waiting times are also important. there was a direct and positive relationship between food quality and customer satisfaction and between food quality and behavioral intentions. this means that food quality affect customer satisfaction, as well as impact customers’ behavioral intentions. consequently, quality of food can capture customer satisfaction. customers will return to patronize that restaurant again in the future or convince their friends or relatives to patronize that restaurant because of food quality. in this study, price/value had no relationship to customer satisfaction, perhaps because the price/value variables under this study were competitive price, value worthy of price, and special https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mcdowall, s. & jia, w. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 14-29. 18 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 14-29, doi: 10.18060/25392 copyright © 2021 siriporn mcdowall and weijia jia this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. discounts. qin and prybutok conducted another study in 2009, with 282 respondents. some of the results were similar to the previous study in 2008. the 2009 study revealed that there was a direct and positive relationship between service quality and customer satisfaction, which was different from the results in 2008. this might be because respondents were more familiar with and accepted the level of service provided at qsrs. they might have recognized that they could not use the same service quality standard at other types of restaurants to evaluate service quality at qsrs. another possible reason for differences in customer perceptions might be differences in sample characteristics, e.g., in the 2008 study, respondents were predominantly male (54.7% of respondents), whereas in the 2009 sample, respondents were mainly female (54.3%). another difference was how the authors grouped the respondents’ age in the survey. for 2008 samples, 76.3% of them were between 20 to 25 years of age, whereas 82.3% of the 2009 respondents were between 18-25 years of age. both groups were college students. food quality johns and howard (1998) stated that food is the main product or core business of restaurants, fulfilling a basic human need. they examined the relationship between customer expectations and their perceptions of service performance using the profile accumulation technique, developed by johns and lee-ross in 1996, to collect data qualitatively yet analyze it quantitatively. customers at two pizza restaurants filled out open-ended questionnaires about their meal experience or service received from each qsr, while passers-by reported on what they expected from restaurants in general. then, the authors compared passer-by expectations with perceptions of diners at the two qsrs. there were 172 respondents: 50 diners from the first restaurant, 22 from the second, and 50 passers-by. respondents of the first restaurant reported that food quality of the first restaurant exceeded their expectations, but respondents from the second qsr rated food quality as poor. this might be because during the data collection, the second restaurant was in the process of terminating its franchise agreement. in both qsrs, respondents’ perceptions on food, staff and atmosphere exceeded what they had expected, which means respondents were satisfied with those aspects. service and price were the most positive aspects. qin and prybutok (2008; 2009) reported that food quality was related to customer satisfaction, while law et al. (2004) found that food quality affected repurchase behavior during lunch. perlik (2003) found that consistent food quality was the top reason customers patronized their favorite chain restaurant. reliability reliability is defined as the service provider’s ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately. this has been one in five most famous dimensions used to measure service quality (parasuraman, zeithaml, & berry, 1985, 1988). the purpose of parasuraman et al’s studies were to help the businesses understand customers’ expectations and perceptions of service, which eventually led them to improve the service they provided to customers. they also emphasized the role service quality played as a source of competitive advantage. moonkyu and ulgado (1997) found differences existed between korean and american fast-food customers in reliability and empathy dimensions. humnekar (2017) found servqual scale is not applicable for a study of service quality in fast food restaurants in india, which might be because of cultural differences. some studies investigate the impact of waiting time on customer satisfaction. as fast service https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mcdowall, s. & jia, w. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 14-29. 19 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 14-29, doi: 10.18060/25392 copyright © 2021 siriporn mcdowall and weijia jia this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. is a major draw of qsrs (walker, 2017), customers expect to place their orders and receive their food quickly. thus, the length of waiting time affects customer satisfaction (davis & vollmann, 1990; law et al., 2004), repeat restaurant patronage (law et al., 2004), decisions as to which restaurant to patronize (davis & vollmann, 1990), and long-term profits (davis, 1991). taylor (1994) stated that customers would relate long waits for poor service. davis and vollman (1990) collected data from two fast food restaurants, with 723 respondents. results revealed that the longer a customer waited, the less satisfied or more dissatisfied he/she became with the service received. customer satisfaction and waiting time also affected by time of day and store locations. the longer customers waited during lunch time, the less satisfied they became. type of location (suburban versus downtown) affected customer satisfaction; the longer suburban customers waited, the less satisfied they became. law et al. (2004) studied with two groups of participants: 135 college students who patronized the university’s qsr and 106 students who patronized both the university’s qsr and off-campus food outlets. results revealed that for the first group, a significant relationship existed between expected and actual waiting times only during lunch. the model also showed that a reduction in waiting time during lunch would increase the number of repeat customers. staff service attitude impacted repurchase frequency. food price and food quality did not affect repurchase frequency. this might be because college students were on a limited allowance, campus offered food at a reasonable price, and food quality was not their priority in selecting the place to eat. among participants in the second group, significant relationships existed between repurchase frequency, food price, and seat availability for university’s food outlet participants during dinner. for the off-campus food outlet group, only food price affected repurchase behavior during dinner, whereas waiting satisfaction, seat availability, and food quality affected repurchase behavior during lunch. etemad-sajadi and rizzuto (2013) compared chinese and swiss customers’ perception of meal quality, service quality, price and their influence on satisfaction and loyalty, using mcdonald’s customers and measured with a modification of servqual. data were collected from 52 chinese samples and 66 from swiss samples, for a total of 118. results revealed that the chinese respondents had higher perceptions of mcdonald’s service quality in terms of reliability (ability to perform the promised service dependably and precisely) and tangibility (physical facilities, equipment, and personnel) than their swiss counterparts. chinese respondents perceived mcdonald’s image and product quality as being higher than the perceptions of their swiss counterparts. in general, both groups were satisfied with mcdonald’s, but the cross-cultural image and service quality perception differences meant that chinese respondents were more loyal to this qsr than their swiss counterparts. relationship between customer satisfaction and repeat-purchase intentions many studies in the 1980s until the early 2000s focused on customer satisfaction and factors affecting their satisfaction. competitiveness makes restaurants seek to go beyond achieving customer satisfaction to winning their loyalty. the benefits of having loyal customers are many, including the clients’ strong intention to re-purchase the company’s products/services even though competitors are vigorously vying for their business; they purchase the company’s products/services more often, purchase a variety of items offered, and are less price-sensitive than otherwise. in addition, loyal customers help attract new clients through spreading credible, highly effective wordof mouth (wom) recommendations about the company to their friends or relatives, significantly https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mcdowall, s. & jia, w. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 14-29. 20 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 14-29, doi: 10.18060/25392 copyright © 2021 siriporn mcdowall and weijia jia this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. lowering the qsr’s costs needed to maintain existing customers and create new ones (kotler, et al., 2017). in the restaurant business, friends and relatives are the major source of information people sought out when they wanted to try out a new restaurant (perlik, 2003). reichheld and sasser (1990) found that a small increase of 5% in customer retention resulted in a 25% to 85% increase in profit among nine service companies. since then, the concept has expanded to include the relationship between customer satisfaction and repeat-purchase intentions, especially since repeat purchases are a main source of restaurant profits (gupta, et al., 2007). in restaurants, various factors such as service quality, food quality, and waiting time contribute to customer satisfaction, encouraging patrons to return, make recommendations, and spread positive word-of-mouth about the qsrs (qin & prybutok, 2008; 2009). kivera, et al., (2000) found respondents (regardless of gender) who patronized the restaurant for business or social reasons were more likely to return to the qsr than those who dined there to celebrate an occasion or because the qsr was convenient. female respondents who dined there due to social obligations were most likely to return to a given restaurant, but male respondents who patronized at a given restaurant for business reasons were most likely return. first and last impressions, service and food quality affected intention to return. almost all (98.58%) repeat customers were likely to return to the given restaurant, suggesting the importance of satisfying firsttime patrons to turn them into repeat diners. keshavarz, jamshidi, and bakhtazma (2016) examined relationships between customer expectations about service quality, perceived service quality, customer satisfaction and customer loyalty in restaurants, using 450 respondents. results revealed that customer expectations affected their perceived service quality and loyalty. also, there was a strong relationship between customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. methodology instrumentation a questionnaire was developed as a means to collect data through a three-step process. first, the contents were based on previous studies (i.e., keshavarz et al., 2016; mason et al., 2016; qin & prybutok, 2008; 2009) mentioned in the review of literature. second, students and professors in the hospitality management field were asked to review the content of the questionnaire and it was revised accordingly. third, the questionnaire was pilot tested with 20 college students. then, the content of the questionnaire was revised based on results of the pilot test. population and samples: the population under this study was college students at a small college with less than 10,000 students on the main campus. data were collected from 313 respondents; hence, a convenient sampling method was used. hypotheses the purpose of this study was to investigate factors affect college students’ satisfaction with quick service restaurants and whether those who were satisfied would come back or recommend the restaurant to their friends/relatives. therefore, the following hypotheses were proposed: h1: there is a significant relationship between reliability and dining satisfaction in quick service restaurants among college students. h2: there is a significant relationship between food quality and dining satisfaction in quick service restaurants among college students. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mcdowall, s. & jia, w. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 14-29. 21 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 14-29, doi: 10.18060/25392 copyright © 2021 siriporn mcdowall and weijia jia this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. h3: there is a significant relationship between service quality and dining satisfaction in quick service restaurants among college students. h4: there is a significant relationship between dining satisfaction and customer loyalty (intention to return to quick service restaurants and recommending the restaurant to friends or relatives) among college students. results and discussion demographic profile of respondents as shown in table 1, slightly more than half of the respondents (51.76%) were male. the majority of them were single (84.98%), between 18-24 years of age (94.2%), and they were freshmen and sophomore (63.2%). they went to a restaurant in a small group (mean = 2.56) as 32.9% of them reported of having two people in the group (including themselves), followed by being by themselves (27.2%), and 15.3% were there with three people in a group. they visited qsrs 3.29 times per week on average. taco bell was their most favorite qsr (19.4%), followed by chick-fil-a (14.7%), mcdonald’s (14.1%), wendy’s (8.3%), popeyes (5.1%), and sonic (5.1%). in terms of frequency of visiting the restaurants, slightly more than half of them (53.70%) patronized qsrs 1-3 times a week, followed by 4-6 times a week (34.50%), 7-9 times per week (4.70%), and over ten times per week (1.80%), with an average of 3.29 times per week. table 1. demographic characteristics and profiles of respondents variable n percentage gender male 162 51.76% female 147 46.96% age 18-24 295 94.25% 25-34 11 3.51% 35-44 2 0.64% 45-54 4 1.28% over 65 1 0.32% marital status married 20 6.39% single 266 84.98% academic status freshman 124 39.62% sophomore 74 23.64% junior 54 17.25% senior 51 16.29% graduate 10 3.19% https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mcdowall, s. & jia, w. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 14-29. 22 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 14-29, doi: 10.18060/25392 copyright © 2021 siriporn mcdowall and weijia jia this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. information sources to find out how respondents found out about qsrs, they were asked, “how did you find out about the fast-food restaurant (your last visit)? they could check ‘friend/relative, social media, flyer, tv ad, newspaper ad, coupon, billboard, restaurant sign, drive by, mobile app, and other’. they could check more than one answer. the results in table 2 revealed that friend/relative were the major source of information (37.1%), followed by drive-by (33.2%), restaurant sign (23.3%), tv ad (14.4%), and social media (8.6%). the result of this study emphasizes the important role that friends and relatives play in spreading the word-of-mouth about the restaurants. loyal customers can spread positive word-of-mouth about the restaurants and bring in their friends/relatives to support the business. table 2. number of people accompanying and information sources variable n percentage number of people dining with you 1 85 27.16% 2 103 32.91% 3 48 15.34% >3 77 24.60% source of information friend/relative 116 37.06% drive-by 104 33.23% restaurant sign 73 23.32% tv ad 27 8.63% social media 45 14.38% ranking of customer satisfaction with the dining experience table 3 shows the results of the ranking of respondents’ satisfaction with the dining experience at the last qsrs. respondents ranked billing is accurate, operation hours are convenient, received food as ordered, menu is easy to read and order, and seat availability as their top five attributes for their satisfaction. on the contrary, availability of healthy food, special discounts, coupons, wi-fi availability, cleanliness of dining area, and employees’ appearance were attributes contributed to their least satisfaction. some of these attributes were consistent with the previous research, whereas some are not. this might be because different location, different demographic and different time. the trend of healthy food and technology did not affect their selection of qsrs. this sample represented young college students whose lifestyle was different, and they could have access to the internet through their own telephone company’s network, so wi-fi availability at the qsrs is not their concern. in addition, at that moment, food is their priority. food price at qsrs is already low, compared to other type of restaurants; therefore, there was no need to use special discounts or coupons. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mcdowall, s. & jia, w. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 14-29. 23 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 14-29, doi: 10.18060/25392 copyright © 2021 siriporn mcdowall and weijia jia this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. table 3. ranking of customer satisfaction with products/services provided (students) items ranking mean sd billing is accurate 1 4.59 0.746 operation hours are convenient. 2 4.47 0.858 received food as ordered 3 4.45 0.887 menu is easy to read and order 4 4.32 0.937 seat availability 5 4.31 0.810 location 6 4.31 0.863 prompt service 7 4.27 0.896 portion size of food 8 4.27 0.927 variety of food/beverage 9 4.23 0.926 value 10 4.18 0.909 drive through 11 4.16 1.112 employees’ friendliness and courteous 12 4.12 0.927 employees’ knowledgeable 13 4.08 0.903 appealing of physical facilities 14 4.02 0.864 waiting time in line to order food 15 3.99 1.005 competitive price 16 3.97 0.945 individual attention 17 3.97 1.019 parking availability 18 3.96 1.023 employees’ appearance 19 3.91 0.933 cleanliness of dining area 20 3.84 0.985 wifi available 21 3.79 1.203 special discounts, coupons 22 3.71 1.099 availability of healthy food 23 3.27 1.320 factor analysis table 4 summarizes the results of factor analysis (varimax with kaiser normalization rotation), which was used to delineate the underlying dimensions of respondents’ satisfaction with their restaurant’s last visit. the results from this analysis were used for further analysis in the regression analysis. results revealed that the bartlett’s test of sphericity was statistically significance (ꭓ2 = 2868.88, df = 253, p < 0.000) and the kaiser-meyer-olkin (kmo) value was 0.89, indicating that factor analysis was appropriate for this study. four factors were extracted and only three factors with a minimum of three components were retained. these three factors were labeled as “reliability”, “food quality”, and “service quality” and they explained 53.94% of the total variance. the reliability coefficient alpha (r²) for the entire scale was 0.84, demonstrating that 84% of the variance in “customer satisfaction with the last visit” was explained by the three subscales of dining experience. this means there was a relationship between these three dimensions and their satisfaction with their last visit at the qsrs. the first dimension “reliability” explained 33.31% of the total variance and achieved a coefficient (cronbach alpha) of 0.82. the second dimension “food quality” explained 8.2% of the total variance and achieved a coefficient of 0.78. the third dimension “service quality” explained 5.71% of the total variance and achieved a coefficient of 0.78. factors that affect customer satisfaction results of the present study identified three factors (reliability, food quality, and service https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mcdowall, s. & jia, w. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 14-29. 24 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 14-29, doi: 10.18060/25392 copyright © 2021 siriporn mcdowall and weijia jia this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. quality) affected customer satisfaction when dining at qsrs. the initial purpose of this study was to confirm that each variable specified in the survey would represent those three factors as planned. however, this was not the case. the components of the reliability factor identified in the results of the present study were not consistent with the components specified in the parasuraman’s famous research. however, they were consistent with a definition of reliability. this might be because there was a gap in time between the parasuraman’s study and the present study (30 years gap) and the sample used in this present study (college students with fast food restaurants) is different from parasuraman’s study, which were from service and retailing businesses. some components of the other two factors (food quality and service quality) were also different from previous research mentioned in the literature review. this has created a challenge to group them under the appropriate factor identified from factor analysis. table 4. factor analysis for students with varimax survey items reliability food quality service quality billing is accurate 0.792 received food as ordered 0.790 portion size 0.679 prompt service 0.662 waiting time in line 0.631 value 0.766 food/beverage variety 0.753 competitive price 0.679 location 0.663 wi-fi availability 0.630 convenient of operation hours 0.500 easy to read and order menu 0.470 employees’ knowledge 0.796 employees’ appearance 0.794 cleanliness of dining area 0.752 employees’ friendliness 0.723 healthy food choice availability 0.652 individual attention 0.640 physical facilities appealing 0.611 mean 4.316 4.184 4.184 sd 0.803 0.904 0.904 total variance explained 0.539 eigen value 7.690 1.887 1.314 variance explained (%) 33.312 8.204 5.714 reliability coefficient 0.820 0.780 0.780 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mcdowall, s. & jia, w. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 14-29. 25 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 14-29, doi: 10.18060/25392 copyright © 2021 siriporn mcdowall and weijia jia this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. customer satisfaction and customer loyalty respondents were asked, “how satisfied are you with the last visit at the restaurant?” to measure their satisfaction with their restaurant’s last visit. the frequently distribution analysis shows that 90% of respondents were satisfied with the restaurant’s last visit. a five-point likert scale was also used with this question, with “5” indicating strongly satisfied and “1” indicating strongly dissatisfied. respondents were satisfied with their last visit (mean = 4.43, s.d. = .77). two aspects of customer loyalty were measured: revisit and recommendation to others. respondents were asked, “how likely are you going to visit this restaurant again?” a five-point likert scale was used with this question, with “5” indicating very likely and “1” indicating not likely. they were also asked, “would you recommend this restaurant to your friend/relative?” a five-point likert scale was also used with this question, with “5” indicating strongly recommend and “1” indicating not recommend. very high percentage of them (91%) would likely visit the restaurant again (mean = 4.62, sd = .74), whereas 83% would recommend the restaurant to their friends/relatives (mean = 4.35, sd = .89). hypothesis testing the final step is to examine how three factors from factor analysis influenced customer satisfaction. a separate standard multiple regression analysis was used to assess the impact of a set of predictors (reliability, food quality, and service quality) on a dependent variable (satisfaction). the relationship between each factor (reliability, food quality, and service quality) and satisfaction was investigated using pearson correlation coefficient. the correlation value above 0.3 would be retained in the model, as it indicates there was a relationship between each variable and satisfaction (pallant, 2020). table 5 shows a summary of the stepwise regression analysis. a variable with pvalue below 0.05 would be retained in the model. hypothesis 1 through 5 were tested to determine relationships between the three dimensions of college students’ dining experience and their satisfaction. table 5 summarizes the results of this study. h1: there is a significant relationship between reliability and dining satisfaction in quick service restaurants among college students. results revealed that from five variables in a “reliability” factor, only three variables (received food as ordered, prompt service, and billing is accurate) had a relationship with dining satisfaction. received food as order had a t-value of 2.8 and had a p-value of 0.005. prompt service had a t-value as 2.4 and had a p-value as 0.02, and billing is accurate had a t-value as 2.8 and had a p-value as 0.05. therefore, dining satisfaction is significantly related to reliability such as prompt service, order accuracy, and billing accuracy. h2: there is a significant relationship between food quality and dining satisfaction in quick service restaurants among college students. results revealed that from seven variables in a “food quality” factor, only three variables (menu is easy to read and order, value, and food and beverage variety) had a relationship with dining satisfaction. received food as order had a t-value of 4.5 and had a p-value of 0.00. value had a t-value as 2.9 and had a p-value as 0.00, and food and beverage variety had a t-value as 2.6 and had a p-value as 0.01. therefore, dining satisfaction is significantly related to food quality such as the menu readability, food value, and food and beverage variety. h3: there is a significant relationship between service quality and dining satisfaction in quick service restaurants among college students. results revealed that from seven variables in a “service quality” factor, only two variables (appealing of physical facilities and friendliness of employees) were retained in the model. for a “service quality” factor, only two components (appealing of physical facilities and friendliness of employees) had a relationship with dining https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mcdowall, s. & jia, w. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 14-29. 26 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 14-29, doi: 10.18060/25392 copyright © 2021 siriporn mcdowall and weijia jia this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. satisfaction. appealing of physical facilities had a t-value of 6.6 and had a p-value of 0.00, whereas friendliness of employees had a t-value of 3.3 and had a p-value as 0.00. therefore, dining satisfaction is significantly related to service quality such as facility attractiveness and employee friendliness. table 5. summary of regression analysis indicators se std. β coefficients t-value sig. level (all components listed here are significant at 0.05 or <0.05) factor 1: reliability* received food as ordered 0.060 0.194 2.818 0.005 prompt service 0.056 0.155 2.393 0.017 billing is accurate 0.072 0.380 1.978 0.049 factor 2: food quality** menu is easy to read/order 0.044 0.240 4.512 0.000 value 0.057 0.201 2.993 0.003 food and beverage variety 0.053 0.167 2.641 0.009 factor 3: service quality*** appealing of physical facilities 0.054 0.402 6.612 0.000 friendliness of employees 0.057 0.226 3.316 0.001 *r = 0.488, r² = .238, f = 19.221, significance = 0.000 **r = 0.543, r² = .295, f = 18.111, significance = 0.000 ***r = 0.530, r² = .281, f = 17.063, significance = 0.000 h4: there is a significant relationship between dining satisfaction and customer loyalty (intention to return to quick service restaurants among college students). results revealed that there was a slightly positive relationship between customer satisfaction and intention to return to quick service restaurants among college students (r = 0.606, p-value = 0.00). the reliability coefficient of satisfaction for reliability was 0.72, re-visit was 0.71, and recommend was 0.75, respectively. this shows a reasonable relationship between each item on the scale. therefore, dining satisfaction and customer loyalty are significantly related. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mcdowall, s. & jia, w. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 14-29. 27 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 14-29, doi: 10.18060/25392 copyright © 2021 siriporn mcdowall and weijia jia this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. table 6. summary of customer satisfaction and customer loyalty indicators r std. β coefficients t-value sig. level (all components listed here are significant at 0.05 or < 0.05) visit again 0.606 0.429 8.177 0.000* recommend to friends/relatives 0.555 0.308 5.865 0.000* * significance = 0.000 conclusions, recommendations, and limitations of the study the results revealed that the majority of respondents were males, between 1824 years of age, and they patronized qsrs 3 times a week. friends/relatives were their major source of information, followed by drive-by, and restaurant sign. this study indicated that respondents were satisfied when they received food as ordered, received prompt service, billing is accurate, menu is easy to read and order, value, variety of food and beverage, appealing of physical facilities, and friendliness of employees. the most interesting factor was when the respondents identified “driveby” as the second major source of information in selecting qsrs. this response was consistent with one of the factors (appealing of physical facilities) identified at the service quality which affect their satisfaction. this might be a factor that qsrs need to be aware of and make their facilities neat and clean as they attract customers and contribute to their satisfaction. all of these variables represent major characteristics of qsrs, and they are characteristics that customers expect to receive from qsrs. the results shows that respondents were satisfied with products/services offered at fast food restaurants and they have become loyal customers as they are willing to come back and recommend the restaurant to their friends/relatives. this is not a surprise as evidenced from the growth of fastfood restaurants especially around campus across the u.s. to sustain in a business and make profits in the intensified competition, the restaurant needs to continue to providing quality of service, quality of food and managing the line customers stand in to place an order for their food and receive their food. at the same time, they must pay attention to customers and satisfy them. to stay ahead of a competitor, the restaurants must retain their customers and transform their satisfied customers into loyal customers. loyal customers patronize the restaurant more often, purchase variety of products, are not price-sensitive, are less likely to switch to support the competitor’s business, and they refer the business to their friends and/or relatives. limitations and future study the result of this study is limited to those participants who completed the questionnaire in october 2018 and the result cannot be generalized to the entire college students across the u.s. the majority of the samples in this study were male, a similar survey might be conducted with more females and compared the results. in addition, this study was conducted prior to the covid-19 pandemic; the results of a new study conducted with college students after the pandemic to compare the result with this study, which was conducted prior to the covid-19 pandemic might be helpful. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mcdowall, s. & jia, w. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 14-29. 28 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 14-29, doi: 10.18060/25392 copyright © 2021 siriporn mcdowall and weijia jia this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. references cronin, j. j. & taylor, s. a. (1992). measuring service quality: a reexamination and extension. journal of marketing, 56(3), 55-68. davis, m. m. (1991). how long should a customer wait for service? decision sciences, 22, 421-434. davis, m. m., & vollmann, t. e. (1990). a framework for relating waiting time and customer satisfaction in a service operation. journal of service marketing, 4(1), 61-9. etemad-sajadi, r., & rizzuto, d. (2013). the antecedents of consumer satisfaction and loyalty in fast food industry. a cross-national comparison between chinese and swiss consumers. international journal of quality & reliability management, 30(7), 780-798. gilbert, g. r., veloutsou, c., goode, m.m.h., & moutinho, l. 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(2021) / events and tourism review, 4(1), 14-29. 29 events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 1 (2021), 14-29, doi: 10.18060/25392 copyright © 2021 siriporn mcdowall and weijia jia this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. its implications for future research. journal of marketing, 10(1), 41-50. parasuraman, a., zeithaml, v. a., & berry, l. l. (1988). servqual: a multiple-item scale for measuring consumer perception of service quality. journal of retailing, 64(1), 12-40. perlik, a. (february 15, 2003). high fidelity: exclusive r & i research reveals what draws loyal customers and what drives them away. restaurant & institutions, 113(4), 44-45, 48-50. qin, h., & prybutok, v.r. (2008). determinants of customer-perceived service quality in fast food restaurants and their relationship to customer satisfaction and behavioral intentions. the quality management journal, 15(2), 3550. qin, h., & prybutok, v.r. 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(2017). introduction to hospitality (7thed.). upper saddle river, new jersey: pearson prentice hall. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 28-35, doi: 10.18060/25626 copyright © 2021 cruz garcía lirios this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2021 volume 4 no. 2 image of the destination in knowledge management for the reactivation of the tourism economy in the face of covid-19 cruz garcía lirios national autonomous university of mexico correspondence: bundestrans@icloud.com (c. garcía lirios) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation garcía lirios, c. (2021). image of the destination in knowledge management for the reactivation of the tourism economy in the face of covid-19. events and tourism review, 4(2), 28-35. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:bundestrans@icloud.com http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 28-35, doi: 10.18060/25626 copyright © 2021 cruz garcía lirios this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. garcía lirios, c. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 29 abstract the image of the destination is a central process in the tourism agenda. the establishment of a model or explanatory includes predictive variables the satisfactory experience in terms of transfer, stay and return. in this way, the objective of this work is to demonstrate the axes, trajectories and relationships between the determining variables of the destination image in order to anticipate knowledge management scenarios aimed at reactivating the tourist economy. a correlation work was carried out to with a selection of sources indexed to international repositories, considering the search for keywords in the period of the pandemic. the results show homogeneous random effects that suggest risk thresholds for the decision making of the tourist experience based on its predictors, although these findings correspond to a data tracking and processing system that can be developed according to the prevalence of the literature. keywords: covid-19 image destiny; knowledge management; tourism introduction at the time of writing, the sars-cov-2 coronavirus pandemic and covid-19 disease have infected 3 million, sickened 1.5 million, and killed 700,000. in mexico, 600,000 have been confirmed, 30,000 have become ill and 75,000 have died. faced with this gloomy outlook, the strategies to reactivate the economy focus on tourism for the most visited countries, although the proposals are focused on groups based on their age, income or motivation, new findings suggest approaching the promotion from the type of generation. in this way, a generational segment is determined by values, beliefs, attitudes, motives and intentions of transfer based on the image of the destination. in this sense, the image of the destination has been the explanatory variable of tourism as it is determined by the quality of transport and the time of travel. the image of destiny is an expectation of relaxation, recreation, enjoyment, happiness or satisfaction. therefore, the objective of this work is to establish generational differences with respect to tourism, considering a systematic review of the literature from 2007 to 2020 in order to establish the axes, trajectories and relationships of the research agenda on the matter. the hypothesis that guides this work is that generational differences follow a specific trajectory of demands and expectations that may coincide, but distinguishable by their degree of representation in a scenario of high risk of contagion. this work includes a review of the literature that supports the differences and similarities between generations, as well as a taxonomy of their characteristics, demands and expectations in risk situations. the methodological approach is based on generational asymmetries, as well as the interpretation of the systematic review, discussion and conclusive reflection. theory of generational tourism based on a generational distinction, the present work exposes differences and similarities https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 28-35, doi: 10.18060/25626 copyright © 2021 cruz garcía lirios this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. garcía lirios, c. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 30 between generations regarding the tourism market in mexico (benseny, 2007). it should be noted that in terms of the use of electronic technology, devices and networks, there appear to be distinctions between generations, but in terms of transport and destination decisions, similarities are more likely given that in mexico the infrastructure has not been developed based on potential users and customers (ibáñez, & cabrera, 2011). thus, the discussion focuses on comparing the use intensive marketing related technology to tourism and decisions and behaviors of potential customers or users of tourism services. differences between can be generations observable regarding the use of technologies, devices and electronic networks promoters or broadcasters tourism in mexico, although the similarities would be with respect to transport infrastructure and destinations (see table 1). table 1. differences and similarities generational tourism generation differences similarities under 30 years old use of electronic applications and pages dedicated to tourism based on costs and benefits, as well as the identity of the places or recommendations. planning vacations, visits, excursions, businesses or gatherings, assuming the security of the transfer and the place. between 30 and 60 years use of applications from promotions and exhibition of life experiences, satisfaction and happiness. transfer decisions, looking for new experiences with a low risk in the transfer and the destination. over 60 years use of applications from the diffusion of places in electronic networks that diffuse places and people, services. emotions around transport and destinations, considering high risks in the experiences. source: prepared with the data of the study from these distinctions and similarities, the contributions of generations to market tourism in mexico are: 1) promotion of transport and places based on security levels (high, medium and low); 2) offers of experience consumption, assuming that the transport and the destination maintain minimum levels of security; 3) consumption of transport and destination s to from the degree of satisfaction of experience conceived as a tolerable risk (linares and morales, 2014). however, the analysis can be developed from the use of applications, content, promotions and the experiences of tour operators, considering their generation and in relation to the security levels of tourist preferences. regarding the differences and similarities, trajectories of relationships are revealed between categories that explain the contributions of the generations, although mexico's infrastructure limits the information dimensions and the provisions of prospects given the degree of safety of transport and places of destiny. generational tourism studies this section includes investigations into the preferences and expectations of generations conceptualized in the previous section regarding the type of transfer and the image of the destination. it starts from the premise that tourism reflects the needs and expectations of https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 28-35, doi: 10.18060/25626 copyright © 2021 cruz garcía lirios this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. garcía lirios, c. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 31 generations. consequently, empirical studies will show that such asymmetries are developed in the experience of travel and in the representation of tourism, such as the image, prestige and reputation of the services. the generations in relation to tourism show a prevalence of concomitant variables. these are the cases of the transfer experience, the quality of the service and the image of the destination in its dimensions of prestige and reputation (marinao et al., 2015). in this conglomerate, the guiding principle is the governance of tourism services since it raises the co-management mandates between the parties involved public and private sectors, political and social actors. the administration of tourist services is more feasible in those under 30 years of age due to their expectations of transfer and destination (cohen et al., 2014). this is the case of hotel services that attract teenagers and young people due to their low costs. in the case of services aimed at potential clients between the ages of 30 and 60, it is possible to observe that the relationships between the variables of destination image, prestige of the accommodation and reputation of the services explain the preferences for cultural or religious destinations based on of the availability of rooms, as well as the access and the experience of the place (jia et al., 2016). even the attachment to sanctuaries and loyalty as the appropriation of the spaces is determined by the quality of the tourist advice. regarding tourists over 60 years of age, their generation has been associated with a postmaterialist profile, although it differs from the values of young people under 30 in that the former follow recommended destinations and the latter routes documented on the internet (pyke et al., 2016). although postmaterialism enhances the image more than the prestige and reputation of the destination, the difference is more observable in the quality of the transport service. those over 60 choose routes more adjusted to international standards. while young people have a propensity for risk. in summary, the variables of service quality, image, prestige and reputation of the destination are moderated by variables of risk aversion (routes, destinations and safe services) in older adults versus risk propensity in young people (routes, destinations and makeshift services). in the case of generations between 30 and 60, aversion and risk propensity are indistinct. generational tourism modeling in this section the axes, trajectories and relationships between the variables reviewed in the theoretical, conceptual and empirical frameworks are exposed. hypotheses are offered around explanatory sequences of the differences between the generations, as well as the relevance of building public policies aimed at generational tourism. religious postmaterialism. it refers to the users and potential transport clients with advantages of safety, comfort and recreation of the satisfactory experience, although the competitive advantage of this tourist service lies in the happiness attributed to the reputation and prestige of the destination (nouri et al., 2018). these are events or emblematic places in which the transfer represents an annex to the ceremonial temple, a templar building or an ancestral ritual. once installed in the destinations, tourists seek a sense of community and identity with the environment in order to be able to represent what was happening in those places. this is the case of those who plan a guided tour or will request logistics to decide between several similar options. therefore, the optimization of resources will be the hallmark of this style of travel and tourism experience. therefore, risk aversion is its most characteristic feature. ecological postmaterialism. by virtue of the favorable provisions for mountain tourism or https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 28-35, doi: 10.18060/25626 copyright © 2021 cruz garcía lirios this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. garcía lirios, c. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 32 ecotourism focus their attention on the discovery of satisfactory experiences in the unveiling of experiences of rupture, crossing, stay and return, this service is distinguished by its capacity for innovation. it is a social construction of nature in which postmaterialism is included (bora et al., 2020). it is distinguished by its degree of hedonism (pleasant experience), but also of eudaimonism (identity) with the environment. both types of happiness, hedonic and propensities eudaimonic suppose the risk (schwartz & chih, 2012). method design. a documentary, retrospective and meta-analytic work was carried out with a nonprobabilistic selection of sources indexed to international repositories such as academia, dialnet, copernicus, ebsco, latindex, redalyc, scielo, scopus, wos, zenodo and zotero, considering the period from 2007 to 2021, as well as keyword search; “tourism”, “postmaterialism”, “aversion or risk propensity”, “hedonia” and “eudaumonia” (see table 2). table 2. description of the sample year author relationship criterion 2012 schwartz and chih hedonism  risk perception formative 2014 cohen, prayad and moital consumption  hedonism formative 2015. marinao, chasco and valencia hedonism ➔ satisfaction reflective 2016 pike et al., well-being ➔ consumption reflective 2016 jia, jia and hsee hedonism  risk perception formative 2018 nouri et al., destination image  risk perception formative 2020 bora, caliskan and sabbag hedonism  risk perception formative source: prepared with the data of the study; criterion:  formative, ➔ reflective instrument. the inventory of systematic reviews (irs) was used, which includes the qualification of abstracts, considering the relationship parameters between the determining variables of the target image or its indicator. process. the delphi technique was implemented in three phases for filling out the irs; 1) qualifying phase assigning a positive number to values between 0.30 and 0.80 as well as negative to any value outside that threshold; 2) comparative phase where the preliminary results are delivered to the judges so that they can compare their qualifications with those of their peers and, if necessary, reconsider the qualification; 3) consensual phase where the judges come to establish agreements and co-responsibilities around the proximity or remoteness of the findings with respect to the subject . analysis. the data were processed in the mix-2 package for systematic reviews, considering a) homogeneous random effects hypothesis contrast parameters, b) hypothesis test statistics of significant differences between individual effects and block effects, c) threshold values and percentage of effects attributed to chance. results https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 28-35, doi: 10.18060/25626 copyright © 2021 cruz garcía lirios this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. garcía lirios, c. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 33 table 3 shows the results of the retrospective meta-analytic review. the q parameter suggests the non-rejection of the null hypothesis regarding the significant differences between the random effects per finding with respect to the block effects. the h statistic shows the confidence interval that establishes an allowable threshold of risk for the values of homogeneity attributable to randomness, or bi in, the degree of heterogeneity attributable to chance. table 3. meta-analytic descriptions parameter tea icic + gl p q 3,490 2,232 0.000 h 0.323 0.130 0.434 i 2 1.12 1 % 1 11 0% 4.231% t 2 0.322 0.112 0.329 source: prepared with the data of the study; te = effect size, ci = confidence interval, gl = degrees of freedom, p = level of significance; parameters: q = square of the differences between the sizes of the individual effects with respect to the effects of block size; i2 = percentage degree of heterogeneity attributed to random effects; t = degree of standard deviation of the effects observed in the analyzed literature, t2 = degree of variance of the effects observed in the analyzed literature. regarding the variance and standard deviation, these are at an allowable risk threshold, which suggests the decision to consider the homogeneous random effects reported in the literature. that is, the relationship between the image of the destination with respect to its determinants reported in the literature obeys a meta-analytic process. discussion the contribution of the present study to the state of the question lies in the systematic, retrospective and meta-analytic review of the homogeneous random effects. that is to say, the generational variables (hedonism and risk perception) when influencing the image of the destination have been observed homogeneously in the selected sample. it then means that the construction of tourism policies can be based on the literature consulted. in that sense, hedonism and risk perception consistently explain from 2007 to 2021 in the image of the destination. the literature consulted reports that both variables, hedonism and risk, are determinants of the image of the destination. in other words, the expectations of satisfaction with high costs determine the expectations of the stay. it also suggests that the lower generation of 30 is distinguished by its propensity to risk and satisfactory search experiences or pl maples hedonists. in the case of those over 60 years of age, aversion to risk and identity to the place (eudainism) explain the image of destiny. both generations, from the post-material approach, exemplify two styles of search for satisfying experiences, happiness in the move and the stay. in the present work, the hypothesis that the hedonistic and risky variables randomly affect the image of the tourist destination has been corroborated. such a finding will allow the construction of studies on deconfinement and tourism, justifying the promotion of destinations based on their image and their hedonistic and risky determinants. lines related to the systematization of findings around the postmaterialist model will open the discussion to the differences between generations. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 28-35, doi: 10.18060/25626 copyright © 2021 cruz garcía lirios this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. garcía lirios, c. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 34 conclusion the objective of the present work was to review systematically and retrospectively the relationships between generational variables (hedonism and risk) with respect to the image of the destination, as well as the contrast of the hypothesis of significant differences between the individual parameters with respect to the block observations of the findings. the results show that public policies for deconfinement, reactivation of the economy and promotion of tourism can be based on the consistency of generational variables (hedonism and risk) with respect to the image of the destination. the prospective review studies based on the artificial simulation of the retrospective findings to turn into lines of research based on the proposed taxonomy of generations. the relevance of this study lies in the construction of a tourism agenda based on empirical evidence that is consistently consistent in the observed period. in addition, the design of public policies related to the promotion of tourist destinations based on hedonism and risk will make it possible to target generations and satisfactory experiences of tourists. in order to anticipate scenarios demand, studies should consider other variables that the literature identifies as concomitant variables for sociodemographic, socioeconomic and socio-educational. references benseny, g. 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(2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 35 schwartz, z. and chih, c. (2012). hedonic motivation and effectiveness of risk perceptions oriented revenue management policies. journal of hospitality & tourism research, 36 (2), 232-250 https://doi.org/10.1177/1096348011413589 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=es&prev=_t&sl=es&tl=en&u=https://doi.org/10.1177%252f1096348011413589 events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 68-75, doi: 10.18060/23259 copyright © 2019 nripendra singh and kristen kealey. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribuion 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2019 volume 2 no. 2 understanding millennials’ motivations to visit state parks: an exploratory study nripendra singh clarion university of pennsylvania kristen kealey clarion university of pennsylvania for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation singh, n., & kealey, k. (2019). understanding millennials’ motivations to visit state parks: an exploratory study. events and tourism review, 2(2), 68-75. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr singh, n., & kealey, k. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 68-75. 69 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 68-75, doi: 10.18060/23259 copyright © 2019 nripendra singh and kristen kealey. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract state park’s scenic stretches of flowing rivers and large lakes are popular for canoeing, kayaking, and tubing, but how much of these interests’ millennials are not much explored. this exploratory study aims to understand millennials’ motivations to visit state parks and the influence of social media pictures of such outdoor activities. the push-pull theory is being used to understand the motivational factors such as sightseeing, relaxation, and amenities using secondary data. preliminary results suggest a big gap in state parks’ information reaching millennials’ via social media. the study is unique as it focuses on millennials’ motivations to visit state parks, which is not much studied. keywords: state park, millennials, millennials motivation, outdoor attractions, social media introduction in recent years, there has been a worldwide decline in national park visitation. the recent data on annual visitation by national park services (n.d.) provide evidence of the declining numbers of visitors in state parks. whether it is based on the different categories of visitors or types of state parks, there is negative growth in every category as compared to the previous year, see table 1. table 1. comparison of visitors by category of visitors 2017 to 2018 2018 2017 difference % difference recreation visits 318,211,833 330,882,751 -12,670,918 -3.98 recreation visitor hours 1,401,420,191 1,446,970,688 -45,550,497 -3.25 non-recreation visits 170,330,751 172,112,736 -1,781,985 -1.05 non-recreation visitor hours 92,456,496 94,678,396 -2,221,900 -2.40 concessioner lodging overnights 3,106,897 3,437,279 -330,382 -10.63 concessioner camping overnights 1,354,739 1,447,861 -93,122 -6.87 tent camper overnights 3,539,141 3,734,119 -194,978 -5.51 recreation vehicle (rv) overnights 2,474,784 2,460,834 13,950 0.56 backcountry overnights 1,922,028 2,074,773 -152,745 -7.95 miscellaneous overnights (groups and aboard boats) 1,518,566 1,610,127 -91,561 -6.03 non-recreation overnights 34,612 38,752 -4,140 -11.96 total overnight stays 13,950,759 14,803,755 -852,996 -6.11 source: adapted from annual visitation summary report of national park services https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n., & kealey, k. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 68-75. 70 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 68-75, doi: 10.18060/23259 copyright © 2019 nripendra singh and kristen kealey. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. with an aging population and constantly increasing demand on the natural environment, the need to engage a technology-driven, young generation in conservation and nature is more important than before (ramsay, dodds, furtado, mykhayletska, kirichenko, & majedian, 2017). by encouraging younger people to connect with nature and learn about the environment, it is expected that state parks will see a spike in the number of visitors. millennials have entered or are in the process of entering into the workforce and are incredibly technologically savvy. these two factors position this demographic to influence economic and tourist-related trends. an understanding of their motivations will help better planning by the state parks. millennials have grown up in a technology-driven era, which has resulted in this generation highly dependent on it (moscardo, murphy, & benckendorff, 2011). today, the use of social media is so common that the internet has become a platform for users to share information with others (li & wang, 2011; thevenot, 2007). the increasing popularity of social media allows users to share blogs, photos, videos, and reviews with other users, which influences those user’s decision making (gretzel, 2006; white & white, 2007). thus, it is intuitively assumed that millennial’s decision-making can be influenced by making better use of social media marketing strategies such as appropriate platforms and images on social media (ramsay et al., 2017). the annual visitation data from national park services (n.d.) suggest that except for international historic sites, all the other 17 types of state parks have negative growth in the number of visitors to the parks, see table 2. just one example from pennsylvania, allegheny portage railroad national historic site, suggests that the traffic count has drastically reduced from the previous year, see table 3 (national park services, n.d.). established in 1927, cook forest state park is an 8,500-acre pennsylvania state park in clarion, forest and jefferson counties and has been identified as a national natural landmark with its stands of old-growth forest. a scenic 13-mile stretch of the clarion river flows through cook forest state park and is popular for canoeing, kayaking, and tubing. cook forest also offers recreational activities such as hiking, biking, camping, horseback riding, and several more in addition to those stated. for the 2017 year, the pennsylvania department of conservation and natural resources (dncr) estimated that around 492,460 tourists visited cook forest, which shows its economic impact on the region (pennsylvania dncr). cook forest has more than six colleges and universities within two hours of travel time by road. because of this proximity with universities in pennsylvania, this study utilizes student populations as surrogates for millennials. thus, the purpose of this study is to understand the motivations and influences of millennials to visit state parks (e.g., cook forest). literature review social media marketing is a form of internet marketing that utilizes social networking websites as a marketing tool (punithavathi & vasudevan, 2018). social media is reshaping how tourists find their next place to visit. social media has changed tourism in a way that marketers and the destination itself no longer have control over how people view the destinations (hays, page, & buhalis, 2013). studies have been conducted to investigate the extent to which social media appear in search engine results in the context of travel-related searches. social media constitute a substantial part of the search results, search engines direct travelers to social media https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n., & kealey, k. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 68-75. 71 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 68-75, doi: 10.18060/23259 copyright © 2019 nripendra singh and kristen kealey. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. sites (xiang, & gretzel, 2010). the role and use of social media play a huge part in decisionmaking when an individual chooses a destination of travel (leung, law, van hoof, & buhalis, 2013). table 2. comparison of visitors by type of parks 2017 to 2018 2018 2017 difference % difference international historic site 12,001 11,872 129 1.07 national battlefield 1,857,039 1,964,826 -107,787 -5.80 national battlefield park 3,531,060 3,662,129 -131,069 -3.71 national historic site 8,664,509 9,668,115 -1,003,606 -11.58 national historical park 33,161,620 35,241,069 -2,079,449 -6.27 national lakeshore 2,711,828 2,662,737 49,091 1.81 national memorial 38,111,959 40,645,496 -2,533,537 -6.65 national military park 4,347,012 4,698,928 -351,916 -8.10 national monument 22,180,695 23,332,194 -1,151,499 -5.19 national park 85,878,500 87,610,269 -1,731,769 -2.02 national parkway 29,846,041 31,415,912 -1,569,871 -5.26 national preserve 3,427,318 3,446,867 -19,549 -0.57 national recreation area 51,022,484 52,107,818 -1,085,334 -2.13 national reserve 142,250 130,276 11,974 8.42 national river 4,915,331 5,003,218 -87,887 -1.79 national seashore 18,325,744 18,472,367 -146,623 -0.80 national wild & scenic river 1,385,082 1,473,844 -88,762 -6.41 park (other) 8,691,360 9,334,814 -643,454 -7.40 source: adapted from annual visitation summary report of national park services table 3. traffic count: allegheny portage railroad national historic site (june) 2018 2017 difference % difference at dry run road trailhead 2,409 2,677 -268 -11.12 at main entrance 1,866 2,489 -623 -33.39 at picnic area 2,317 2,666 -349 -15.06 at staple bend tunnel 1,748 2,138 -390 -22.31 source: adapted from annual visitation summary report of national park services the overall image tourists and residents have of a destination can greatly influence how these individuals experience the destination, and whether they are inclined to return or recommend the destination to others. the overall impression is a key factor in visitors’ decisionmaking, but other environmental factors, such as scenery, climate, and friendliness of locals, are https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n., & kealey, k. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 68-75. 72 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 68-75, doi: 10.18060/23259 copyright © 2019 nripendra singh and kristen kealey. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. also salient when determining destination image and rate of return (stylidis, shani, & belhassen, 2017). adventure and excitement were found to be strongly correlated to visitors returning to a destination. cleanliness, safety, and hospitality were also strong factors when visitors considered returning to a location (akin, shaw, & spartz, 2015). experiential marketing is becoming a new trend. attractions such as kayaking, hiking, biking, and camping are popular among millennials if marketed appropriately (henry, 2016). for the tourism industry, it is important to convey and communicate the identity of a place using the tourist destination website. according to perez and del bosque (2014), identity can be conveyed through visual manifestation. thus, similarly, a tourist destination website is influenced by the identity of the place. this link between identity and website is potentially useful for marketers as it can represent a dimension of difference that is impossible for competitors to duplicate (foroudi, nazl, ageeva, foroudi, dennis, & melewar, 2018). through websites such as flickr, users can share pictures of a destination visited, and while sharing the photos, flicker users have the ability to add a geotag to the pictures. a geotag will allow other users to not only see the pictures that are uploaded but also see the exact location of those pictures. these technological features help users to visit specific destinations (wood, guerry, silver, & lacayo, 2013). research has shown that repeat visitors to a location are more likely to return than first-time visitors, therefore repeat visitors use social media and travel websites to share and promote their experiences and make recommendations (akin, shaw, & spartz, 2015). in a study, kesterson (2013) found that university students in the millennial age range in arkansas were “highly likely to visit” state parks. in total, the results showed that out of 424 students surveyed, 320 were likely or highly likely to visit a state park in arkansas. these findings suggest that millennials travel to state parks can be used to fulfill the need for adventure without being tied to history. millennials are defined broadly as being tech-savvy and using technology when making travel plans and ideas. marketing to this demographic using such a medium may be a way to overcome barriers and attract this key tourist segment who in turn may help increase environmental protection (ramsay et al., 2017). nikjoo and ketabi (2015) found that tourists who identify their vacation as an “escape” tend to travel to places with a more relaxing and comfortable atmosphere. other push factors (factors that create customer demand) influence include destinations with recreational and cultural opportunities for knowledge and the perceived social status of the individual (nikjoo & ketabi, 2015). thus, this study proposes to answer two broad research questions: 1. what are the motivations for millennials to visit state parks? 2. what influences millennial’s decision to visit state parks? methodology this exploratory study utilized a descriptive research design to understand and describe millennial's behavior and influences towards outdoor activities. a survey consisting of 21 questions was adapted from literature (kesterson, 2013). images on outdoor activities were shown to the respondents in some questions. respondents showed their interest in the outdoor activities portrayed in the images/picture on a five-point likert scale. this survey was developed https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n., & kealey, k. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 68-75. 73 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 68-75, doi: 10.18060/23259 copyright © 2019 nripendra singh and kristen kealey. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. using qualtric's trial account and was disseminated by posting the link on facebook pages of the authors and their colleagues to reach prospective participants. the goal of spreading the survey in this manner was to reach as many students as possible, and gain at least 100 usable responses for pilot testing. one hundred and three (103) people took the survey within a month. multiple regression was used to analyze the data. data analysis twenty (20) responses were disregarded from data analysis. thirteen (13) responses were eliminated because respondents gave their grade level as “other,” indicating that these respondents were probably not within the demographic group the authors aimed to study. four responses were eliminated because the data were incomplete and could not be fully analyzed. three responses were eliminated because the respondents indicated that they have never visited cook forest. these responses could not be included because their input would not give a clear image of the motivations of millennials to visit the specific location in the study. multiple regression and correlation matrix were used to analyze the remaining data. results and discussion results were compiled to assess the effects of each variable on key areas affecting millennials’ motivation and influences to visit cook forest. one of the key findings suggests that there is a big gap in state parks information reaching the millennials’ even though they use social media (less than 15%). the results from the pilot study show that most millennials’ despite being close to a state park, did not even visit it, which showed that respondents were least interested in outdoor activities in state parks (less than 30%). most of them did not show a positive response towards images showing state park and outdoor events. due to the above reasons, limited results from the pilot study are discussed below. table 4. regression influence of social media posts & revisit intention coefficients standard error t-stat p-value lower 95% upper 95% intercept 2.92 0.45 6.47 6.89e 2.02 3.81 sm-3 0.32 0.2 1.62 0.1 -0.07 0.7 for example, see the regression analysis results in table 4, with the variable influence of social media posts and revisit intention, as the test variable. this regression resulted in a pvalue of 0.161, which is not statistically significant; it did result in a positive coefficient of 0.315. the result does not support the assumption that increased and more focused use of social media would likely positively influence tourism to cook forest. another finding suggests that a high number of respondents reported instagram as their most used social media platform (72%). responsiveness of individuals to posts such as the number of interactions or likelihood of sharing a post with others could be analyzed to determine which forms of social media are the https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ singh, n., & kealey, k. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 68-75. 74 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 68-75, doi: 10.18060/23259 copyright © 2019 nripendra singh and kristen kealey. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. best for influencing tourists by tourist destinations. the regression from the pilot data does not support the assumption that increasing the social media presence of state parks, would help generate more tourism among millennials, this could be due to the lack of the appropriate number of sample size. conclusion and implications the pilot study results will inform a larger study to be conducted at a later date. this pilot study revealed a big gap in state parks information reaching millennials’ even with social media. though the findings need to be validated through further study, the current findings suggest that state parks need to develop a better social media marketing strategy to attract millennials. platforms such as instagram is more popular among millennials than facebook. this study has huge implications on the government exchequer as revenue earned from state parks is direct earnings for states. the current status of visitors is in decline, which can be improved by utilizing social media and influencing the young generation such as millennials. limitations to be considered when assessing these results are fourfold. first, data collection was limited to students as this was a pilot study. second, not all students were willing to participate in a survey that they knew little about, which shows cook forest needs to increase awareness among millennials in their local community. third, due to the use of qualtric’s trial account, not all features were available to be used in this survey, including the inability to access more than 100 responses. fourth, there were time and resource constraints to design the questionnaire and collect data as it was a class project. further research could be done to find out the responsiveness of tourists between various forms of social media, frequency, and types of recreational/vacation-based activities that millennials prefer to engage in. references adel h. nikjoo & mahmoud ketabi (2015) the role of push and pull factors in the way tourists choose their destination, anatolia, 26:4, 588-597, doi: 10.1080/13032917.2015.1041145 akin, h., shaw, b. r., & spartz, j. t. 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(2013). social media as a destination marketing tool: its use by national tourism organisations, current issues in tourism, 16(3), 211-239. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.1080/13032917.2015.1041145 https://doi.org/10.1080/13032917.2015.1041145 https://doi.org/10.1080/13032917.2015.1041145 https://joe.org/joe/2015april/a6.php singh, n., & kealey, k. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(2), 68-75. 75 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 2 (fall 2019), 68-75, doi: 10.18060/23259 copyright © 2019 nripendra singh and kristen kealey. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. henry, j. (2016). outlook on the attractions industry. travel and tourism research association: advancing tourism research globally. 20. retrieved from: https://scholarworks.umass.edu/ttra/2013marketing/presentations/20 kaplan, a. m. & haenlein, m. 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(2018). social media marketing. international journal of commerce and management research, 4(1) 40-43. ramsay, g., dodds, r., furtado, d., mykhayletska, y., kirichenko, a., & majedian, m. (2017). the barriers to millennials visiting rouge urban national park. sustainability, 9(6), 904. stylidis, d., shani, a., & belhassen, y. (2017). testing an integrated destination image model across residents and tourists. tourism management, 58, 184-195. thevenot, g. (2007). blogging as a social media. tourism and hospitality research, 7(3/4), 282289. white, n., & white, p. (2007). home and away: tourists in a connected world. annals of tourism research, 34(1), 88-104. wood, s. a., guerry, a. d., silver, j. m., & lacayo, m. (2013, october 17). using social media to quantify nature-based tourism and recreation. science reports, 3, 2976. xiang, z., & gretzel, u. (2010). role of social media in online travel information search. tourism management, 31, 179-188. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://scholarworks.umass.edu/ttra/2013marketing/presentations/20 https://irma.nps.gov/stats/ssrsreports/national%20reports/annual%20visitation%20summary%20report%20(1979%20-%20last%20calendar%20year) https://irma.nps.gov/stats/ssrsreports/national%20reports/annual%20visitation%20summary%20report%20(1979%20-%20last%20calendar%20year) https://www.dcnr.pa.gov/stateparks/findapark/cookforeststatepark/pages/default.aspx events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 21-29, doi: 10.18060/22958 copyright © 2019 kai-sean lee, denise blum, li miao, & stacy r. tomas. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribuion 4.0 international license. events and tourism review volume 2 no. 1 the duality of a pastry chef’s creative process kai-sean lee oklahoma state university denise blum oklahoma state university li miao oklahoma state university stacy r. tomas oklahoma state university for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation lee, k., blum, d., miao, l., & tomas, s. r. (2019). the duality of a pastry chef’s creative process. events and tourism review, 2(1), 21-29. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr lee et al., (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 21-29. 22 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 21-29, doi: 10.18060/22958 copyright © 2019 kai-sean lee, denise blum, li miao, & stacy r. tomas. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract this study focuses on elite malaysian pastry chefs who have participated in the world pastry cup. it poses the question, “how do world pastry cup chefs experience the creative process?” specifically, this study explored the rhetoric (identity formation) of pastry chefs during the creative process. findings show that pastry chefs bounce between two distinct rhetorics during the creative process, ‘the scientist’ and ‘the artist.’ this identity interchange is presented as a ‘duality,’ as one’s way of being revolves around detailed experimentations and rationalism (the scientist), whilst the other around poetry and artistic intent (the artist). keywords: culinary creativity; rhetorics; identity formation; creative process; portraiture; qualitative research introduction chefs, their creative demeanors as well as capacities, have increasingly become the center of attention in hospitality studies. this is no surprise, as the ability and freedom to create is described as the pinnacle of a chef’s work, connecting them to the highest prestige of the profession (robinson, solnet, & breakey, 2014; tongchaiprasit & ariyabuddhiphongs, 2016). as a result, many scholars propose ‘creativity’ as the key solution to retain chefs in their current workplace and profession (ariza-montes, arjona-fuentes, han, & law, 2018; robinson et al., 2014). however, the underlying questions of ‘how creativity is manifested’ or ‘what creativity means to a chef’ remain unresolved. focusing on the elite malaysian pastry chefs who have participated in the world pastry cup, this study examines the creative process by posing the question, “how do world pastry cup chefs experience the creative process?” drawing from the theoretical framework of the sociology of occupations, this study considers the rhetoric of the creative process in the world pastry cup as well as the identity formation of themselves as both scientists and artists. theoretical framework this study utilizes fine’s (1996) occupational rhetorics as its theoretical lens. fine (1996, p. 91) defines occupational rhetoric as “the process of fitting work into a meaning system,” whereby a line of work can be related to multiple occupational rhetorics. in other words, occupational rhetorics are idealized images of an individual’s perception of work (carollo & guerci, 2017), representing different “repertoires of meanings” or “bundles of images” that helps create a ‘set of images that connects one to an unambiguous work world’ (p. 91). fine (1996) identified that chefs in the full-service restaurant setting construct meaning through four key occupational rhetorics – businessman, professional, manual laborer, and artist. the businessman’s rhetoric informs a chef to be ‘bottom-line conscious’ and profit-oriented for the fiscal health of the establishment. the professional rhetoric sheds light onto the technicalities exclusive to the chef profession, linking chefs to perceive a sense of professionalism and expertise in their line of work. the manual laborer highlights the mundanity and repetitiveness of https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ lee et al., (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 21-29. 23 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 21-29, doi: 10.18060/22958 copyright © 2019 kai-sean lee, denise blum, li miao, & stacy r. tomas. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. daily kitchen work. lastly, the artist ties chefs to the pinnacle of the profession, making them feel like performers of arts. building on this, we undertook an empirical investigation to uncover the rhetorics of how malaysian world pastry cup chefs represent themselves during the creative process. methodology portraiture this study adopts portraiture as its methodology, which is a qualitative methodology that draws on features of narrative inquiry, phenomenology, and ethnography, with the outcome resembling an evocatively and artistically written ‘portrait’ of a phenomenon, rich in empiricism (hackmann, 2002; lawrence-lightfoot, 2016). portraiture is phenomenological in that it is concerned with describing the lived experience. in the art and science of portraiture, authors and researchers, lawrence-lightfoot and davis (1997), map portraiture methodology on to the broader terrain of qualitative research that blends artistic expression with scientific rigor, forming an aesthetic whole. lawrence-lightfoot and davis (1997, p. xv) explain: portraiture is a method of qualitative research that blurs the boundaries of aesthetics and empiricism in an effort to capture the complexity, dynamics, and subtlety of human experience and organizational life. portraitists seek to record and interpret the perspectives and experience of the people they are studying, documenting their voices and their visions—their authority, knowledge, and wisdom. the drawing of the portrait is placed in social and cultural context and shaped through dialogue between the portraitist and the subject, each one negotiating the discourse and shaping the evolving image. using portraiture, this study focuses on the creative processes of elite malaysian pastry chefs who participated in the world pastry cup. the following sections describe the sampling, as well as data collection and analysis procedures. data collection and sampling the primary investigator is malaysian and has apprenticed with some of the malaysian world pastry cup participants. thus, his positionality afforded an entrée to an exclusive context. with the chefs he knew well, he employed the “snowball” recruiting method (patton, 2012) to arrive at a census of sixteen malaysian world pastry cup participants. these chefs were selected specifically because the world pastry cup is one of the most prestigious international competitions dedicated to pastry in the culinary profession (coupe du monde pâtisserie, 2016, p. 9). moreover, the malaysian pastry team is a group of exceptional pastry chefs, having won the world pastry cup championship in 2019, while also coming close to the podium in 2015, taking home third runner-up. they have also won several titles in the competition, such as ‘best chocolate creation’ in 2015, and were crowned the champions of asia during the asian pastry cup qualifiers in both 2014 and 2018. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ lee et al., (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 21-29. 24 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 21-29, doi: 10.18060/22958 copyright © 2019 kai-sean lee, denise blum, li miao, & stacy r. tomas. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. four chefs declined the research invitation. three chefs passed away, resulting in a total of nine available research participants. each participant was approached during the period of december 2017 to january 2018 in person, with followed-up interviews via video calls, text messages, and emails that persisted until may 2018. face-to-face in-depth interviews were conducted, ranging from one to four hours. in addition, each chef offered several material artifacts, such as sketchbooks and preliminary renditions of their ideas and creations, as well as various documented pictures during their creative process. each material artifact was photographed and or digitally collected back for further analysis. the researchers selected this exceptional elite group of competitive pastry chefs for several reasons: (1) to investigate “the extraordinary,” as a purposive sampling method of ‘outliers’ and ‘extraordinaires,’ uncovering the essences of creativity from an exclusive perspective (stierand & dörfler, 2012); (2) to consider the creative processes of those who are able to compete at an international level, providing information to those pastry chefs who aspire to participate in the world pastry cup and other pâtisserie competitions; (3) to take advantage of an entrée that the primary investigator had to an exclusive group to which few researchers have access and (4) to document the experiences of a group that has not been researched; thus, little is known about the creative processes of competitive pastry chefs at the international level. data analysis harry wolcott (1999, p. 19) reminds researchers to recognize that the human element is present, adding that researchers should “regard ourselves as humans who conduct our research among rather than on them.” portraiture, in this way, stands out in qualitative research in requiring that the researcher’s biases and experiences not only be acknowledged, but that it is understood, and in essence, form the lens through which the researcher processes and analyzes the data. therefore, “the investigator’s voice purposely is woven into the document, called a ‘portrait,’ which is created as a result of the researcher’s interactions with the actors in the research setting” (hackmann, 2002, p. 52). the artistic techniques in portraiture allow for interpretive insight, analytic scrutiny, and aesthetic order in the collection of data and analysis (lawrence-lightfoot & davis, 1997). lawrence-lightfoot and davis (1997) call portraiture “an iterative and a generative process; the themes emerge from the data, and they give the data shape and form” (p. 185). in this way, we took note of resonant metaphors, poetic and symbolic expressions that revealed the ways the chefs illuminated and experienced their realities. triangulation was used to weave together the threads of data converging from a variety of sources—sketchbooks, photographs of creations, and one-on-one interviews. and finally, we constructed themes and revealed patterns among chefs’ perspectives that are often experienced as contrasting and dissonant. lawrence-lightfoot and davis (1997) call this process “weaving a tapestry,” in which the portraitist “weaves” noteworthy incidents, conceptions, themes, structures, narratives, and details into a cohesive portrait (p. 247). all in all, portraiture consists of combining disciplined, empirical processes of description, interpretation, analysis, and synthesis with the aesthetic process of narrative development (lawrence-lightfoot & davis, 1997). in the following chapter, we portray one sample theme—the duality of a chef’s creative identity—with two distinct creative stories (critical incidents): illumination and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ lee et al., (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 21-29. 25 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 21-29, doi: 10.18060/22958 copyright © 2019 kai-sean lee, denise blum, li miao, & stacy r. tomas. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. pandora’s box. each story was further explicated with pictures of the creative process, alongside different viewpoints, statements, and ideologies of creativity from other participants. lincoln and guba (1985) term these measures as essential procedures to enhance qualitative research trustworthiness through triangulation, as we took on different perspectives, data categories, and cross-references to portray a report that is diverse in perspective yet deliberate to the central theme. findings: the duality of a chef’s creative identity findings show that our sample of pastry chefs blend two distinct rhetorics during the creative process: the artist and the scientist. in one of our respondent’s own words, “one cannot live without another.” we present this identity interchange as a ‘duality,’ simply because both rhetorics reflect highly contrasting views, in which one’s way of being revolves around detailed experimentations and rationalism (the scientist), whilst the other around poetry and artistic intent (the artist). in the following two subsections, we showcase two sample resonant creative stories that explain this duality. the scientist one of the most resonant stories that showcases the scientist’s rhetoric is ‘illumination,’ an ice-cream cake remains deeply rooted in the creator’s mind, requiring the utmost attention to various “sensitive variables.” the chef explains: an ice-cream cake is more than just ice cream… it’s a combination of frozen components layered together artistically. you need to understand and calculate the sweetness and texture… that is why i always put my ice-cream layer on the outside, followed by sorbet, and lastly parfait at the core. because the parfait defrosts faster… it’s all about playing with the sensitive variables of time, texture, and temperature. illumination exemplifies how a pastry chef needs to be wary of both “chemical reactions” in production and also “senses management in consumption.” it goes beyond flavor combinations, but more to the understanding of time, texture, and temperature. figure 1. shows the different snapshots of illumination, a product developed for the 2015 world pastry cup. going through more than fifty practice trials, the cake represents one of the most intrinsically rewarding desserts the creator has ever made. from the development of flavor using malaysian ingredients, to the candlelight designs inspired by lumière from beauty and the beast, illumination represents a creation that stems deeply in his mind, reminding him of great difficulty that requires his utmost attention to “all possible sensitive variables.” https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ lee et al., (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 21-29. 26 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 21-29, doi: 10.18060/22958 copyright © 2019 kai-sean lee, denise blum, li miao, & stacy r. tomas. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. figure 1. illumination: coconut streusel base, vanilla and kalamansi lime parfait, mango yuzu sorbet, strawberry confit, and coconut ice-cream (world pastry cup, january 2015) in addition, to the story of illumination, each pastry chef from this study strongly differentiated the stature of a pastry chef from those of cuisine and hot cooking. the world of pastry requires greater mastery of the science behind the making of art. there is a reverberating scientific rhetoric that pastry chefs embody during their creative endeavors. one of our participants notes that while cuisine chefs are always engaged in the “art of cooking” where intuition guides the “seasoning to taste” or “the finishing of a sauce,” pastry chefs on the other hand, are more scientific in nature, requiring much knowledge behind “how different ingredients and different weightages” influence the final outcome. this school of thought explains that the process is reliant to the theories and foundation of pastry as a science, relying on “scales with one or two decimal points,” rather than “judging intuitively by instinct.” the artist despite paying homage to the science behind the making of art, each pastry chef adds that ‘an artistic touch’ is what separates a chef’s stature from another. in the creation of desserts, it comes in the form of poetry and storytelling. this was vivid in one respondent’s creation of pandora’s box (see figure 2), which won the title of ‘best plated dessert” in asia. the creative process involved the chef “playing with senses” and adding an “emotional touch” to the various components of the dessert, all in which was dedicated to creating an experiential value for those who consume it. there was a story behind the dessert, signifying something mystical, in which he described, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ lee et al., (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 21-29. 27 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 21-29, doi: 10.18060/22958 copyright © 2019 kai-sean lee, denise blum, li miao, & stacy r. tomas. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. the entire idea was that i have a plate with shaved dry ice at the bottom, and i will pour some hot yuzu puree onto the dry ice, activating a misty effect… i encapsulate it in a small glass-like cover… the concept is to have the judges open pandora’s box, and to create an experience that they not only smell the aromas of the yuzu, but also see it… pandora’s box is an example of a dessert with a meaningful story, possessing a harmonious representation of flavors packaged in an experiential mystical appeal. figure 2. pandora's box: caramelized banana emas, mascarpone, and yuzu aromas (asia pastry cup, april 2014) each chef closely compared their works to those of the fields of arts, such as poetry, music, architecture, and filmmaking. they view their creations as detailed compositions of various sensorial and chemical components parceled together by an overarching meaning (e.g., stories & poetry). they rhetorically assure themselves as an artist by viewing oneself as a poet and a storyteller in their creative process, analogizing themselves as the “bringer of stories” and “the balancer of melodies.” the notions of ‘play’ and ‘the tinkering of emotions’ are what heightens the highly scientific process of pastry creation into one with poignant attachments and meanings. as implied, the analogies used to describe each pastry chefs’ engagement with creativity often echoes the work comparisons of those in the field of the arts, analogizing those of poetry, music, and filmmaking. in essence, despite each pastry chef contemplating that the pâtisserie is a work of science, it still resonates as a product of art. conclusion and implications it is implied that both personifications, the scientist and the artist, come together as part of the world pastry cup chefs’ creative process. the artistic personification is informed with scientific rationalism, while the scientific personification is portrayed by one’s innate desire to create through one’s inner senses. both rhetorics are inseparable from one another insofar that https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ lee et al., (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 21-29. 28 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 21-29, doi: 10.18060/22958 copyright © 2019 kai-sean lee, denise blum, li miao, & stacy r. tomas. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. “one cannot live without the other.” fine (1996) has already depicted that artistic rhetoric is what ties restaurant cooks to the pinnacle of work itself, portraying creativity, glamour, and entitlement. building on fine’s conceptualization, this study contributes by adding an additional rhetoric in addition to ‘the artist,’ as it is informed by a contradictory, yet inseparable rhetoric of ‘the scientist’ during the creative process. this duality comes together harmoniously during pastry chefs’ creative process, in which the artistic persona is grounded by scientific rationalism, and likewise, the scientific persona is externalized and portrayed in an artistic fashion. it is perhaps because of this complex duality that many scholars recognize pastry chefs as a more profound and difficult classification of cookery as compared to those of hot cooking (ferguson & zukin, 1998). this endorses the consideration that there is much interaction between the two personifications and that there is much to consider about the science behind the making of art, and the art in the development of science. future research on culinary creativity should further probe the creative processes of other chef extraordinaires of the culinary profession, as their ideas, thoughts, and creative philosophies may yield fuller interpretations on creative phenomenon. while this research provides a window into an elite culinary culture that has rarely, if ever, been investigated, as researchers, we acknowledge the limitations of this specialized group. the findings are not meant to be generalizable. rather, as with most qualitative research, the findings are a source of ideas to consider; knowing that context and human behavior will vary. in addition, this study was limited in participation by females, and thus future research can seek to understand if there are gender differences in the creative process. references ariza-montes, a., arjona-fuentes, j. m., han, h., & law, r. (2018). the price of success: a study on chefs’ subjective well-being, job satisfaction, and human values. international journal of hospitality management, 69, 84-93. carollo, l., & guerci, m. (2017). between continuity and change: csr managers’ occupational rhetorics. journal of organizational change management, 30(4), 632-646. coupe du monde pâtisserie. (2016). coupe du monde pâtisserie 2017 press kit. sirha. retrieved from http://www.sirha.com/sites/sirha/files/medias/communiques-presseen/2016-11-08_16-51-16_201610-dp-cmpatisserie-en.compressed.pdf ferguson, p. p., & zukin, s. (1998). the careers of chefs: ‘french’ and ‘american’ models of cuisine. in r. scapp & b. seitz (eds.), eating culture (pp. 92-111). albany: state university press of new york. fine, g. a. (1996). justifying work: occupational rhetorics as resources in restaurant kitchens. administrative science quarterly, 41, 90-115. hackmann, d. g. (2002). using portraiture in educational leadership research. international journal of leadership in education, 5(1), 51-60. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://www.sirha.com/sites/sirha/files/medias/communiques-presse-en/2016-11-08_16-51-16_201610-dp-cmpatisserie-en.compressed.pdf http://www.sirha.com/sites/sirha/files/medias/communiques-presse-en/2016-11-08_16-51-16_201610-dp-cmpatisserie-en.compressed.pdf lee et al., (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 21-29. 29 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 21-29, doi: 10.18060/22958 copyright © 2019 kai-sean lee, denise blum, li miao, & stacy r. tomas. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. lawrence-lightfoot, s. (2016). portraiture methodology: blending art and science. learning landscapes, 9(2), 19-26. lawrence-lightfoot, s., & davis, j. h. (1997). the art and science of portraiture. san francisco, ca: jossey-bass. lincoln, y. s., & guba, e. g. (1985). naturalistic inquiry. beverly hills, ca: sage publications. patton, m. q. (2012). qualitative research and methods: integrating theory and practice (3rd ed.). london: sage publications. robinson, r. n. s., solnet, d. j., & breakey, n. (2014). a phenomenological approach to hospitality management research: chefs’ occupational commitment. international journal of hospitality management, 43, 65-75. stierand, m., & dörfler, v. (2012). reflecting on a phenomenological study of creativity and innovation in haute cuisine. international journal of contemporary hospitality management, 24(6), 946-957. tongchaiprasit, p., & ariyabuddhiphongs, v. (2016). creativity and turnover intention among hotel chefs: the mediating effects of job satisfaction and job stress. international journal of hospitality management, 55, 33-40. wolcott, h. f. (1999). ethnography: a way of seeing. walnut creek, ca: alta mira. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 30-48, doi: 10.18060/22900 copyright © 2019 gilpatrick d. hornsby this work is licensed under a creative commons attribuion 4.0 international license. events and tourism review volume 2 no. 1 minority entrepreneurship gilpatrick d. hornsby james madison university for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation hornsby, g. d. (2019). minority entrepreneurship. events and tourism review, 2(1), 30-48. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr hornsby, g. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 30-48. 31 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 30-48, doi: 10.18060/22900 copyright © 2019 gilpatrick d. hornsby this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract the body of literature around minority entrepreneurship has been well established over the past few decades. research however in the context of the hospitality industry on this topic has been lacking. therefore a goal of this study was to examine the minority entrepreneur experience in the hospitality industry in order to fill this gap in the literature. specifically, the purpose of the study was to examine black entrepreneurs. participants discussed their personal definition of entrepreneurship, the challenges they faced while growing the business, and how they believe race impacted their success as a business owner. responses were analyzed and future directions identified. keywords: minority entrepreneurship; black-owned restaurants; defining entrepreneurship introduction the hospitality industry is a field that has been ripe with the entrepreneurial spirit from its beginnings (li, 2008). from ray kroc’s mcdonald’s to j.w. marriott’s hotels, there are plenty of examples of entrepreneurship from a large firm perspective; however, the hospitality industry is dominated by smalland medium-sized firms (getz & carlsen, 2000; wagner, gorgievski, & rijsdijk, 2010; chang, 2011). these smallto medium-sized firms operate in businesses ranging from travel and tourism to accommodations and events (peters & kallmuenzer, 2018). while entrepreneurship has been a cornerstone of the industry, research on the topic is still in its infancy (atelijevic & doorne, 2000: ergul & johnson, 2011). there is, however, a growing body of literature that examines entrepreneurship in the hospitality context (chang, 2011; carmaichael & morrison, 2011; peters & kallmuenzer, 2018). outside of the hospitality context, the topic of entrepreneurship has been well-examined over the past decades and is a staple discipline in many business schools (ergul & johnson, 2011). bull and willard (1993) examined the definition of entrepreneurship and concluded that after over 200 years, the study of entrepreneurship has yet to yield an agreed-upon definition. this can further be seen through the diverging of types of entrepreneurship to include social entrepreneurship (austin, stevenson, & wei-skillern, 2006; ergul & johnson, 2011; dzisi & otsyina, 2014) and lifestyle entrepreneurship (dewhurst & horobin, 1998; getz & carlsen, 2000; atelijevic & doorne, 2000; getz, carlsen, & morrison, 2004; dawson, fountain, & cohen, 2011). while this area of academic inquiry is still full of pertinent research questions, the current study focuses on the topic of minority entrepreneurship—more specifically, examining the black entrepreneurship experience. minority entrepreneurship has been examined in detail over the past few years with some agreeing that the situation has improved for minority entrepreneurs (bates, 2011), while others feel that the all-encompassing term of “minority” has, in fact, hurt particular groups inside the classification of minority, such as black entrepreneurs (gold, 2016; wingfield & taylor, 2016). this current work strives to add to this discussion of the black entrepreneur by examining minority entrepreneurship in the context of the hospitality industry. as previously noted, while entrepreneurship literature in growing in hospitality, few authors have studied the minority https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hornsby, g. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 30-48. 32 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 30-48, doi: 10.18060/22900 copyright © 2019 gilpatrick d. hornsby this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. entrepreneurship experience within the hospitality industry. the purpose of this study is to explore minority entrepreneurship experiences, specifically the black entrepreneurship experience, in the hospitality industry to fill a gap of missing inquiry in the growing body of hospitality entrepreneurship research. literature review as mentioned above, the literature has not produced a unified definition of entrepreneurship (bull & williard, 1993). instead, many researchers identify key characteristics that traditionally lead to successful entrepreneurial ventures. bates (2011) identified key ingredients to success as 1) skilled entrepreneurs with appropriate human capital; 2) sufficient financial capital, and 3) access to markets to sell products. austin et al. (2006) found two key determinants of success for traditional entrepreneurs are 1) access to adequate financial capital inputs and 2) the ability to identify the correct individuals to help further the organization and other human capital. interestingly, the examination of minority entrepreneurs has mainly focused on the traditional characteristics of entrepreneurship as a method of social mobility (gold, 2016). however, the literature has also identified non-economically motivated forms of entrepreneurship. the current study examines social entrepreneurship and lifestyle entrepreneurship, to determine how non-economically driven types of entrepreneurship might impact the black entrepreneur experience. social entrepreneurship social entrepreneurship can be defined as, “innovative, social value creating an activity that can occur within or across the nonprofit, business or government sectors” (austin et al., 2006, p. 2). ergul and johnson (2011) identify the major difference between the social entrepreneur and the traditional entrepreneur as the value proposition. social entrepreneurs give preference for promoting social value rather than capturing economic development (dzisi & otsyina, 2014). the social entrepreneur desires “mission-related impact” while traditional entrepreneurs value anticipating and serving markets to create financial profit. social entrepreneurs often focus on identifying long-standing needs and developing innovative ways to approach them. they are less concerned with market size and more concerned with social need (austin et al., 2006). although previous studies have indicated differences between traditional and social entrepreneurs, the literature also indicates that social and traditional entrepreneurship must be seen on a continuum. “the distinction between social and {traditional} entrepreneurship is not dichotomous, but rather more accurately conceptualized as a continuum ranging from purely social to purely economic. even at extremes, however, there are still elements of both” (austin et al., 2006; p. 3). lifestyle entrepreneurs dewhurst and horobin (1998) define the lifestyle entrepreneur as one, “who [is] not motivated by a desire to maximize economic gain, who operates businesses often with very low https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hornsby, g. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 30-48. 33 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 30-48, doi: 10.18060/22900 copyright © 2019 gilpatrick d. hornsby this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. levels of employment, and in which managerial decisions are often based on highly personalized criteria” (p. 25). getz et al. (2004) explore the concept of lifestyle entrepreneurship as an entrepreneurial process driven not only by economic benefit but also by a desire to satisfy personal and social goals. the concept of the lifestyle business is one where the owner balances economic goals with non-economic goals. it may also mean that the primary motivation for owning the business is to have a set of lifestyle experiences (dawson et al., 2011). differentiating lifestyle entrepreneurship from traditional entrepreneurship can further help explain why certain business decisions are made and others are not when examining organization growth (thomas, 2000). lifestyle entrepreneurs may be more concerned with business survival rather than business growth. their goals of acquiring a level of income to maintain the lifestyle outweigh the desire of many traditional entrepreneurs to maximize profits. (dawson et al., 2011). getz and carlson (2000) explained the difference between lifestyle and traditional entrepreneurs as “family-first” and “business first,” respectively. they found that 66% of the entrepreneurs surveyed could be classified as family-first and were motivated by factors associated with optimizing leisure time with their families (getz & carlson, 2000). there is, however, support indicating that lifestyle and traditional entrepreneurs can also exist on a continuum. dewhurst and horobin (1998) created an owner-manager model that allowed for a continuum between traditional and lifestyle goals and strategies. further, atelijevic and doorne, (2000) identify that the lack of desire to grow may not lead to developmental stagnation, but instead provide specialization and an opportunity to engage with niche markets. the current review of the literature has identified the characteristics of a traditional entrepreneur as well as two non-economically motivated forms of entrepreneurship. what is unknown is how minority entrepreneurs conceptualize the term “entrepreneurship” through their lens and how they might classify themselves once presented with the three types of entrepreneurship reviewed. this has led to the following research questions: 1. rq: how do black entrepreneurs define entrepreneurship? 2. rq: what type of entrepreneurship do black entrepreneurs identify with? minorities in entrepreneurship entrepreneurship is often argued as an effective pathway for minorities to gain economic advancement in american society; however multiple studies have found that minorities are involved in entrepreneurial activities at a far lesser rate than their nonminority counterparts (gold, 2016). previous literature examining white and black entrepreneurs found that while 11% of white americans were involved in entrepreneurial activities, only 5.1% of black americans were engaged in similar activities. (gold, 2016). additionally, black-owned firms tend to be small with fewer employees, generate fewer profits than their white counterparts (fairle and robb, 2008) and are mainly found in highly visible sectors of retailing and catering (carter, mwaura, ram, trehan, & jones, 2015). bates (2011) however explains that knowing there is a discriminatory process that stops or discourages minorities from opening new ventures is not enough if one does not also examine what structural barriers might be in place that discourages black entrepreneurship. as previously stated in this work, two of the most prevalent success factors in entrepreneurship are access to financial capital (carter et al., 2015) and access to human capital (bates, 2011). other structural https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hornsby, g. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 30-48. 34 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 30-48, doi: 10.18060/22900 copyright © 2019 gilpatrick d. hornsby this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. barriers include business training and customer support (koellinger & minniti, 2006). carter et al. (2015) found that black entrepreneurs are four times more likely to be denied for a loan than white entrepreneurs. human capital can be conceptualized through the level of education the minority entrepreneur versus their nonminority counterpart (koellinger & minniti, 2006) or access to role models (wingfield & taylor, 2016). while there have been strides made to provide greater access to the financial and human capital needed in order to make a firm successful, the prevailing consensus in current literature is that this access for minorities still lags far behind nonminority entrepreneurs (bates, 2011). the barrier of customer support examines the market in which the minority entrepreneur operates. carter et al. (2015) identified that many minority firms, especially in hospitality, may provide a service that is deemed exotic and therefore cannot always rely on attracting a larger number of customers outside of that culture. the barrier of business training examines both experience and management level opportunities. koellinger and minniti (2006) found that minority entrepreneurs may lack experiences at a managerial level based on institutional racism. therefore, when minority entrepreneurs open their own firms, they may not have the knowledge base or past experiences to fall back on. gold (2016) argues that to understand black entrepreneurship, the academy must examine the black experience outside of the confines of minority status and ethnicity. when authors examine ethnic minority entrepreneurs, it often includes latino, asian, and asian americans. while these different groups are often plagued by stereotypes and other barriers to entrepreneurship, light (1984) states, “to a substantive extent, korean, vietnamese, taiwanese, hong kong, and iranian immigrants now in the united states derived from property-owning upper classes in their countries of origin” (p. 203). while this may not be the case for all minority groups in the united states, gold (2016) warns against the anti-racist perspective that if one minority group is succeeding in entrepreneurial endeavors that all groups should be able to reproduce the same success. therefore, to understand the black experience in entrepreneurship, the following research question was developed: 3. rq: what are the challenges faced by black entrepreneurs in hospitality? method the primary purpose of this study is to understand the black entrepreneurship experience in the hospitality context. to this goal, this research is based on qualitative, semi-structured, indepth interviews with black entrepreneurs operating within the food and beverage industry (atelijevic & doorne, 2000). the study is exploratory in nature and will examine each black entrepreneur as an individual case of minority entrepreneurship. the case study approach was selected for this study in order to understand the individual lived experience of each entrepreneur. providing generalizable results and overall implications for the hospitality industry were outside of the scope of this work. however, future studies may be able to identify areas of inquiry based on this research. to identify cities that would have the greatest likelihood of having minority-owned restaurants, census data for the state of virginia was evaluated. the two criteria for city inclusion in the study were: 1. population greater than 50,000 people and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hornsby, g. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 30-48. 35 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 30-48, doi: 10.18060/22900 copyright © 2019 gilpatrick d. hornsby this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 2. greater than 18% african american population. based on these criteria, 13 cities were identified and clustered based on locality. 1. eastern virginia: portsmouth, hampton, norfolk, suffolk, newport news, chesapeake, and virginia beach 2. southern virginia: lynchburg and danville 3. northern virginia: woodbridge and alexandria 4. central virginia: petersburg and richmond due to the exploratory nature of this research, the northern virginia region was selected for this initial study. sampling a purposive sample was deemed appropriate based on the population of interest (etikan, musa, & alkassim, 2016). participants were first identified by contacting small business development centers (sbdcs) in the northern virginia area. in addition, the author contacted individuals that were familiar with the northern virginia area and received additional businesses to include in the study. in total, ten businesses were included in the study. after speaking with the businesses, it was determined that four were no longer in business, and two elected not to participate. four interviews were scheduled and one was canceled due to a schedule conflict. attempts to reschedule the interview were unsuccessful, and three businesses were interviewed. while the sample size for this study is small, similar studies conducted using case study methods found that between 2 and 4 cases were sufficient (dawson et al., 2011; ergul & johnson, 2011; kline, shah, tsao & cook, 2014). instrument based on the three research questions several questions were developed. these questions were then evaluated by hospitality educators and multicultural professionals. questions that were selected for the study can be found in table 1. two questions were associated with rq1, two questions were associated with rq2, four questions were associated with rq3, and the remaining questions were used to collect demographic information. two of the three interviews were conducted face-to-face, on-site at the entrepreneur’s place of business and the third took place via telephone as the entrepreneur was out of the country during the scheduled interview. informed consent was provided to the entrepreneurs before the interviews began and the researcher requested to audio-record the interviews. two of the three entrepreneurs consented to interviews being audio-recorded. all entrepreneurs consented to include their names and the names of their organizations in the study. interviews lasted approximately one hour. interviews were transcribed, and themes were identified and analyzed through content analysis. all three entrepreneurs were male with an average age of 44. all entrepreneurs received at least a college education, with one receiving an advanced degree in law and another serving four years in the navy. each entrepreneur indicated that they either worked with family members, employed family members, or co-founded the business with https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hornsby, g. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 30-48. 36 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 30-48, doi: 10.18060/22900 copyright © 2019 gilpatrick d. hornsby this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. family members. while there is a large body of research on family-owned businesses, it was determined that this was outside of the scope of this study. table 1. interview questions with research questions interview questions rq1: how do black entrepreneurs define entrepreneurship? rq2: what type of entrepreneurship do black entrepreneurs identify with? rq3: what are the challenges faced by black entrepreneurs in hospitality? demographic information tell me a little about yourself and how you came to own your restaurant? x what resources do you have or use that help you with owning your business? x how do you define entrepreneurship? do you consider yourself an entrepreneur? x tell me about some of the struggles you faced when opening this location or when you took the restaurant over? x do you think your experience as a minority small business owner has been different from a majority small business owner? in what way? x [traditional, social, and lifestyle entrepreneurship definitions provided] what type of entrepreneur do you feel more closely aligned to? x would you say your goal is to grow to other locations or to have an impact in this community? x what characteristics do you think have made you a successful small business owner? x what advice would you like to leave with the next generation minority hospitality students and maybe hospitality entrepreneurs? x demographic data: age, education, approximate monthly sales, number of employees, do you employ any family members?, ownership structure, length of time owning the business, how long has the business been in existence, what did you do before this (other employment or businesses)? x https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hornsby, g. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 30-48. 37 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 30-48, doi: 10.18060/22900 copyright © 2019 gilpatrick d. hornsby this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. instrument as with most qualitative research, it is nearly impossible to separate the researcher from those being researched. through the process of content analysis, the researcher’s bias is everpresent. the current study attempts to lessen this bias by conducting member checking (morse, 2015). after the paper was written, it was sent to each participant. they were asked if the paper adequately captured their lived experience. only minimal comments were offered, and corrections were made. even so, the social constructivist stance identifies that the researcher can impact the data collection (finlay, 2002). for instance, in the current study, participants were asked about their experience as a minority entrepreneur. the researcher conducting the interview is an african american male. it is possible that if the researcher had been of a different ethnicity or a different gender identity, that they would not have received the same responses from the participants. results the data were analyzed; themes were identified and clustered based on the three research questions. these themes can be found in tables 2, 3, and 4. the three businesses included in the study were: ben’s chili bowl in washington dc, takoma station tavern in washington dc, and mango bahia with its united states office located in richmond, va. a description of each organization can be found below: ben’s chili bowl. originally founded in 1958 by ben and virginia ali, ben’s chili bowl has grown to be a staple in washington dc. the restaurant has expanded to include three locations with one franchised location. the business has also expanded to include an upscale bar and restaurant called ben’s next door. while ben ali has passed away, his wife is still the owner of the original ben’s chili. the other locations and ben’s next door are owned and managed by ben’s son, nizam ali. the interview for this study was conducted with mr. nizam ali. it is important to note that while ben was an immigrant from trinidad and mr. ali is proud of that heritage, he explicitly identified with the black experience. takoma station tavern. located right on the dc-maryland border, the takoma station has always had its roots in the entertainment business. mr. david boyd (owner and interviewee for this study) explained it as a music venue that is complemented by the restaurant. mr. boyd indicated that it is a family business, originally owned by his father. he became a part of the ownership after his older brother died and “everyone in the family had to move up.” while in college, mr. boyd had a friend that was interested in the restaurant business but was a year behind him. after his friend graduated, he drove from st. louis to washington dc to work in the business. now they are partners. takoma station has only one location and has been in business since 1978. mango bahia. mango bahia is the brainchild of mr. islam mcneal. during a trip to the republic of columbia in south america, mr. mcneal saw the mango and decided that he wanted to create a vegetarian/vegan-based restaurant that promoted healthy living. mr. mcneal co-founded the business with his mother and is currently in the start-up phase. as stated on his https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hornsby, g. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 30-48. 38 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 30-48, doi: 10.18060/22900 copyright © 2019 gilpatrick d. hornsby this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. website, “mango bahia aims to be the world’s very first vegetarian/vegan fast food technology driven chain. we provide a delicious, healthy alternative to the typical fast food selection, with fresh ingredients and our own special recipes. we offer an assortment of burgers, vegan fries, even our very own mango iced tea. everything we make is comprised of all natural, organic ingredients, coming together to create great tastes we know you’ll love. we are a startup operation just beginning our journey to bringing our special brand of delicious food to the world. and once all our hard work pays off, that food will find its way to you!” mr. mcneal was interviewed as a part of this study. after participants shared about their organizations, they were asked to discuss what resources they had when opening the business. mr. ali first discussed the greatest resource was ownership of the building. he shared that after renting the building for 25 years, they were able to purchase the building. according to mr. ali, “if not for ownership, we would not be here. would probably be condos where we are right now” mr. ali was referring to the rapid gentrification of the washington dc area. when asked if there were other resources they had access to when opening/growing the business, he stated “really it was a $5,000 investment that mom and dad had saved up to be able to open the restaurant in the first place. everything else has been through bank loans. there [are] no private investors, it’s still 100% family owned, but it’s just applying for loans at the bank.” mr. mcneal echoed this sentiment by saying that the banks need to trust you and they don’t trust you. he also stated you need assets and when you are young, you don’t have those assets. when specifically asked about the lack of resource in the form of financial capital, mr. mcneal remarked that young entrepreneurs have to use their own funds. he remarked that kickstarter (or other crowdfunding applications) are also good sources for funds as long as you do not give up equity in the company. he also indicated that raising capital is an art and one that is not currently being taught in our schools. mr. boyd answered the question in a different way. he stated: “community, i mean takoma station is a community-based business. it is a place where people can come and let their hair down. it doesn’t matter who comes in. i don’t care what star comes in, he is treated the same way as everybody else.” after a discussion of financial resources, participants were asked about different types of human capital. mr. mcneal indicated that the most important people in the company are the coo, the cfo, and the attorney. you have to build a strong team and surround yourself with people who believe in you. from an external stance, he mentioned the need for strong advisors and strong mentors. you have to have someone that can review your business plan and provide constructive feedback. carter et al. (2015) echoed this sentiment stating that access to educational and business related experiences can be a barrier for minority entrepreneurs. mr. ali addressed the question mainly focusing on his family. he said: “dad was the business guy, mom was the heart and soul. dad was a hardcore businessman. i don’t want to say the immigrant mentality, but just his dad was a builder https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hornsby, g. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 30-48. 39 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 30-48, doi: 10.18060/22900 copyright © 2019 gilpatrick d. hornsby this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. and his mom was a businesswoman and together they did business and i think that where he learned it. when he came over he was very tenacious, very go-getting. i mean he listened to motivational tapes, he taught success motivation to people. he was a selflearner. he grew up under the british education system in trinidad. he was quoting shakespeare and wordsworth and everything so just phenomenal education.” next, each entrepreneur was asked to define entrepreneurship. mr. boyd defined entrepreneurship as being able to help other people. he went on to say: “i think it’s something that you do but you do it to give and it has so much more meaning. life has so much more meaning. it’s not about getting money and then pretending like you are somebody. i don’t need to have a whole bunch of gold chains around my neck or for me to have a whole lot of swag or women around me to prove i’m somebody. i’m fine with bussing the tables, washing the floor, and cleaning the toilet.” mr. boyd’s definition was in line with much of the literature on social entrepreneurship. he remarks that the restaurant and ownership of the restaurant do not define him. instead, his desire to give back is a better representation of where he currently is in life. mr. ali's response was much more in line with a traditional view of entrepreneurship “entrepreneurship is starting a business or enterprise yourself or with others where you control it and you manage it and you create it and it’s something that you develop and its success is really related to what you put into it and what you bring to it and how much energy and attention and resources that you put in.” the tone of mr. mcneal's discussion was mainly focused on the social aspects of entrepreneurship. he even remarked that he considered himself to be a social entrepreneur even before the interview moved toward a discussion on types of entrepreneurship. he stated that his goal was to provide a product that allowed more people to be healthy. at this point in the interviews, each participant was asked if they considered themselves to be an entrepreneur. mr. mcneal had already indicated that he considered himself to be an entrepreneur, but mr. ali and mr. boyd did not associate with the term they had just defined. instead, each attempted to distance themselves from entrepreneurship. neither wanted to be defined by their occupation. next, participants were provided with definitions for traditional entrepreneurs, lifestyle entrepreneurs, and social entrepreneurs from previous literature. then they were asked what definition they most closely aligned with. mr. boyd chose social but operationalized it as a community. mr. ali asked to read the definitions and then chose to identify with lifestyle first and then the traditional second. he stated: “lifestyle, i mean still growth but the growth is not, hey i need an extra million dollars. i wish i had the first million dollars. and that the whole misconception of entrepreneurship. success. outside looking in, you are a billionaire. inside you are like i’m in debt, i’m struggling like hell. that’s just the way it is and people need to realize it https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hornsby, g. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 30-48. 40 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 30-48, doi: 10.18060/22900 copyright © 2019 gilpatrick d. hornsby this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. that, but growth means employing more people, means giving back more to the community, means touching more people, means being an anchor in the community. so that more important. it's not like ‘what’s the end game?’, when can i sell out and go move to my big island.” mr. mcneal asked why he had to choose. he saw value and himself in each of the definitions. this complements research that defines these classifications of entrepreneurship on a continuum (dewhurst & horobin, 1998; austin et al., 2006). the next question participants were asked to answer was about what struggles they had faced in business ownership. mr. ali indicated there were several struggles that came from not starting the business from scratch: “lot of struggles, we grew up into a business that was already here. so, it was managing something that was already created. i mean again, trying to tweak it, trying to make it better, but it's not from the ground up. so, everything’s a learning experience. from working with contractors to working with banks.” mr. boyd, on the other hand, remarked about the difficulties of working with the community. “the biggest challenges were that people who wanted to come into takoma station didn’t feel comfortable coming into takoma station that lived in the community. now, this was before gentrification. when you are middle-aged and you see a bar that is thriving in your community and you are driving by and you see the line, and a bunch of people don’t look like you and not your age, all of a sudden you have an idea and a notion and you get around a whole lot of people that have the same thinking, then you just make up stuff.” mr. mcneal identified struggles that were mainly internal. he remarked that starting a business is like being in a fight with leonard lewis. he stated that there is so much coming at you, that you really have to believe in what you are doing. you have to be the terminator and keep going. as a follow-up, participants were asked if they felt their challenges were greater based on the color of their skin. all agreed that they were but in different ways. mr. boyd stated: “no we do not own the building and they are not selling. if this wasn’t the 1% of the black business. i mean i don’t know what the percentage of black business in america, but it has to be small. and i’m not just saying that as a black man, i saying that if this is something that was usual, you would not be sitting here talking to me. so with that being said, i think that black folks need to understand that we need to start working together and try to pool our resources together and to help one another. and learn how to work together in difficult situations. where are our supermarkets? where are our food distributors? the minute you see the asian community or the latin community getting ready to build a community you look and all the businesses in there are that nationality. we don’t have that.” https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hornsby, g. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 30-48. 41 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 30-48, doi: 10.18060/22900 copyright © 2019 gilpatrick d. hornsby this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. mr. ali shared: “oh absolutely, i think it's very different, personally when you go to banks and when you have resources. it's so funny, there are so many assumptions. people say i’m sure you’ve gotten 20 offers to sell. i haven’t gotten one. i’m sure you’ve gotten 20 offers to go here or go there or go there. not necessarily. why is that? i don’t know. it’s a great concept. everyone knows the concept. you jump in a cab in san francisco and they ask where you're from, i’m from dc, oh you had ben’s chili bowl. i mean that happens all the time. you meet people around the world and you say dc and they say have you gone to ben’s? they have no idea that we own ben’s. the brand is huge, the brand is worldwide. does that show in the offers you get, in the capital you get, in the resources that are available? i mean i’m not white, i don’t know the other side. it is strictly ‘do it yourself.’” mr. mcneal’s responses were focused both on the challenges that were based in racism and challenges of support from the black community. he remarked that it is challenging for minorities to get capital when starting a business, but that it is also difficult when people from their own group are not supporting. this notion is supported by ogbolu, singh, and wilbon, (2015) when they report that serotypes about a minority group may be adopted by those who are in that group. it is possible that the lack of black patronage that mr. mcneal is referring to is based on the belief that black products are not as good as more mainstream products. participants were then asked to describe what characteristics were needed in order to be successful in this industry. the characteristics were very similar from all three participants. mr. mcneal mentioned ambition, drive, and vision. mr. ali listed integrity, consistency, hard work, community, trust, respect, and giving back. then almost anecdotally, mr. ali stated, “if we were community-based, we would have been burned down in the riots” –most likely referring to the 1968 dc riots after the assassination of dr. martin luther king. it is mr. ali’s opinion that ben’s chili bowl’s involvement with the community prior to this event saved the restaurant from destruction. finally, mr. boyd stated hard work, integrity, caring, giving, patience, and understanding that business is cyclical. the final question asked what advice they would provide for the next generation of black entrepreneurs. mr. boyd emphasized the role of friends and family. he stated, “you have to build long, sustained friendships. would rather be in business with a friend or a family member rather than someone i don’t know. there might be more money available, but would rather go after small relationships.” mr. mcneal emphasized the basic components of entrepreneurship. highlights included: the only thing that stops you is you; you need to put good people in your company, do business internationally, work for start-ups and grow with a company, and fail fast. mr. ali’s response centered on the functional areas of business. he shared, “you have to cover all of your bases: personnel, finance, and marketing. if you don’t have it, hire it. you have to control cost, control quality, and control customer service. you don’t ‘know it all.’ if you know it all, you are not open to suggestion, you are not open to learning, and you are not open to finding a new way or a better way.” https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hornsby, g. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 30-48. 42 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 30-48, doi: 10.18060/22900 copyright © 2019 gilpatrick d. hornsby this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. table 2. themes related to defining entrepreneurship (rq1) meta-theme sub-theme social giving back to the community not a mechanism for personal gain increasing healthy habits traditional success related to energy and inputs lifestyle the business is a means to an end keys to success community interaction giving back table 3. themes related to entrepreneurship association (rq2) meta-theme sub-theme distancing not a defining term not mentally negative association entrepreneurship continuum lifestyle-traditional traditional-social social-lifestyle table 4. themes related to race-based challenges (rq3) meta-theme sub-theme community support the misconception of success trust building lack of community patronage lack of community investment resources/finance equity ownership bank loans personal savings lack of trust from banks lack of collateral resources/human capital lack of advisors/mentors lack of management/business knowledge grit/perseverance education https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hornsby, g. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 30-48. 43 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 30-48, doi: 10.18060/22900 copyright © 2019 gilpatrick d. hornsby this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. discussion the first research question asked: how do black entrepreneurs define entrepreneurship? while mr. ali’s definition of entrepreneurship may be considered closely aligned with traditional definitions of entrepreneurship, both mr. boyd and mr. mcneal focused mainly on the social outcomes of entrepreneurship rather than defining the term itself. austin et al. (2006) found that social entrepreneurs are driven by the desire to make a social impact. dzisi and otsyina (2014) conceptualize it like this, “making a profit, creating wealth, or serving the desires of the customers may be a part of the model, but these are a means to a social end, not the end itself” (p. 235). it was interesting, however, that when participants were asked if they considered themselves entrepreneurs, two of the three did not. mr. mcneal was the sole participant that did consider himself to be an entrepreneur. mr. ali and mr. boyd, on the other hand, were much more hesitant to be considered an entrepreneur. their definitions of entrepreneur shed some light on their hesitancy to identify as entrepreneurs. both seemed to consider being called an entrepreneur as a defining characteristic of their personhood. in addition, both seemed to believe that you must act like a “boss” in order to be an entrepreneur. another distinction between mr. mcneal and the other two participants is the longevity of the business and how each participant became a part of the business. both mr. ali and mr. boyd took over the restaurants from their fathers. both, however, have added to the businesses they operated (i.e., mr. ali with ben’s upstairs and mr. boyd’s injection of music and entertainment), but it is possible that they were not as impacted by some of the start-up challenges that nascent entrepreneurs might face (sardy and alon, 2007). in addition, research in the area of family businesses has long excluded the notion of entrepreneurship (peters & kallmuenzer, 2018). while mr. mcneal works with his mother on this enterprise, they may see each other more as partners, rather than a traditional family business that is being passed from generation to generation (peters & kallmunzer, 2018). the second research question asked: what type of entrepreneurship do black entrepreneurs identify with? mr. mcneal initially identified with social entrepreneurship and after been presented with definitions, mr. ali identified with lifestyle entrepreneurship and mr. boyd identified with the community (i.e., social entrepreneurship). mr. mcneal did, however, ask why he had to choose. this notion that an individual can display the behaviors of more than one classification of an entrepreneur is supported in previous literature with the idea that these classifications exist on a continuum (dewhurst & horobin, 1998; austin et al., 2006). using this continuum perspective, the following typology was created based on the entirety of the participant responses: mr. ali: a lifestyle-traditional entrepreneur. mr. ali indicates many of the aspects discussed in the lifestyle literature. mr. ali stated that he wants to maintain his involvement in advisory boards and community groups (dawson et al., 2011), and he is not driven by the success of the business (dewhurst and horobin, 1998). however, he saw an opportunity to grow ben’s chili from solely a restaurant to include ben’s next https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hornsby, g. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 30-48. 44 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 30-48, doi: 10.18060/22900 copyright © 2019 gilpatrick d. hornsby this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. door (shepherd, williams, & patzelt, 2015). he also opened new locations of ben’s chili and began franchising the brand (austin et al., 2006). mr. mcneal: a traditional-social entrepreneur. while mr. mcneal identified as a social entrepreneur, his responses indicated that he may more closely align with a traditional entrepreneur. his method of entering the market may be through the social aspect of mango bahia, but this may be a means to an end. in other words, mr. mcneal did not seem driven by the social mission. the tone of mr. mcneal’s interview seemed to lean more towards a desire to grow. his responses were also based on the actions that would be taken by a traditional entrepreneur. his discussion was more based on raising funds, hiring the correct individuals, and understanding the market—all key ingredients of successful traditional entrepreneurs identified by bates (2011). mr. boyd: a social-lifestyle entrepreneur. mr. boyd seemed completely uninterested in the growth of the business (dawson et al., 2011). when asked if he had ever thought of a second location, he said no. when asked if his kids would take over the business, he said he was not sure, but he was not concerned. mr. boyd’s responses centered on what he could do for his community. he seemed to be happy where the business was and that he was able to take part in other activities that were more personally fulfilling to him. while previous literature has identified the continuums of traditional to social and traditional to lifestyle, no study to date examines the possible continuum between social and lifestyle entrepreneurs. if however austin et al. (2006)’s assertion that even at extremes, there are still elements of both was extended to include the third area of lifestyle, it may mean that there is a tri-continuum of entrepreneurial motivations that exist and should be explored in future research. the third research question asked: what are the challenges faced by black entrepreneurs in hospitality? while all three responses were very different, all three dealt with different aspects of legitimacy (ogbolu et al., 2015). mr. ali’s manifestation was outwardly focused on the fact that he was responsible for a brand that was existing. mr. boyd’s challenges were expressed as legitimacy within the community. mr. boyd remarked that there was a lack of trust by community members when he first began the takoma station tavern. the community that he sought to help did not believe that he was there to help them. fairchild (2008) found that customer’s perceptions of legitimacy may be more critical for black entrepreneurs based on a large number of negative stereotypes about african americans. ogbolu et al. (2015) went further to say that this is true of majority customers and minority customers as minorities tend to adopt the stereotypes of the majority as truth. finally, mr. mcneal’s challenges were based on the fact that he is still in the start-up phase. ogbolu et al. (2015) identify this as the liability of newness. they explain that new ventures experience higher rates of failure because of weak support and vulnerability to environmental shocks. this issue of legitimacy should be explored in future research. researchers should examine if the impact of these perceptions of legitimacy influences either the definition of entrepreneurship or the classification of entrepreneurship that the entrepreneur identifies with. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hornsby, g. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 30-48. 45 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 30-48, doi: 10.18060/22900 copyright © 2019 gilpatrick d. hornsby this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. conclusion and implications the purpose of this study was to examine the black entrepreneurship experience in hospitality. to this goal, three black entrepreneurs were interviewed and their responses analyzed. while there were similarities between the three entrepreneurs, there were also many differences in how they viewed entrepreneurship. the complexity of the black experience in hospitality entrepreneurship mirrors well the complexity of the black experience in everyday life. the black experience is not monolithic and could not be completely unpacked within one study of black entrepreneurship. instead, this study succeeded in continuing the discourse of black entrepreneurship in american society and examined it through the lens of the hospitality industry. it is important again to acknowledge that this study was exploratory with a limited sample. it is also important to note that the interviews were constrained by time and that there may be additional issues that were not uncovered during the interviews. with that said, several implications can still be drawn from the current study. first is that the negative association with the term “entrepreneurship” should be addressed. two of the three participants considered the term to be a “bad word.” they feared that associating themselves with being an entrepreneur somehow should alter their personality and interaction with others. one possible way to address this is through education at the secondary and community levels. by providing positive examples of minority entrepreneurs, the next generation of minority entrepreneurs may have a more positive association with what it means to be an entrepreneur. the second implication of this study also based on education is the need to educate the minority community on the resources available. this study used both personal recommendations of individuals familiar with the area and sbdcs. however, the three participants in the study were identified through individuals familiar with the area. it is possible that participants in the current study chose not to work with sbdcs, but it is also possible that they were unaware that they existed. the participants indicated that there was a lack of human capital that would help make them and the next generation successful. it may be incumbent on organizations such as small business development offices or other resources to be intentional about entering minority communities and sharing what services they have available. one final implication of this study and a direction for future research is the interaction between minority business owners and minority consumers. all three participants indicated having difficulty receiving support from the minority community in the form of patronage and investment. the participants also indicated a desire to give back to these minority communities. future research should further examine this phenomenon and determine if it is present across all minority groups. if not, and this is only an issue within the black community, how can it be addressed or alleviated? limitations as with all research, the current study was not free from limitations. first, while it was determined that three cases were appropriate based on previous literature, the small sample size dramatically reduces the generalizability of the findings. bates (2011) states, “predictably, many https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hornsby, g. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 30-48. 46 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 30-48, doi: 10.18060/22900 copyright © 2019 gilpatrick d. hornsby this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. scholars studying minority entrepreneurship have relied upon small, non-representative firm samples collected in one or two cities. these data have most often been complemented by indepth interviews of business owners, and the resulting studies have typically had a strong casestudy tone” (bates, 2011, pg. 4). this also highlights a second limitation of the study which is inherent in case study research – bias. while there is much support for this method of inquiry, bates (2011) points out that case study research on minority entrepreneurship has resulted in numerous subjective studies and had reduced the ability to compare across studies. a third limitation of this study is in how research question 3 was phrased. the question asked the participants to identify the challenges for black entrepreneurs; however, the challenges identified could be faced by both minority and non-minority entrepreneurs. future research should examine the phenomenon to determine if there are specific challenges solely based on the entrepreneur’s minority status. another limitation of this study is that no black female entrepreneurs were included in the study. while they were included in the original purposive sample, none were available to participate. future research must include the black female entrepreneur experience as previous literature has found that gender differences in entrepreneurship are present (carter et al., 2015). the final limitation of this study can be found in the geographical locations of the interviews. washington dc has been referred to as “chocolate city” due to its large population of black people (49.0%) and richmond, va is also known to have a large black population (49.2%). both of these areas could be considered black enclaves (ogbolu et al., 2015) providing a steady supply of black patrons to these restaurants. it is hypothesized that the black entrepreneur experience may differ in areas where such a large population of black people does not exist. future research must examine black entrepreneurship in cities that are not known for having large black populations. references ateljevic, i., & doorne, s. 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(2016). race, gender, and class in entrepreneurship: intersectional counter-frames and black business owners. ethnic and racial studies, 39(9), 1676-1696. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 1-20, doi: 10.18060/23228 copyright © 2019 godwin-charles ogbeide. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribuion 4.0 international license. events and tourism review volume 2 no. 1 hospitality intelligence: evolution, definition and dimensions godwin-charles ogbeide indiana university-purdue university indianapolis for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation ogbeide, g-c. (2019). hospitality intelligence: evolution, definition and dimensions. events and tourism review, 2(1), 1-20. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr ogbeide, g-c. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 1-20. 2 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 1-20, doi: 10.18060/23228 copyright © 2019 godwin-charles ogbeide. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract this article reviews ‘hospitality intelligence’ as the ability to create a foundation upon which a delightful and engaging service experience can be readily delivered. the evolution of service quality leading to hospitality intelligence was identified chronologically via literature reviews. five conceptual models of service quality that formed the basis of the key dimensions of hospitality intelligence were provided as a framework for inciting theoretical advancement and further research. the dimensions and implications of hospitality intelligence, based on the syntheses of the hospitality related psychology literature, were described for advancing the concept of hospitality intelligence and further research. keywords: hospitality intelligence, delightful experience, quality service, customer delight, inspirational training, empowerment introduction what comes to mind when you hear the word hospitality? do you think of foodservice, restaurant, hotel, theme park, or bar and grill when you think of hospitality? if you think of any of the above establishments, you are correct. however, think again. what is the real meaning of hospitality? if you seek the meaning of hospitality, you will realize that hospitality is associated with synonyms like welcome, friendliness, warmth, kindness, openness, etc. when you think of those words critically, you will see the association of hospitality with social science (psychology). hence, hospitality is more than mere food, entertainment, and lodging, but it is highly associated with psychology. bearing the above in mind, it is obvious that if frontline employees are well trained to provide adequate hospitality, customer delight could be easily attained with the appropriate hospitality intelligence. the purpose of this study is to explore quality service and the evolution of hospitality intelligence. in addition, this study will explore the impacts of hospitality intelligence dimensions on stakeholders’ happiness, well-being, and experience. in this paper, an evolution of service quality concepts and how they initiated the development of ‘hospitality intelligence’ are discussed. emphasis was placed on the impacts of hospitality intelligence and future research. this paper is based on five main sections. the first section is entitled the concepts of service quality; it describes five service quality concepts in chronological order. the five concepts show the evolution of various models of service quality and the importance of inspirational training. in the second section, inspirational training is described as competent, inspiring, and empowering training from service quality perspective. it also shows some of the challenges of service employee training for effective quality service and delightful customer experience. hospitality intelligence, from psychological perspectives and research literature, constitutes the third section. the review presents a definition of hospitality, the description of intelligence followed by the evolution of hospitality intelligence within the context of both hospitality and intelligence quotient. section four, dimensions of hospitality intelligence; identifies the seven common dimensions of hospitality intelligence. the seven dimensions are described from a psychological perspective. various habits within the dimensions https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g-c. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 1-20. 3 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 1-20, doi: 10.18060/23228 copyright © 2019 godwin-charles ogbeide. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. of hospitality intelligence were identified. the conclusions and implications constitute the fifth section. the conclusion and implications of hospitality intelligence, from a social science (psychological) perspective, are presented. implications were also drawn for advancing the concept of hospitality intelligence, including suggestions for further research on hospitality intelligence. the concepts of service quality nordic concept of service quality: according to gronroos (1982), service quality is the intermingling of functional quality (how is it delivered?) and technical quality (what is delivered?). functional quality includes the (1) hotel receptionist friendliness, restaurant server’s behavior, train conductor’s helpfulness, etc., while technical quality includes the quality of (1) hotel room and bed, (2) restaurant food, (3) ski resort ski-lift machine, etc. obviously, the nordic concept of service quality could be a great model if the frontline employees can be well trained with the proper skills for providing an engaging and delightful experience. two-dimensional concept of service quality: according to lehtinen (1983), service quality is based on ‘process quality’ (experiences during the service) and ‘output quality’ (experiences/satisfaction after the service). knowing that customers are incapable of assessing the outcome of the service until it is completed, their only option is to assess their experience of the process. basically, the customers simultaneously assess the service provider’s ability to make them feel comfortable and connect with them. for example, a restaurant server may show friendliness to a customer to make him/her feel comfortable. the process quality is usually a service organization’s ‘moments of truth,’ which usually affects the customer’s memorable experience. in a service context, a customer’s positive, memorable experience is one of the most significant assets of an organization (kandampully & solnet, 2015). bearing this phenomenon in mind, it is very important to have frontline employees who are well trained and empowered with the right intelligence to make proper service decisions for the customer’s positive, memorable experience. the gaps concept of service quality: is based on the gap between service expectations of the consumers (what i want) and their perception of the real service given (what i get). like the above service concepts, it is reasonable to acknowledge that the gap concept of service quality could be a great model if the frontline employees are well trained and empowered with the right intelligence to satisfy the customer’s wants. the servqual concept of service quality: is the most commonly utilized and cited model and also the subject of many criticisms. there were ten dimensions of servqual, which was later reduced to the five dimensions listed below (parasuraman, berry, & zeithaml, 1991).  tangibles: appearance of personnel, communication materials used, equipment, and physical facilities.  reliability: ability to perform the promised service dependably and accurately.  responsiveness: willingness to assist customers and provide quick service.  assurance: knowledge and civility of employees and their aptitude to inspire trust and assurance in the customer.  empathy: caring, individualized attention the organization provides its customers. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g-c. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 1-20. 4 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 1-20, doi: 10.18060/23228 copyright © 2019 godwin-charles ogbeide. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. the servqual concept of service quality also shares the same potential for effectiveness as the rest of the above service concepts if the service employees are well trained and empowered with the right intelligence to carry out the service dimensions. servperf concept of service quality: brady and cronin’s (2001) concept of service quality suggested three primary levels:  interaction quality: based on three sub-dimensions of experience, attitude, and behavior.  physical environment quality: based on three sub-dimensions of social factors, ambient conditions, and design.  outcome quality: based on three sub-dimensions of waiting time, valence, and tangibles. servperf, like the other four service concepts, could be effective if the service employees are well trained and willing to provide an engaging and delightful service experience. therefore, how can the service employees be inspired with the right intelligence and empowerment to provide reliable, quality service for a delightful experience? this question and the above five concepts of service quality are the antecedents of the purpose of this study, hospitality intelligence. inspirational training the competence and enthusiasm of frontline employees is extremely important because of its direct impact on customers’ experience of service quality (ottenbacher, gnoth, & jones, 2006). customers often rate a service generally on the service obtained from employees (parasuraman, zeithaml, & berry, 1985); thus, the attitudes and habits of frontline employees can substantially influence customers’ experiences and service quality. therefore, organizations should find ways to effectively influence their service workers’ attitudes and habits so that they can consistently deliver high-quality services (hartline, maxham, & mckee, 2000). because of service employees’ direct impact on customers’ experience, they are immensely vital to the success of their organizations (zeithaml & bitner, 2006). bearing the above in mind, it is very important for frontline employees to be endowed with technical and interpersonal skills necessary for optimal job performance (hochschild, 1983). for a successful new service development (nsd), employee training deserves high priority and should be guided by a cautiously structured approach (ottenbacher et al., 2006). it is encouraged for nsd not to only improve general skills, but also improve the employees’ interpersonal skills to enhance customer experience (ottenbacher et al., 2006). an effective service training and development would change employees’ attitudes, knowledge, skills, and/or social behavior (ottenbacher et al., 2006). if a service organization wants to enjoy a competitive advantage via its human resources, it is essential for the organization to invest in the critical training programs needed to ensure that the service employees have the appropriate competencies and abilities (ottenbacher et al., 2006). technical and interpersonal skills are not certainly bestowed on all employees as traits. some may have some of these skills, while others may not. hence, these skills require a reasonable amount of training and development, which might be different from the previous ways many organizations are currently training their employees. bearing the above in mind, it is therefore vital for service providers to find ways to effectively enhance their employees’ attitudes and behaviors in order to rely on their ability to deliver high-quality services at the right https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g-c. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 1-20. 5 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 1-20, doi: 10.18060/23228 copyright © 2019 godwin-charles ogbeide. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. time. this phenomenon may require some form of employees’ inspiration, empowerment, and intelligence to make the right decision at the right time to enhance the customer’s experience. thus, initiating a reliable service training and development approach for inspiring and empowering service employees is critical for enhancing frontline employees’ ability to ensure consistent quality service and delightful experience. a past study shows that empowerment attributes of employees, which enable guests to perceive employees as knowledgeable about the organization’s policies and authorized to make appropriate decisions, positively impacts guests’ satisfaction with the complaint process, make the guests feel welcome and understood, as well as a great predictor of overall guests’ satisfaction with the organization (ogbeide, boser, harrington, & ottenbacher, 2017). considering all the above information, an effective training approach for continuous quality service and delightful experience should include the following:  the necessary technical skills for providing a delightful experience  the necessary inspiration to evoke needed empathy and friendliness for a delightful experience  employee empowerment with the right intelligence to make proper service decisions at the right time thus, this is the significance of inspirational training. the potential service employees described above would require ‘inspirational training.’ the author defines inspirational training as a form of training that would inspire and empower employees to do the right thing at the right time for customer delight. inspirational training is more than mere orientation and induction at work; it requires empathy simulation to help the employees understand and feel the importance of their role in the organization. it would include simulations that would help the employees see the paradigm of their potential customers, understand their needs and desires, feel empowered, as well as develop the ability to utilize hospitality intelligence to provide them with the right service at the right time for a delightful experience. figure 1. a model of inspirational training plan the main goal of inspirational training is to develop employees to provide customer delight or delightful experience. collins english dictionary defined delight as “a feeling of very great https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g-c. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 1-20. 6 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 1-20, doi: 10.18060/23228 copyright © 2019 godwin-charles ogbeide. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. pleasure.” bearing this definition in mind, customer delight can be described as customer’s feeling of great pleasure or enjoyment. therefore, for an organization to provide a delightful experience, it would need someone or something that can provide great pleasure (happiness, joy, excitement or enjoyment) for customers. this is the essence of hospitality intelligence, to provide customers with the right service at the right time for a delightful experience. hospitality intelligence hospitality: generally speaking, hospitality is associated with hospitality organizations. these organizations are aware of the importance of welcoming guests to their organizations. the organizations are expected to develop service principles that are based on hospitable behaviors. this is why past studies suggest that frontline employees in the hospitality and tourism organizations should possess technical and interpersonal skills for optimal performance (hochschild, 1983). as indicated above, hospitality synonyms include friendliness, warmth, welcome, kindness, openness, etc. according to merriam webster’s dictionary, hospitality is the generous and friendly treatment of guests and visitors. collins english dictionary defined hospitality as “friendly, welcoming behavior toward guests or people you have just met.” according to the macmillan dictionary, hospitality is the “friendly and generous behavior toward visitors and guests, intended to make them feel welcome.” considering the above definitions, it suffices to say that hospitality is a social science (psychology) that refers to the friendly, empathetic, and kind way of attending to people. connecting hospitality with intelligence would present a good description of hospitality intelligence. thus, what is intelligence? intelligence: for many decades, the study of intelligence was mainly based on the use of cognition abilities (e.g., wechsler, 1939; piaget, 1972). recently, more approaches to understanding intelligence were proposed by theorists such as gardner (1983) and sternberg (1988). one of the most recent domains of intelligence is “emotional intelligence” (goleman, 1995). this particular domain of intelligence was based on the experience and expression of emotions. presently several models of emotional intelligence provide different theoretical frameworks for conceptualizing this particular domain of intelligence. these models indicate different views on the domain of emotional intelligence. it could be inferred that gardner (1983) concepts of intrapersonal and interpersonal intelligences provided a foundation for later models of emotional intelligence. the concept of emotional intelligence was initiated by salovey and mayer (1990). it was later revised to emphasize the cognitive components of emotional intelligence and its ability for intellectual and emotional growth (salovey, mayer, goldman, turvey, & palfai, 1995). currently, this domain of intelligence is readily adopted by all sorts of professionals (e.g., educators, business organizations, medical practitioners, arts and entertainment industry, etc.) across the world. according to collins english dictionary, the real meaning of intelligence is “the ability to think, reason, and understand instead of doing things automatically or by instinct.” the macmillan dictionary defined intelligence as “the ability to understand and think about things, and to gain and use knowledge.” bearing the above in mind, it suffices to say that intelligence is more than analytical skills. for hunters, intelligence might be foraging skills or https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g-c. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 1-20. 7 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 1-20, doi: 10.18060/23228 copyright © 2019 godwin-charles ogbeide. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. survival skills. for linguists, intelligence might be language skills. for musicians, intelligence might be music composition skills. for hospitality professionals, intelligence might be hospitality skills. hence, hospitality intelligence refers to the ability to deliberately attend to people with friendliness, empathy, and kindness (see figure 2). these ideas of intelligence were supported by howard gardner’s theory of multiple intelligence, which differentiates intelligence into specific 'modalities,' instead of seeing human intelligence as one general ability (gardner, 1983). howard gardner proposed this model in his 1983 book, frames of mind: the theory of multiple intelligences. he argues that humans possess eight or more relatively independent intelligences. humans draw on these intelligences, corporately, and individually, to create products and resolve challenges in various context (gardner, 1983). figure 2. hospitality intelligence defined dimensions of hospitality intelligence the dimension of hospitality intelligence was developed from an extensive review of literature followed by a preliminary analysis of hospitable behaviors. the result of the review is organized into seven main dimensions of hospitality intelligence. these seven dimensions were discovered to be hospitable habits for positive and delightful customer experience. these habits indicate the importance of going above and beyond the customer’s needs for a great experience in any organization. the seven main dimensions of hospitality intelligence include (1) enthusiasm, (2) acknowledgment, (3) friendliness, (4) respect, (5) empathy, (6) kindness, and (7) gratitude. enthusiasm: the first dimension of hospitality intelligence is enthusiasm. collins english dictionary defined enthusiasm as “great eagerness to be involved in a particular activity that you like and enjoy or that you think is important.” for hospitality professionals, enthusiasm refers to the eagerness, passion, and excitement the employees exude when they are in front of a customer/guest. this enthusiasm can be detected in the employee body language and tone of voice. communication not only encompasses verbal and written language, but body language https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g-c. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 1-20. 8 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 1-20, doi: 10.18060/23228 copyright © 2019 godwin-charles ogbeide. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. during face-to-face encounters communicate quite a lot as well. non-verbal communication is all of the ways we act, facial expressions, arm and body positioning, reactions, etc. (michael, 1999). enthusiasm could be detected in frontline employees’ expressions and willingness to assist a customer. most frontline employees would express their willingness to help by saying: “may i help you?” this is good verbal communication of the employee’s willingness to help. however, how the employee asked the question and her/his body language is a great indication of the employee’s real willingness and enthusiasm to help. if you want to communicate candid desire and enthusiasm to serve your customers, you must be mindful of your body movement, facial expressions, attitudes, tone of voice, gestures, and interactions-posture (michael, 1999). human body language is unique and could be interpreted as our actual feelings than words. it not uncommon to ask a loved one if she or he is okay. the person asking knew just by looking at her or his body language that something was wrong. similarly, customers could detect employees’ enthusiasm when welcoming them to an organization via their verbal and non-verbal communication. these verbal and non-verbal communications are often the first impression the guests will encounter in any organization. an amazing first impression would lay the foundation for a great experience. this is why the enthusiasm of the employee is a critical dimension of hospitality intelligence. in college, enthusiasm is associated with good attitudes toward facilitators (natof & romanczyk, 2009). work productivity is also associated with the influence of enthusiasm (rimanto & ali, 2018). some of the common descriptions of facilitator’s enthusiasm in previous studies include the following: (1) frequent, expressive or friendly gestures, (2) varied, stagy body movements, (3) waggling, wide open eyes, (4) rapid, inspirational, and varied voice, (5) choice of varied words, (6) varied, excited facial expression, (7) cheerful overall energy level, and (8) ready lively acceptance of ideas and moods (bettencourt, gillett, gall, & hull, 1983; brigham, scruggs, & mastropieri, 1992). the author postulate that the ability of each employee to demonstrate enthusiasm at work would enhance stakeholder’s delight and engagement. acknowledgement: the second dimension of hospitality intelligence is acknowledgement. the importance of acknowledging customers cannot be over enumerated. according to the macmillan dictionary, acknowledgement is “something that you say or do in order to show that you accept that something exists or is true.” whenever we first encounter a customers in our organization, how do we acknowledge their presence of existence? the combination of the employee’s enthusiasm and acknowledgement could initiate or be the first impression that could define the customer’s experience at this organization. employees could acknowledge their stakeholders by smiling, nodding, greeting, etc. in the hospitality and industry, smiling is viewed as a natural means of communication, displaying positive and cheerful attitudes, and welcoming others (michael, 1999). the act of smiling draws attention to the person and helps others feel more comfortable. for this reason, when interviewing potential employees, one of the more substantial hotel chains is said to exclude candidates who were reported as smiling less than four times in the interview (michael, 1999). smiling comes naturally to hospitality professionals, and it is something they enjoy doing. smiling has many benefits, a few are that those who smile are more energized, and appear more approachable, friendly, relaxed, open, and comfortable (michael, 1999). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g-c. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 1-20. 9 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 1-20, doi: 10.18060/23228 copyright © 2019 godwin-charles ogbeide. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. in addition to smiling, eye contact is another way to acknowledge customers. in the hospitality industry, eye contact is a valuable tool because looking someone in the eye implies their presence is acknowledged and, in that moment, they are the most important person (michael, 1999). eye contact tells the person that you’re listening while failing to make eye contact implies that the person is not important enough for full attention. recognition is the most important takeaway from eye contact, and a simple glance is not enough. in the majority of cases, eye contact lasts around one second, and then people look away. however, it is recommended that the initial person making the eye contact should look about 2-3 seconds – but not stare at people as it can come off as intimidating (michael, 1999). so, someone doesn’t feel uncomfortable; it is important to break eye contact periodically during the interaction but ensure the person feels listened to. for eye contact, it is encouraged to focus on the other person’s chin, mouth, or side of their face when interacting. however, eye contact norms and expectations vary in other cultures. in western society, long eye contact is uncomfortable, and no eye contact is rude. in latin america, eye contact is associated with one’s status, and in japanese culture, eye contact is impolite. no matter what the culture is, the author postulate that the knowledge and skills to acknowledge the stakeholders in the best possible way would enhance the stakeholder’s experience and delight. friendliness: the third dimension of hospitality intelligence is friendliness. collins english dictionary defined a friendly person as someone who “behave in a pleasant, kind way, and like to be with other people.” friendly employees are sociable, affable, and approachable. friendly employees have the interpersonal skills to create an amiable relationship with a customer. in the service provider-customer relationship, interpersonal social factors are essential in creating a personal bond (hausman, 2004). this is because social interactions impact customer-service provider relationships (goodwin & gremler, 1996). social benefits can be collected when customer and service provider relationships are cultivated by means of personal associations (dwyer, schurr, & oh, 1987; wilson & jantrania, 1995). customers are much more likely to return friendly behaviors when they identify the service employee as friendly, engage in conversation, and are open to starting a relationship (price & arnould, 1999). positive social skills, such as friendliness, in employees, can bring about positive emotions, social benefits, and friendship from customers. as time passes, these components help build a foundation of service friendship (gwinner, gremler, & bitner, 1998; price & arnould, 1999). friendship contributes to an individual’s own life value, which directly influences happiness and creates a stronger sense of self-worth when one knows they are valued by others (leibowitz, 2018). past research has shown that customers are more willing to comply when employees are friendly and show concern for the customer (korsch, gozzi, & francis, 1968). compliance of customers changes over time when impacted by social interactions with service providers (hausman, 2004). friendly behaviors practiced by service providers bring about personal connections, therefore enhancing positive emotional responses and want to reward providers by seeming compliant (vale, jelinek, best, & santamaria, 2002). other studies have also conveyed a connection amid interpersonal interactions and compliance of customers (hughes, 2003; loden & schooler, 2000; say & thompson, 2003). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g-c. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 1-20. 10 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 1-20, doi: 10.18060/23228 copyright © 2019 godwin-charles ogbeide. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. friendship and personal connections, and the level of reciprocation of those relations among consumer and salesperson are the primary outcomes of company sales (mavondo & rodrigo, 2001). other studies have shown that there are social benefits that arise from interpersonal relationships among customers and service providers and these relationships can significantly influence service outcomes (foster & cadogan, 2000; johnson, barksdale, & boles, 2003; guenzi & pelloni, 2004). some suggest that more significant employee and customer relationship closeness (barns, 1997; guenzi & pelloni, 2004), friendly interactions (johnson & zinkhan, 1991), and friendships (price & arnould, 1999) leads to further customer satisfaction. in addition, customers who don’t have personal relationships with employees are not typically as satisfied as those customers who develop personal relationships with a particular employee (gutek, bhappu, liao-troth, & cherry, 1999). friendship adds to a person’s sense of own selfworth, therefore contributing to happiness in both individuals in a friendly relationship (leibowitz, 2018). the importance of friendly employees cannot be undermined. bearing the above in mind, if employees have the ability to be sociable and exhibit friendly behaviors with the right interpersonal skills, stakeholder’s experience would be greatly enhanced. respect: the fourth dimension of hospitality intelligence is respect. according to mcdougall, lasswell, and chen (1980), respect is the innermost value of human rights. it can be defined as an inter-relationship amid humans whereby they mutually understand one another’s freedoms, worthiness, and equality (mcdougall et al., 1980). gaut (1986) describes respect as an attitude essential in justifying ethical actions among individuals. past studies revealed that most researchers agreed that respect is the core principle for caring exchanges (browne, 1993; carper, 1979; gaut, 1986; kelly, 1990). a key characteristic of the caring process is respect, and according to browne, (1993) it is assumed to stem from a profound interest in humanity. fenton (1987) brought the notion of humanistic care to light, and it is associated with several of the same values as respect, such as equality, worthiness of an individual, freedom of action, and uniqueness of an individual. from the caregiver’s perspective, respect has been defined as any interaction with patients in which recognize their existence, uniqueness, and individuality (forrest, 1989). other elements of caring, some of the practical examples of respect for service employees include an interested manner, eye contact throughout encounters, wide range of tone of voice, appropriate body language, wide range of facial expressions, etc. actions of exclusion were also examined and associated with disrespect, such as no eye contact, being rushed or too casual, flat tone of voice, dismissive statements, etc. (drew, 1986). some other behaviors that might be disrespectful when a customer approaches a service worker include laughing disrespectfully, talking with coemployee, or making wrong gestures, especially with a customer from a different culture. obvious for service employees to appropriately grasp the habit of respecting different customers from different culture, require proper training. thus, the importance of inspirational training of each service worker for hospitality intelligence to exhibit the habit of proper respect for each customer cannot be over enumerated. such training will incorporate the proper way to revere, admire, and value a stakeholder for an delightful stakeholder’s experience. empathy: the fifth dimension of hospitality intelligence is empathy. empathy can be defined as the feeling of concern and sympathetic emotions towards another individual. empathy https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g-c. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 1-20. 11 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 1-20, doi: 10.18060/23228 copyright © 2019 godwin-charles ogbeide. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. is considered a significant predictor of helpful behavior (dovidio, piliavin, schroeder, & penner, 2006). empathy brings forth motivation to decrease the distress of others; it is also regarded as a driving force behind helpful behavior in a number of circumstances. bearing the above in mind, empathy can be described as the ability to understand the paradigm of others and show compassion and sympathetic emotions towards them. over the years, researchers have focused on improving knowledge of the difference between altruistic motivation provoked by empathy where a person becomes motivated to decrease the distress of another person, and egoistic motivation provoked by one’s own distress where a person becomes motivated to decrease the distress they personally feel in response to witnessing someone else’s distress (batson, 1991; batson et al., 1988). more recent studies have focused on empathetic concern and potentially motivating antecedents (e.g., batson, eklund, chermok, hoyt, & ortiz, 2007; batson et al., 2003; batson, lishner, cook, & sawyer, 2005). the type of motivation that empathy inspires is important because each motivation-type enacted has varying effects on the continuance and frequency of helpful behaviors. autonomous motivation not only increases helpful behaviors, but it positively impacts the person being helped, as well as the well-being of the helper (pavey, greitemeyer, & sparks, 2012). for instance, in an experimental study conducted by weinstein and ryan (2010), the researchers discovered that helpful behaviors, if motivated autonomously, were much more beneficial to the well-being of the helper when compared to controlled motivators. empathy is associated with autonomous motivation, which means if a service worker’s helpful behaviors are based on empathy, the helpful behavior will be very beneficial to the well-being of the service worker while enhancing the experience of the customer (pavey et al., 2012). pavey et al., (2012) also reported that empathy’s positive correlation to help others and its overall inclination to offer to help others is based on the conversion of emotional involvement to autonomous motivation to help, which affects one’s willingness to help others. this type of helpful behavior (based on empathy) is very sustainable because empathetic concern inspired more helpful behaviors. other studies have confirmed that autonomous motivation to help can increase the helper and help the recipient’s wellbeing (e.g., thoits & hewitt, 2001; weinstein & ryan, 2010). meanwhile, when one experiences empathy, they may continue to participate in continued helping behaviors, which is beneficial to the helper as well as the help recipient. obviously, it is very important for service workers to have empathy. thus, incorporating empathy that is based on autonomous motivation into the training design (inspirational training) of the workers, would inspire the necessary helpful behaviors to create a delightful stakeholder’s experience. kindness: the sixth dimension of hospitality intelligence is kindness. collins english dictionary defined kindness as “the quality of being gentle, caring, and helpful.” the above definition shows that kindness is the epitome of humanity, the act of generosity or helpfulness to others. the act of kindness may be in the form of advice, directions, luggage assistance, free accommodation (charity), etc. (filep, macnaughton & glover, 2017). strangers are pressured to act generously when kindness is expected as part of the social role of the host or ‘donor’ (buchanan & bardi, 2010). for instance, it is expected of tourism professionals to help tourists and exemplify helpful behaviors. many tourists have shared positive stories of experiencing kindness from strangers while traveling. according to filep et al., (2017), kindness enhanced the https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g-c. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 1-20. 12 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 1-20, doi: 10.18060/23228 copyright © 2019 godwin-charles ogbeide. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. well-being, self-confidence, and self-actualization of those who expressed the acceptance of kindness. intentions of ‘donors’ were examined and altruism emerged as a common theme as the respondents (recipients of kindness) were sure that the ‘donor’ acted without expecting something in return or underlying motives (filep et al., 2017). one past study indicated the importance of showing altruistic kindness (filep et al., 2017). bearing the above in mind, it is obvious that the act of kindness should be unselfish and given selflessly. a real act of kindness should not be based on what the benefactor may receive in return. the return on kindness is psychological, emotional, and imperceptible. the person showing the act of kindness and the person receiving it will both experience some form of happiness based on emotional well-being, personal growth, self-confidence, self-actualization and social capital (emmons & shelton, 2002; filep et al., 2017; sirgy & uysal, 2016). the act of kindness is very inspiring in the sense that recipients of kindness often want to be kind to the person showing them kindness (filep et al., 2017). according to a study on “tourism and gratitude: valuing acts of kindness,” all of the respondents of the study expressed their willingness to return the favor to their benefactors. in addition, they felt this way no matter how much time had passed since the initial act of kindness (filep et al., 2017). imagine how powerful the act of kindness could be if all employees are kind to one another. also, imagine the delightful experience that could be created between an employee and a customer. such acts of kindness would not only enhance the organization but have a positive impact on all the organization’s stakeholders. thus, incorporating the impact of showing altruistic kindness into the training design (inspirational training) of all service employees would inspire the necessary altruistic kind behaviors in employees to create a delightful customer’s experience. gratitude: the seventh dimension of hospitality intelligence is gratitude. emmons and shelton (2002) assert that gratitude is, in essence, thankfulness. it encompasses the act of recognizing what you are given and remembering good fortune that comes your way, as well as living life in a way that helps you see everything as a miracle. gratitude has also been defined as the awareness and thankfulness of the good in life (park & peterson, 2006). in past literature, gratitude has been identified in two ways – first, as a virtue which is a favorable practice that signifies quality in one’s character and second, as an optimistic emotional response to life (emmons & shelton, 2002). when defined as an emotional response to life, gratitude is described as an interpersonal emotion as it cannot be concentrated on oneself. gratitude is displayed through ‘well-meaning intentions’ in situations where one is feeling loved or valued because they have received kindness from others (emmons & shelton, 2002). according to heider (1958), people show signs of gratitude when others intentionally provide them with a reward or benefit. emmons and shelton (2002) describe gratitude as ‘‘wonder, thankfulness, and appreciation for life” (pg. 460). a past study distinguished between two types of gratitude: state gratitude and trait gratitude (wood, maltby, stewart, linley, & joseph, 2008). state gratitude describes the way individuals experience gratitude following the acceptance of an act of kindness, including the nature and the extent of gratitude. trait gratitude surfaces as a person’s ability to experience thankfulness (wood et al., 2008). based on the above, gratitude can be described as thankfulness, appreciativeness, or gratefulness by the recipient of kindness. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g-c. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 1-20. 13 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 1-20, doi: 10.18060/23228 copyright © 2019 godwin-charles ogbeide. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. philosophical understandings of gratitude differ from the above-mentioned emotional and psychological definitions. philosophically, gratitude is considered a virtue which is highly valued. this view is shared among various historical and religious writings, such as christian, hebrew, and greco-roman. through this lens, gratitude is viewed as a duty or moral obligation (berger, 1975; meilaender, 1984) that is owed to others. according to berger (1975), the donor acts in an altruistic and virtuous manner, and the recipient is grateful. this understanding of gratitude is common in ethical writing, especially religious ethical writing (camenisch, 1981). figure 3. conceptualization of hospitality intelligence numerous researchers have studied the impact of gratitude on mental and physical well-being and found positive correlations (emmons & mccullough, 2003; watkins, woodward, stone, & kolts, 2003). through practicing thankfulness, humans become happier with enhanced resiliency; gratitude has been shown to strengthen relationships while also easing strain and enhancing health and self-esteem (sheldon & lyubomirsky, 2006; toepfer & walker, 2009). according to wood, joseph, and maltby (2008), gratitude actually serves as a strong predictor of life satisfaction. gratitude has also been linked to other positive outcomes, including life satisfaction, happiness, subjective well-being, optimism, pro-social behaviors (chan, 2013; froh, yurkewicz, & kashdan, 2009; mccullough, emmons, & tsang, 2002). in a study on college students, gratitude was demonstrated to have a positive relationship with happiness and was found to be an important predictor for happiness (kausar, 2018). these https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g-c. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 1-20. 14 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 1-20, doi: 10.18060/23228 copyright © 2019 godwin-charles ogbeide. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. findings are supported by a number of works (sheldon & lyubomirsky, 2006; watkins et al., 2003; toepfer & walker, 2009; sun, jiang, chu, & qian, 2014). to top it all off, experiencing gratitude inspires recipients to reciprocate it to their benefactors and act generously to third parties. demonstrations of gratitude also inspire benefactors to continue to act generously (kausar, 2018). obviously, the ability for each employee to demonstrate gratitude at work would enhance stakeholder’s delight and experience. thus, incorporating the impact of showing gratitude into the training design (inspirational training) would enhance employees’ inspiration and empowerment to do the right thing at the right time for a delightful stakeholder’s experience. conclusion and implications conclusion: this seminal study was based on a general review. the result of the study shows that various hospitality intelligence dimensions have had incredible impacts on stakeholders’ happiness, well-being, stronger sense of self-worth, personal growth, selfconfidence, social capital, self-actualization, optimism, pro-social behaviors, and positive experience (see figure 4). leeming’s (2016) study on iceland hosts’ interactions with tourists had similar findings regarding the interpersonal significance of some of the dimensions of hospitality intelligence (kindness and gratitude). the participants of the study stated that the kindness they had encountered positively affected their appreciation of other people and cultures (leeming, 2016). other researchers like (wijesinghe, 2013) propose that virtue and authentic kindness have fallen to the wayside in tourism and hospitality because of profit-maximizing commercialism requirements. leeming (2016) also suggested that the nature of tourism, generally speaking, has the power to link strangers and draw them together, although briefly, which creates a unique context for studying kindness and gratitude. obviously, the review of literature revealed the positive impacts of the hospitality intelligence dimensions. however, hospitality intelligence is only as good as the facilitator of hospitality intelligence. thus, the importance of “inspirational training” to inspire and empower the employees to do the right thing at the right time to create a delightful experience for customers. figure 1 provides a model of inspirational training plan that can be utilized by organizations and human resource professionals to design an inspirational training model that could inspire and empower employees to do the right thing at the right time for a delightful stakeholder’s experience. implications for management: organizations interested in enhancing their customer experience potential would find hospitality intelligence useful for their frontline employees’ ability to deliver a delightful and engaging experience. fostering an inspirational training approach to enhance hospitality intelligence of service workers can benefit hospitality and tourism stakeholders by ensuring that the employees have the inspiration and empowerment to provide the best hospitality service possible at all times. in the suggestion for further research an important theme to be mindful of is the empirical identification of factors associated with delightful and hospitable service experience in different organizations and communities. increasingly, the importance of hospitality is gradually https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g-c. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 1-20. 15 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 1-20, doi: 10.18060/23228 copyright © 2019 godwin-charles ogbeide. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. transparent in many organizations. thus, it is necessary to further justify the importance of hospitality intelligence for a delightful and engaging customer experience. further studies are needed to elaborate on the significance of the hospitality intelligence dimensions (enthusiasm, acknowledgement, friendliness, respect, empathy, kindness, and gratitude) on stakeholder’s experience (see figure 4). such studies would place hospitality at the forefront of all organizations, just like human resources. the implications of such studies would further justify the significance of hospitality intelligence in many sectors of the society including business organization, educational institutions, medical/health care facilities, retirement/nursing homes, religious organizations, and different communities and organizations around the world. figure 4. a model of hospitality intelligence dimensions’ impact theoretical implications: it is obvious that hospitality studies are in the primary stage of development with outstanding scope for theoretical growths. reviewing the literature on various hospitality intelligence dimensions described above, as well as the impacts on various stakeholders, indicates the potential concepts/theories that could be developed base on the hospitality intelligence phenomenon. in the hospitality and tourism industry, there are many business approaches and concepts to management, these approaches will continue to be useful, but it is necessary to employ the necessary psychology to enhance hospitality. many psychologists are publishing articles that are based on hospitality service quality. the appeal from other disciplines is boosting the number of hospitality or service quality papers in sociology, psychology, marketing, economics, and other methodical publications. a comprehensive range of methodologies from various closely related professional fields are suitable and important for enhancing knowledge and developing theory related to hospitality intelligence. general organizational implications: ‘hospitality intelligence’ includes the necessary skills needed in both academics and service practitioners’ organizations. but the driving force of hospitality intelligence is quality service for a delightful experience. accordingly, most of the https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g-c. (2019) / events and tourism review, 2(1), 1-20. 16 events and tourism review vol. 2 no. 1 (spring 2019), 1-20, doi: 10.18060/23228 copyright © 2019 godwin-charles ogbeide. this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. themes used in the discourse are in relation to quality service, customer experience, and customer delight and engagement. these themes are very important to the hospitality and tourism industry as well as other organizations interested in providing a delightful and engaging customer experience. the literature review makes it very obvious that the benefits of the hospitality intelligence dimensions apply to every human being. hence, the importance of hospitality intelligence is not merely for delightful and engaging customer experience, but also for delightful and engaging stakeholders and working environment of any organization. this is a seminal paper on hospitality intelligence. more contributions in regard to hospitality intelligence would create an empirical foundation upon which a delightful and hospitable service can be readily measured. this study is part of the first stage in developing a concise, reliable, and valid dimensions of hospitality intelligence. the proposed inspirational training of frontline employees or service workers should be based on a comprehensive model of hospitality intelligence. more studies are encouraged to look into the empirical analysis of each hospitality intelligence dimension and further study the impact of each dimension on customer delight and experience in several organizations. in addition, researchers should also look into the empirical impact of hospitality intelligence in various communities to further enhance the importance of hospitality intelligence in society. references acknowledgement (n. d.). in macmillan dictionary online. retrieved from https://www.macmillandictionary.com/us/dictionary/american/acknowledgment?q=ackno wledgement batson, c. d. 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(2008). a social-cognitive model of trait and state levels of gratitude. emotion, 8(2), 281–290. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 29-39, doi: 10.18060/26123 copyright © 2022 lilian wanyonyi, joseph njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review june 2022 volume 5 no. 1 beating odds in post pandemic times: lessons from world rally championship 2021 lilian wanyonyi joseph njoroge richard juma murang’a university of technology, kenya correspondence: alicialily0@gmail.com (l. wanyonyi) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. & juma, r. (2022). beating odds in post pandemic times: lessons from world rally championship 2021. events and tourism review, 5(1), 29-39. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. & juma, r. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 29-39. 30 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 29-39, doi: 10.18060/26123 copyright © 2022 lilian wanyonyi, joseph njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract the novel corona virus pandemic has brought unprecedented impacts on different sectors of economies in countries across the globe. sports tourism being the worst hit. sports tourism events are important vehicles of development and mostly embedded in the development plans of many countries. they have been associated with promotion of socio-economic well-being to the host communities. despite the wide spread of the pandemic, most countries are on the road to recoveries by adopting resilient measures to revamp tourism industry from the shocks of the pandemic. kenya hosted the world rally championship in 2021 as a post pandemic measure to promote sports and tourism industries. the purpose of this paper is to bring to the prominence the benefits of hosting this event in kenya amidst the pandemic to the host community. the paper adopted a qualitative research design where by 12 key sports and tourism stakeholders were interviewed during the event hosting period. the results indicated that despite the pandemic, the event generated both social and economic benefits to the hosts. key recommendations were made. keywords: sports tourism, events, covid 19, effects background sport tourism industry has witnessed a momentous growth and development, as an area of research attention and as socio-economic growth strategy for many countries, globally. (nyikana & tichaawa, 2018, hemmonsbey & tichaawa, 2018; hinch & higham, 2011; nyikana, 2016; saayman, 2012; tichaawa et al., 2018). nyikana & tichaawa, 2018 and tichaawa et al. (2018), assert that sport tourism events, have played a great role in this growth of sport tourism. getz & page (2016) add on that, events are fundamental in marketing of host cities. the popularity of sport tourism events is linked to the fact that they leverage substantial benefits for host communities worldwide depending on the duration of hosting, type of event and size of event. sport tourism has been renowned as an ideal vehicle that leads to employment generation and a tool for enhancing the quality of lives of the host community (hemmonsbey & tichaawa, 2018; nyikana, 2016; saayman, 2012; tichaawa et al., 2018). these benefits include, social, economic environmental and cultural (wanyonyi, njoroge & juma 2021). additionally, chalip (2014) and fairley, lovegrove, & brown (2016) state that events attract tourists who stay and spend money, before, during and after hosting of events. sports events also attract investors in host cities who bring in economic benefits to the local thus promoting local economy development. therefore, the synergies between the hosting of sports tourism events and tourism development for instance increasing tourist arrivals, curbing the seasonality of tourism, employment, boosting of business and increased tax revenue have often been analyzed in extant literature (meurer & lins, 2018; duglio & beltramo, 2017; li & jago, 2013; khodr 2012). the effects of mega events are widely discussed in sports tourism literature (hinch & higham, 2011). these mega sports events comprise of cultural events, festivals and international events such as the olympics and fifa world cup. these high-profile events have high attendance of sports tourists thus increasing their role in creation of economic benefits to the locals and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. & juma, r. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 29-39. 31 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 29-39, doi: 10.18060/26123 copyright © 2022 lilian wanyonyi, joseph njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. promoting the image of the hosting destination. while mega-events are one off time events in a country, there exist a number of other small-scale sport tourism events which are hosted more oftenly and have become synonymous and influential to the host community’s livelihoods. however, these small-scale events have received little research attention such as the marathons and safari rallies. as put forward by njoroge et al, (2017) small events have been preferred by many reviewers in sports research because mega events have received much criticism on their inability to leverage positive benefits to the host communities especially in the context of the developing nations. in spite of this, there is limited academic research focus on sports tourism potential to promote socioeconomic well-being to hosts through small scale events. at these levels of sport events, negative effects are minimized, while the tourism development benefits that they bring remains largely under researched (higham, 1999; mosko & poczta, 2018). to date, much of the economic impact research have been based on mega-event impact. (njoroge et al, 2017). there exists a research gap in relation to the analysis of economic effects of small-scale events from a local context (kwiatkowski & oklevic 2017). covid 19 pandemic and sports tourism tourism industry is highly vulnerable to phenomena like earthquakes, tsunamis, hurricanes, floods and disease (hall, 2010; butler, 2017; lenggogeni et al., 2019; ritchie and jang, 2019, hemmonsbey, tichaawa & knott 2021). the covid-19 outbreak brought the entire globe to halt. the disease originated from wuhan city, china in 2019 and has had an impact in all parts of the world (włoch, 2020). the covid-19 virus has destabilized all sectors of the economies, tourism being the worst hit. countries have been forced to put in place restrictive measures, for contain the disease (rio-chanona, penny, pichler, lanfond & farmer (2020). the pandemic brought a huge shock since the sars outbreak, global financial crisis and the 9/11 terrorism attack (zenker & kock 2020; cheer, 2020). the pandemic has resulted to a turmoil across the global economies with severe effects in all the sectors. according to who (2020), covid-19 had infected more than 60 million people and caused death of over 1 millionworldwide by november 2020 (who, 2020; malra, 2021). many nations closed down all their international borders for tourists. this resulted in total postponing of also domestic tourism as strict restrictions were imposed such as lock downs and curfews. even though some destinations have started to open up for travelers slowly, many are afraid of international travelers. but the long-term closing of borders of countries have impacted adversely the global tourism industry and vast number of job losses (malra2021). the sports sector wasn’t exempted from these restrictions. ratten (2020) reports that the sport tourism sector has been affected by the covid 19 pandemic in a way that has never happened before. all sporting activities were suspended indefinitely in many countries (hammami, harrabi, mohr, krustrup, 2020). major events attract many attendees and have been associated with the rapid spread of a disease such as a close physical contact between sport participants and close proximity between fans can fasten the spread of the virus (memish, steffen, white, dar, azhar, sharma, & zumla, 2020). the pandemic has been an economic blow to many countries through the postponement or cancellation of sport events especially in emerging countries’ contexts. the tokyo olympics was postponed until 2021, world championships, and world cups for were cancelled or postponed and the calendars for most major sports have been severely disrupted with no clear indication yet of how https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. & juma, r. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 29-39. 32 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 29-39, doi: 10.18060/26123 copyright © 2022 lilian wanyonyi, joseph njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. or when this will be resolved. according to unwto report (2020), tourism industry estimated a loss of approximately 1.1 billion international tourist arrivals, with a loss of us$ 910 to 1.1 trillion export revenues and 100-120 million jobs due to the wider spread of the novel coronavirus. similarly in kenya, the pandemic led to postponing of mega events like the annual magical kenya golf championships, wrc championships, iaaf u20 championships among others. it’s beyond doubt that sports events have initially been associated with providing positive socio-economic effects to the hosts (nyikana &tichaawa, 2018) but preventive actions by the different nations had hit hard the sports tourism’s ability to provide socio economic well-being as a way of promoting sustainable sports tourism. the virtual events and social distancing have imposed negative impacts on the livelihood of people and host economies. however, there are rays of hope as the country has opened up the sports sector and allowing the hosting of sports events but with strict adherence to masking, social distancing and promoting vaccination programs among the sports participants. this shows some great light at the end of the tunnel as sports events hosting will continue boosting the worst hit tourism businesses to be back on their feet and adjust with the new normal era. sports tourism events hosted post covid in kenya. despite the grip of the pandemic, kenya has successfully hosted the following international events: magical kenya golf championships the magical kenya open in the season 2021 was hosted in nairobi city early this year. it’s part of the elite european tours golf championships. the event attracted over 156 golfers with over 30 countries represented. the events were broadcasted to over 490 million viewer both locally and internationally. kipkeino classics continental tour it’s a track and field event named after a famous athlete kipchoge keino. it is part of the inaugural world athletics continental tour recognized by iaaf. it was initiated in 2020.the event was held in kasarani stadium in nairobi and attracted both local and international athletics. rhino charge: this is an annual event competition that works towards conservation and protection of the nature. iaaf u20 championships this championship was held this year after it was postponed by a year due to the covid-19 pandemic at the moi international sports centre, kasarani, in nairobi county. it was held in strict adherence to the covid 19 protocols. it attracted more than 900 athletes from 114 countries. world rally championships after a 19-year absence, kenya got the privilege of hosting the wrc, with thousands of fans attending the famous safari rally. it is dubbed as one of the toughest races worldwide and one of its kind in the african soil. it is supported by fia and wrc. it entails 18 stages of rough dirt roads covering the forests and savannah. the event was hosted starting from kasarani in nairobi city and the climax of it was in naivasha, a town on the outskirts of nairobi. it attracted participants, sponsors and fans from all over the world. the event was carried out in strict adherence to covid 19 protocols. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. & juma, r. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 29-39. 33 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 29-39, doi: 10.18060/26123 copyright © 2022 lilian wanyonyi, joseph njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. socio-economic benefits of sports tourism events to the host community host community’s participation in tourism activities in a destination is often liked to sustainable tourism development (jigang & jiuxia, 2007; xu et al., 2019). tosun (2006) elaborates that host community involvement in tourism enhances the achievement of sustainable tourism as a way of fostering inclusion and sharing of benefits derived from the sector. this enables the community to develop and improve their livelihoods (xu, et al., 2019). roberts (2011) adds that the main significance of community participation in tourism development is that the host group that is greatly affected by tourism activities should have a decisive voice in the manner in which the sector evolves within their locality and also external stakeholders being incapable to judge the preferences of hosts effectively. community involvement in tourism activities is a way of maximizing on the socio-economic benefits and also their participation allows for needs of the hosts to be put into consideration during the planning, management and supervision of tourism (jigang & jiuxia, 2007). the aforementioned approach to tourism planning and development has been legalized by the brundtland report of 1987 and the local agenda 21 (roberts, 2011). furthermore, job and paesler (2013) opine that one of the most significant way of poverty-reduction tourism is though host community participation tourism activities. the rapid growth of sports tourism events has led to the development of a niche sector in the global economy that is becoming a priority of many countries (saayman, &saayman 2012; getz 2013; walker, kaplanidou, gibson, thapa, geldenhuys, & coetzee, 2013; nyikana, tichaawa, & swart, 2014, tichaawa & bob, 2015). developing nations developing countries have pursued the development of sports tourism as a socio-economic tool for enhancing local economies fourie & santana-gallego, 2011; gration, raciti, getz & andersson, 2015; tichaawa, swart & bob, 2018). this particular drive has been witnessed in africa whereby many countries are using sports tourism as an economic and social strategic tool (tichaawa et al., 2018). in africa, sport tourism is seen as a way of fast-track economic development (bob & swart, 2010; nyikana, et al., 2014; tichaawa, et al., 2018). this is in relation to that existing literature points on sport tourism being a very powerful and ideal means to achieve in the short-term, socio-economic gains from both sport and tourism, that otherwise would have been achieved in the long-term (nyikana, 2016). however, despite the growing popularity of sport tourism in the continent, specific research on the phenomenon is still largely missing (bob & swart, 2010; hemmonsbey & tichaawa, 2018; tichaawa, 2016). methodology the study was conducted in naivasha town between 22-29th june 2021 during the event. this paper adopted a qualitative research design. interviews were conducted to key industry stakeholders in sports events planning and hosting. a total of 12 participants were interviewed using purposive sampling technique. the stakeholders had a specific background experience in sports tourism events hosting, promotion and management. they included: event sponsors, transport operators, ministry of tourism and wildlife, volunteers, hoteliers, fans and ministry of sports. each interviewee had thirty minutes session with the interviewer. all the 12 interviews were recorded and analyzed. data analysis was done using content analysis. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. & juma, r. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 29-39. 34 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 29-39, doi: 10.18060/26123 copyright © 2022 lilian wanyonyi, joseph njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. results participant quotes were used to show their responses in order to protect the respondents. a number was assigned to each respondent to create anonymity. the following table 1 shows the benefits of hosting wrc and the key recommendations that governments can put in place to revamp sports tourism activities post pandemic. table 1: benefits and recommendations for sports tourism events benefits of hosting wrc recommendations on strengthening the sports tourism sector post-pandemic • increases cultural exchange • hosting of hybrid events • increases interest in sports tourism events • community engagements in sports tourism • improves the reputation of host destination • need for risk mitigation plan in sports tourism sector • enhanced media coverage • need for product diversification • enhanced senses of belonging • mobilizing mass vaccination programs • promotion of cultural events • marketing domestic tourism • provided an opportunity for host visitor interaction • counties to transform their tourism and health sectors to be able to survive crisis • enhanced the self-esteem and recognition among community • putting in place future intervention and resiliency measures for similar pandemic and other risks. • enhanced social cohesion in the community • invest in niche tourism products • provides motivation for conservation of both natural and cultural sites • need for rebranding of destinations post covid 19 • increased chances of exposing the hosts globally • promotes image of hosting community • promotes host identity in a destination • built a reputable picture of host country • increased trade for local community • increased sporting facilities • attracting of investors during and after events • increased community development investments • accelerated community growth • long term promotional benefits socio-economic benefits of world rally championship from the hosting of wrc event in kenya a number of key benefits were highlighted by the respondents as follows: “since covid hit the country, most hotels have been recording low bookings. all https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. & juma, r. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 29-39. 35 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 29-39, doi: 10.18060/26123 copyright © 2022 lilian wanyonyi, joseph njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. hotels in naivasha were fully booked to accommodate over 2,500 rally participants, management and government officials. r10 emphasizing this point, a respondent articulated the unique nature of sports events to local businesses as: “accommodation of that many people was a challenge as there was a high turnout of attendees than expected. some opted for hotels as far as eldoret town and nairobi. r2 “the number of travelers to naivasha and nairobi increased two weeks prior to the events hosting. the public transports and taxis were overwhelmed with bookings during the period. the transport to major tourist attractions in nakuru county also increased during the period. it was a great opportunity to operate to full capacity since the limit was put on the number of customers because of covid 19.” r7 in relation to how the event promoted tourism activities in the rift valley circuit. the respondents had this to say: domestic and international visitors into naivasha wasn’t just for wrc. the championship was like a magnet to hook them to other tourism products in the region. we are going to naivasha, but we can still visit the hells gate national park, lake nakuru national park, lake elementaita, among other attractions in the rift valley like for a week or so. it’s about leveraging on those opportunities created by an event like wrc. the event is here to attract the fans to our beautiful country that is well endowed with natural and cultural attractions “traffic snurls were however witnessed during the event hosting for hours along nakuru-nairobi highway because of high influx of visitors into the town.” r2 “the safari rally has brought some good fortunes. this has influenced a lot of social-economic benefits in the world gripped by the covid-19”. “i am personally delighted. i have had a good sporting treat and impressed by a team from people of diverse background working together. i am proud of this great work outfit and wish you all the best” they said the kenya government will assist the safari rally organizers to achieve the desired goals, adding that the government has been the biggest sponsor of the safari since 2018 when kenya started an ambitious goal to return the iconic motor event to the wrc after 19 years. “for 19 years we have not been in the wrc there were other people working out there. we have had trainers particularly from motorsport uk who have transferred knowledge to our local technical officials,” r8. “we have made several friends and want to have more and we are looking forward to working with all of you from the government.” r4 “the event was fantastic with all the laid down covid procedures being taken into consideration. over 1,200 safety marshals. were deployed to ensure strict adherence to the protocols.” r1 “proper infrastructure was put in place in naivasha to promote future hosting of the events. the local organizers in collaboration with the county and the ministry of sports made plan to provide space and infrastructure where competing teams will put up their own structures like garages and offices. some roads were renovated in preparation for the event.” r11 “the event attracted the local small businesses who were able to sell their merchandise during the event. it brought together the locals who developed pride in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. & juma, r. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 29-39. 36 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 29-39, doi: 10.18060/26123 copyright © 2022 lilian wanyonyi, joseph njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. the event through their spectatorship. interacting with other people from other countries created a sense of belonging and cultural interactions among them. the event was breathtaking and magnificent it defined the beauty of kenya globally.” r5 the event has placed kenya on a global scale and showed its dedication in hosting of the events after 19 years. the event came handy as the country is trying to recovery its economy from the covid 19 pandemic. this will help the already struggling business revamp their operations. in relation on the environmental, implication of the wrc championships, “the event created great sustainability initiatives through wrc greening program. 19 million trees were planted. there was strict observance to ecological degradation by ensuring that the rally doesn’t affect the ecological system and the fauna in the region that is surrounded by a variety of parks and conservancies.” furthermore, the stakeholders in national and county government mentioned the value of sports events on the branding of the host city or town and the value it creates that enhances strengthening of stays and more spending on the auxiliary services thus promoting the local economy. key recommendations on strengthening the sports tourism sector amidst the pandemic the covid 19 has left significant disruptions in the global economy. tourism is a great pillar of the kenyan tourism contributing 10% to the gross domestic product. major destinations have suffered a contraction in revenues as a result of the pandemic especially the local communities whose livelihoods are directly derived from tourism benefits. the following are the key recommendations on rebuilding the sports tourism sector from the respondents. the sector should support product diversification. a high dependency on one tourism product could increase vulnerability when a crisis occurs. niche tourism products like sports tourism should be explored. this will boost resilience and mitigate the cost of crisis shocks additionally with the emergence of vaccines in the country, “mobilization of citizens on the uptake of the vaccine will improve on the mobility and restoration of confidence in international tourism. while the international tourism remains the hardest hit, “boosting the domestic tourism market is more ideal in order to cushion the adverse effects of the virus. sports tourism events has a great potential of enhancing domestic tourism, whenever they are hosted. counties need to formulate sound policies to be able to build more resilient tourism sector, “counties need to invest in transforming their tourism and health sectors so that they can survive future crises.” “there is a need to come up with post-covid-19 reviews of sports tourism and putting in place alternative future intervention and resilience measures for similar pandemics and other risks.” this will help revamp the once most promising sector renown for enhancing the livelihoods of the hosts. discussion the covid 19 pandemic is a unique disaster of the century and crisis that have previously impacted the tourism sector (hall et al, 2020, sigala, 2020). the postponement of the event in 2020 due to the novel covid 19 pandemic had great implication on tourism, hotels and other auxiliaries that rely on tourism. they were greatly affected by the differed demand from the event. however, the decisions to host the event in 2020 came as a great relief when the country as it battles the third https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wanyonyi, l., njoroge, j. & juma, r. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 29-39. 37 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 29-39, doi: 10.18060/26123 copyright © 2022 lilian wanyonyi, joseph njoroge and richard juma this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. wave of the covid-19. kenya is at a road to recovery from the grip of the pandemic. first and foremost, the sports events are not only considered as a vehicle of enhancing sustainable development but also a tool for enhancing the image of the host country. the event contributed to 4 billion for the period of time it was hosted in the country. (standard newspaper, 2020). many research works have analyzed on the economic outcomes of hosting sports tourism on the host cities (tinaz & knott 2021). hemmonsebey, tichaawa and knott (2021) affirm that sports tourism has a potential of providing development opportunity in emerging nations in form of social, economic, cultural and technology enhancements. kenya’s quests to host this event was motivated by the need to promote the society and stimulate its economy as noted by tinaz and knott (2021). in this post pandemic era its evident that sports tourism has risen unwaveringly making many governments in developing countries to be proactive in reopening sports events with strict adherence to covid protocols. this has given many counties an opportunity of developing their sports infrastructure in order to attract sports events hosting. conclusion substantial economic benefits, which tourism scholars refer to as the as pre-legacy, have been accrued for many years before covd 19. it is possible, when tourists’ confidence returns and international travel opens up, that kenya’s aggressive tourism development strategy will regain its momentum. the benefits of small-scale tourism development in the short and long-term are undeniable. wrc being hosted amidst the third wave of the virus is worth an applause for leveraging positive benefits to the hosts in both naivasha and nairobi counties. therefore, countries should come up with proactive policies to revamp sports tourism as a post covid strategy of boosting the tourism sector. this will boost, the domestic tourism market, decrease seasonality and help in diversification of tourism products in the country. furthermore, this will help in building up a more adaptive, resilient and a sustainable sports tourism sector. limitations of the study while the current study was limited to the benefits of hosting sports tourism events post pandemic, there is need for future studies in the field of small-scale events, effects of crises in sports tourism events and how technology can be incorporated in hosting hybrid events post pandemic. additionally, the study looked at a small-scale event using a qualitative data approach, future studies ought to adopt quantitative or mixed research approach basing them on a hall mark events. references bob, u., & swart, k. 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(2020). two dynamics of globalization in the context of a sports mega-event: the case of uefa euro2012 in poland. globalizations, 17, 45–59. who (2020). covid-19; situation report, who: geneva, switzerland, 2020; available online: https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situationreports/20200816-covid-19sitrep-209.pdf?sfvrsn=5dde1ca2_2 (accessed on july 2021). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 16-28, doi: 10.18060/26303 copyright © 2022 huilin bao and maddie mcconnell this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review june 2022 volume 5 no. 1 planning jagathon: commitment and social identities huilin bao maddie mcconnell indiana university purdue university indianapolis correspondence: baov@iu.edu (h. bao) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation huilin bao and maddie mcconnell (2022). planning jagathon: commitment and social identities. events and tourism review, 5(1), 16-28. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr bao, h. & mcconnell, m. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 16-28. 17 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 16-28, doi: 10.18060/26303 copyright © 2022 huilin bao and maddie mcconnell this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract jagathon has been one of the most significant events at iupui which is hosted and planned by iupui students. the study used social identity theory to indicate the planning process of jagathon’s influences on jagathon planners. the researchers conducted a qualitative study by interviewing 8 jagathon planners. the results of the research showed that social identities can be enhanced through the planning of jagathon as planners have gained self-development and found themselves more committed to iupui and themselves. the researchers also found that diversity can lead to increased participation. based on the findings, this study provides some discussions about how iupui can enhance students’ experience and engagement on campus and increase students’ long-term commitment to iupui. keywords: social identity, students’ commitment and engagement, iupui, jagathon, diversity planning jagathon: commitment and social identities how a university affects the cognitive well-being of its students during and well after college has been a developing topic of interest (weidman, 1989). more specifically, the social facet of college becomes the primary reason students resonate with a university and the entities within it. people, in this case students, all socially identify themselves with something or someone. meaning students feel a great sense of belonging and are content with who they are when associated with a given group, brand, or organization. henri tajfel, a well-known psychologist, calls this the social identity theory (mcleod, 2019). this theory clearly presents itself within the planning and executing of jagathon, a 15-hour dance marathon hosted by iupui, with the purpose of fundraising and bringing awareness to pediatric research (iupui student foundation, 2022). jagathon specifically caters to children at riley children’s hospital, and has been serving and inspiring them for over 20 years (iupui student foundation, 2022). the event is bigger than dancing for money, it is a continuous movement of hope driven by passion, and all planned by students on campus that perhaps have the most passion to keep the tradition alive. iupui dedicates an entire class to the planning and organization of jagathon, filled with twenty-five students with various backgrounds and lifestyles (iupui student foundation, 2022). the researchers will target this diverse group of students to ultimately demonstrate that diverse populations can identify with similar groups. due to the focus in such a diverse and interactive environment, the aim of this research is to find out each student's cognitive relationship to jagathon with the purpose of emphasizing the importance of extracurricular activities and their direct effect on alumni retention and new student recruitment. this can be viewed as the ongoing cycle of student involvement, and with this study, the researchers want to discover if jagathon can be an effective tool for the cycle. first, the research will take a deeper dive into the demographic picture of the jagathon executive board. what is their position on the board, gender, ethnicity, and education level? from there the research aims to interpret the students’ motivations and constraints of planning jagathon. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ bao, h. & mcconnell, m. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 16-28. 18 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 16-28, doi: 10.18060/26303 copyright © 2022 huilin bao and maddie mcconnell this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. what are they and why? why do they dedicate their time? once these questions are answered, the research dissects our ultimate research questions: ● how does a planner’s involvement in jagathon affect their social identity to iupui and jagathon itself? ● how has the planning experience affected their long term commitment to iupui and jagathon? the above questions guide the research to ultimately identify various reasons for extracurricular involvement, distinguish the disconnect between social identity and social gaps, and explain the importance of alumni retention. it is important to achieve such objectives because the longevity of iupui programming and student groups is essential for enticing purposes as new students arrive on campus, and retention purposes for alumni impact after earning a degree. the research should fill the social gap that is present in students who struggle to identify with something or someone here at iupui as the study can be an advocate for jagathon, and unveil why social identity is present in the jagathon planners. while the research will indicate the demographic and cognitive make-up of jagathon planners, it is also going to provide insight on one’s attachment to a sole event and why. the findings will supply a better understanding of the cognitive relationship between the planning experience and the students, as the researchers are on a quest to discover each of the planners’ reasons for commitment and identification. the research will discuss the importance of student involvement and how it relates to the overall growth and sustainability of iupui’s heartfelt event. this study will be using a deductive approach while dissecting the social identity theory. with this, the results of the study will interpret how various students at iupui mentally and emotionally identify with jagathon and how it can contribute to student commitment to the university long after graduation. overall, the goal is for this research to assist iupui in meeting and exceeding its students’ social needs. it is essential for iupui to have a sense of belonging for students, as the students can identify with something or someone that will always resonate with them, like jagathon. a theoretical framework this study exists to evaluate the people behind jagathon. it is set out to reveal their motives for planning and how their planning experience influences their social identities while at iupui. the study develops a conceptual model while highlighting the social identity theory. with this theory, the research will provide a more thorough understanding of the catalysts that kickstarted the executive board’s involvement and how jagathon resonates with them so much that they socially identify with this group. in turn, the study will indicate the possibilities of a long-term commitment to iupui for students well beyond graduation and the commonality of interest within diverse populations. ultimately researchers want to unpack how involvement initiates the social identification process within university students. social identity theory proposes that people characterize who they are by affiliating themselves into social groups (fujita, harrigan, soutar, 2018). in fact, social identity is often compared to group identity. rightfully so, as they both imbricate under the identity theory. group refers to the membership in a community of specified others, like a school or organization (davis, love, faris, 2019). on the other hand, social denotes an individual's position within the overall social structure, like race, age, and gender (davis, love, faris, 2019). the two identities represent a https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ bao, h. & mcconnell, m. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 16-28. 19 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 16-28, doi: 10.18060/26303 copyright © 2022 huilin bao and maddie mcconnell this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. single unit and best explain how identities are multifaceted and involve individual, interpersonal, and social processes rooted in social structures (davis, love, faris, 2019). once these identities are pertinent within an experience, individuals begin to validate their affiliation by finding meaning through group interaction (davics, love, faris). in other words, once an individual is aware of their social identification with a group they start to distinguish how and why that is the case. this is a direct reflection of what the researchers intend to do while studying the affiliation of student planners of jagathon and iupui. with all that said, the social identity theory consists of three components: cognitive, affective, and evaluative. all of which are initiated in various situations and involve people who are willing to represent a group at the highest level, while being the best of its kind (fujita, harrigan, soutar, 2018). cognitive refers to the self-awareness one has of their group affiliation. affective, referring to the commitment and emotional bond to their group, resulting in a sense of belonging, enthusiasm, and pride. evaluative, referring to an affiliate's perspective of how the outsiders view the group; in turn, being a self-esteem booster for the affiliate. all of these aspects of social identification arise from meaningful interactions where people establish meanings through verbal and nonverbal exchanges which includes the social channel of shared ideas, values, and traditions (fujita, harrigan, soutar, 2018). similar to how identifying with a sports team can enhance traditions and experience, identifying with a renowned event can enhance rituals and establish history. furthermore, people’s identity with an organization intensifies when it is apparent their affiliation opens doors for other prime social roles (fujita, harrigan, soutar, 2018). with that said, students may identify with iupui more when taking a lead role in jagathon makes them feel heavily supported. with this, the diverse group of students that make up the jagathon executive board, become influencers on campus. meaning inclusivity is present when historically underrepresented communities feel like they belong. what makes this phenomenon even more unique is the longevity of the affiliation attached to that belongingness. methodology the current literature raises the question as to if and how social identity theory is present in a college environment and how that may affect students’ commitment to a given institution. using an ontological approach, this overall question is best acknowledged within a qualitative design to develop insight of student belongingness within jagathon and on iupui’s campus. the researchers noticed that the understanding of students’ cognitive motivations needed to be understood while the reasonings behind these motivations were discovered. consequently, this research was constructed phenomenologically, meaning the researchers set out to explore human experience with a phenomenon, in this case, jagathon (creswell, 2012). this idea dialed in on consciousness within an experience such as an individual's judgments, perceptions, and emotions; simply put how an experience made one feel (connelly 2010). this idea also dialed in on what causes those feelings and how the feelings are maintained. a phenomenological form of study has become a rather popular research perspective to learn about an experience in the humanistic and social science regimens (jamal, pernecky 2010). this construct allowed the researchers to depict subjects’ level of attachment to and involvement within the social experience at hand. data collection the study presented the viewpoints of students who were 18 years of age or older, iupui students or alumni, and affiliates of the jagathon planning team. also, all interviewees were either https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ bao, h. & mcconnell, m. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 16-28. 20 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 16-28, doi: 10.18060/26303 copyright © 2022 huilin bao and maddie mcconnell this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. past or present jagathon executive board members. a sample size of eight interviews was conducted for the study, with four students from historically underrepresented communities and four caucasian students. there were a plethora of reasons the previously mentioned criteria was used for the researchers’ interviewees. first, though there are dance marathons nationwide, jagathon is specifically unique to iupui and its student body. second, the study was exclusive to only present and former jagathon planning team members because they were immersed in the year round experience as opposed to future executive board candidates. third, the four dedicated interviewee slots for historically underrepresented populations are essential for the researchers to indicate the power of student involvement and fusing diverse populations. snowball and purposive sampling were used for this study, as the interviewees were recruited through the researchers’ professional and personal networks, while having subjects allude to additional interviewees. the eight participants ranged from underclassmen, upperclassmen, and alumni from various academic departments across the university campus. as a result of the researchers’ concentration in event tourism studies, and the networks that were built within those studies, the researchers were able to schedule the initial interviews with simplicity. with the use of snowball sampling, the remaining participants would follow along with their varying profiles. the interview participants were within the age range of 19-23. of the eight participants three obtained their bachelor’s degree, while five were still pursuing theirs. six interviewees were femaleidentifying individuals and two were male-identifying. a detailed breakdown of the interviewee sample profile can be found in table 1.1. uniquely enough, two interviewees were not only iupui affiliates, but riley children hospital affiliates as well, whether it be as a patient or a relative of one. lastly, three of the eight respondents participated in dance marathon planning in high school. these stats contribute highly to the motivational and diverse aspects of the study. throughout the remainder of this study, all participants’ confidentiality are secured as the researchers will address them with the use of numerical labels. table 1.1 interview sample profile variable frequency % gender male 2 25 female 6 75 education high school/some college 5 62.5 bachelor’s degree 3 37.5 ethnicity white 4 50 african american 1 12.5 asian american hispanic indian 1 1 1 12.5 12.5 12.5 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ bao, h. & mcconnell, m. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 16-28. 21 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 16-28, doi: 10.18060/26303 copyright © 2022 huilin bao and maddie mcconnell this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. others 0 0 age 18-20 21-23 4 4 50 50 this methodology was used as a result of the structure of jagathon’s planning team. a diverse group of students designated an entire class to plan this well-known campus event. the researchers received the class roster from iupui faculty, along with past e-board members and purposely selected interviewees from that roster. to pursue the planners’ motives for jagathon leadership, the researchers structured interview questions that help define social identity aspects to be explored, while also allowing the researcher and interviewee to elaborate and diverge if needed. the interview includes the following sections:(1) basic demographic information (2) planning experience of jagathon (3) motivations of planning jagathon (4) social identifiers and feelings (5) impact of social identity through the jagathon experience. the interview questions are as follows: demographic 1. can you tell me your age, gender, ethnicity, education level? 2. can you tell me your involvement with jagathon? a. participation b. involvement c. reasons to participate in jagathon planning experience of jagathon 3. have you participated in jagathon before becoming a member of the executive board? 4. what other things do you do on campus? motivations 5. how/why did you get involved in jagathon? 6. what is the biggest motivation for you to host jagathon? social identifiers & feelings 7. how does jagathon make you feel as an iupui member? a. do you feel jagathon makes you more committed to iupui? b. do you feel a sense of belonging or achievement? c. do you feel proud? 8. what does jagathon mean to you? a. does jagathon help you with self actualization? b. does jagathon help you increase self-esteem? c. does jagathon offer you a self-defining moment? self-identification 9. do you feel related to the group of executive boards of jagathon? impact of the experience 10. after the completion of jagathon, do you feel more committed to yourself or to the group? 11. do you feel empowered through the planning of the jagathon? a. as a minority? this portion will be added above for the 4 historically underrepresented students. b. do you think jagathon is a diverse and inclusive event? https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ bao, h. & mcconnell, m. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 16-28. 22 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 16-28, doi: 10.18060/26303 copyright © 2022 huilin bao and maddie mcconnell this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 12. do you plan to stay connected with jagathon after this year/graduate? 13. what are the biggest challenges for you to host jagathon? 14. extra comments? as displayed above, the questionnaire included many open-ended and unbiased questions that allowed for true, authentic comments by all participants. some questions were followed by probes for elaboration purposes, so researchers could gather a full understanding of jagathon planners’ motivations and momentous thoughts. the interviews were conducted via zoom under a semi-structured format and ranged from 10-30 minutes in duration, with the average interview length being 15 minutes. from the interview recordings, participant responses were transcribed through the zoom platform. prior to dissecting and analyzing the transcribed content, the researchers individually verified each script to reflect the interviewees responses. data analysis to analyze the data the researchers conducted a thematic analysis, which is the process of identifying patterns or themes within qualitative data (maguire & delahunt, 2017). a thematic analysis is a very flexible method and considered very advantageous for researchers due to the diversity of research that is conducted (maguire & delahunt, 2017). the analysis flow chart is described in figure 1. based on braun & clarke’s six-step framework to conduct a thematic analysis the researchers performed these steps. first, the researchers became familiar with each transcript (four each), as they read the transcript line by line numerous times and made note of any intriguing responses that were found. then the researchers organized the data in a significant way through coding common terms, ideas, and phrases (beamon 2010). next the researchers, as a collective, modified the codes into themes, which are patterns that are characterized by their significance (maguire & delahunt, 2017). from there, the coding and theming continued until new themes were absent from the interviews. the major themes that were evident after coding were commitment, skill enhancement, connections, empathy, personal development, and evolution. as sub-themes presented themselves the researchers further dissected the data accordingly. following the acquiring of themes, the researchers created a write-up that properly portrayed the analysis along with the subjects’ feelings, motivations, and social identifiers of jagathon. figure 1. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ bao, h. & mcconnell, m. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 16-28. 23 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 16-28, doi: 10.18060/26303 copyright © 2022 huilin bao and maddie mcconnell this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. findings a total of eight individuals participated in this qualitative study and their demographic information can be found in table 1.1. many researchers have noted that student involvement has played a pivotal role in a balanced and enjoyable college experience. it has also been said that getting involved creates a sense of belonging on campus for students, and this study confirms these findings (college data, 2020). motivations the participant responses were direct and noted that jagathon was an event that embraced the meaning of impactful experiences. from that, the most common motivations were proved to be helping the children, the emotional high during the event, and the people that make the event possible. participant 5 explained wanting to find something that resonated with him on campus and finding that after the atmosphere of jagathon filled him with great emotion. motivated by identification is evidence that jagathon can be a great extracurricular activity to create belonging during a student’s college career: once i got to experience [jagathon] . . . being in that atmosphere and in that environment . . . the emotions it's like a whole other experience when you're actually there. . . i was like yeah, this is my thing. as for other respondents, being surrounded by different people from all walks of life while planning was a riveting time for them and very beneficial. participant 8 mentioned how she thrived off those differences: one of my biggest motivators were the people . . . because everyone is so different . . . we all have different majors, from different schools, from different walks of life. when asked why they wanted to get involved, participant 2 emphasized the children and displayed a great example of empathy, while participant 3 described empathy and her why that is way beyond the monetary value. their responses are listed in order respectfully: the kids that are having a harder time than you are that don't have the regular kid life that we possibly grew up with they're sitting in hospital rooms waiting for good news [and] bad news treatments, they don't know what's going to be happening next. they're going through this experience with heart and understanding why they're doing is just really a large part of my why and helps me see the other side of research and how it's being conducted. although not all participants had the same motivations, as expected, all participants dedicated their motivation for planning jagathon to their surroundings and witnessing the experience first-hand. that experience initiated each self-identification process for the participants, and contributed to their enjoyable college experiences. feelings when the questions were themed around the feelings jagathon brought to the participants and how those feelings contributed to their affiliation to iupui, a sense of belonging and discovering passion were evident in these discussions. several participants identified their personal and professional development taking place during the planning process. others expressed the community jagathon created. both resulted in the event generating meaningful and purposeful https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ bao, h. & mcconnell, m. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 16-28. 24 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 16-28, doi: 10.18060/26303 copyright © 2022 huilin bao and maddie mcconnell this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. outcomes. more specifically, participant 7 defined what the community and passion recipe delivered for her: it meant a lot to me . . . i always felt like this was a community, a family . . . i found my passion through [jagathon] as well . . . i started volunteering at riley. one respondent highlighted what literature suggests; how most students are craving for something or someone to identify with during their young adulthood. participant 5 described his want to find a place he enjoyed, then realizing he belonged within the jagathon community: it definitely increased my sense of belonging with iupui . . . i went the first three months not finding something i truly enjoyed . . . but i was really just looking for that thing, and i did. i'm so glad that i found that thing. participant 5 also reinforced that once a student is aware of who or what they identify with, it makes decision making quite simpler. take the decision to transfer schools for example: i was going to transfer because i changed my major . . . but one of my main motivations for staying at iupui was jagathon. when participants 2 and 4 were asked about what jagathon meant to them in regards to their future careers, they both emphasized the importance of the planning experience and its impact. their responses are listed below respectively: jagathon has definitely influenced me for my future career, possibly wanting to do fundraising events for nonprofits, especially children’s hospitals. i definitely know that as of right now it's a group, but i definitely will take these aspects that i've learned and to future jobs. overall planning jagathon meant longevity, whether it be future careers, continued friendships, or expanded networks. this highlighted the cognitive relationship the respondents have with jagathon, as it created a purpose bigger than the present, but beyond graduation. commitment several references were made to the participants’ commitment to their fellow board members, themselves, and jagathon as a whole. six out of eight interviewees honed in on their commitment to the group due to the ample amount of time spent together. the remaining two shared their gratitude for the group but extreme gratitude for the person they have become because of the group, because of jagathon. as an agent of social identity, the commitment aspect has placed students around others they would not have engaged with otherwise. participant 1 discussed her relationship with her fellow executive members: my division and my five directors, they are my best friends. jagathon has given me my absolute best friends. this type of socialization makes commitment even more apparent in the jagathon setting. a part of this commitment is growth and learning more about who you are, but what the students did not realize until they were fully immersed in the experience is the effect the group has had on their commitment to themselves. for example, participant 6 defines this idea in her response: i am committed to how much the organization has made me grow and how much i have gained from the organization. the idea of commitment can be the result of numerous things, and participant 8 revealed a few of those ideas through her response: i felt very connected to everyone, and everyone was very supportive and helpful. support and assistance are what keep people going through times of adversary, and these https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ bao, h. & mcconnell, m. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 16-28. 25 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 16-28, doi: 10.18060/26303 copyright © 2022 huilin bao and maddie mcconnell this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. factors worked to commit the participants to jagathon. in turn, emphasizing the community that was built leaving a lasting legacy on the jagathon reputation. this gives largely to the student involvement cycle essential for alumni retention and new student recruitment. impact the impact section of the questionnaire was designed to discover self-defining moments, feelings of empowerment, and ultimately reveal if those instances were impactful enough to stay connected to jagathon well after graduation. in fact, all respondents viewed the planning experience as exceedingly impactful. one respondent described her empowering moment as being in control of the outcome: i feel empowered just because we are given the autonomy to make our position, what we want it to be, and to set our goals. others felt empowered by the impact of their presence on the executive board. participant 5 described how he being on the board was more than just for his benefit, but so his presence could be impactful for many beneficiaries. his response to his post-planning feeling is described below: i feel very empowered that i was able to be a more inclusive face. inclusivity was, and will continue to be, an aspect of change for the jagathon community. as change occurred, it is clear that the students are encouraged by the differences they are making outside of the realm of fundraising, but for social change as well within an organization they identify with. all participants also mentioned their desire to somehow stay involved with jagathon and iupui after graduation. with the future unknown for most (5 out of 8 respondents) they were optimistic and hopeful to sustain the meaningful affiliation they acquired with jagathon. the remaining three have since graduated and still are affiliated with the organization. participant 1 discussed her aspiration to stay involved, while participant 7 discusses her current affiliate postgraduation: i plan on becoming a member of our alumni society, so we have a pretty big base of our alumni that come together on the board, they have a president, just like we do on the alumni society, all the way down, so i definitely plan on staying involved. i am a part of the alumni association . . . i’m still connected . . . i’m still supporting committee members. these responses have reflected literature and generated the importance of involvement and the profound impact on a student’s cognitive and emotional connection to their university of choice (reichner, 2019). for all participants, jagathon has been an ingrained part of their college experience because of the unique impact it left on each one differently. challenges the challenges the respondents faced showed their resilience to maintain their commitment, but also their dedication to an identification tool, in this case jagathon, that they only want to see enhance and advance. all things considered, adversity and obstacles were inevitable when planning a renowned event. it took trust within the built community to maintain the desired outcome. from the collected data, peak challenges within the jagathon planning experience were diversity and event awareness. participant 5 defined the concern of many students not knowing what jagathon was: it's been really hard to engage people who don't know what [we] do. . . trying to emulate past years, where we made such big strides and big impact . . trying to tell https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ bao, h. & mcconnell, m. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 16-28. 26 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 16-28, doi: 10.18060/26303 copyright © 2022 huilin bao and maddie mcconnell this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. people why they should be a part of something they haven't seen or heard about at all. while in a time where a worldwide pandemic has limited the occurrences of events for over two years, iupui students were stripped of the opportunity to witness a meaningful event in jagathon. this best explains the responses given about the biggest obstacles student planners had to overcome. in some ways, credibility was lost leaving room for any form of interpretation. on the other hand, diversity was not only an event concern, but nationwide concern that needed to be implemented in all aspects. participant 5 and 8 recalled some moments of uncertainty and the presence of microaggressions: i think we need to work on including minorities . . . and just take away that external stereotype like you have to be a certain way [to participate]. so it’s definitely weird sometimes like looking around the room and there’s not a lot of people of color in our group. these responses underlined that there is always room for growth, even within established organizations. there is always someone who is oblivious to what an organization does, and there is always an opportunity to be better than the year before. the researchers gathered that specifically from the respondents from historically underrepresented populations. with that said, for social identification to candidly take place all must feel welcome, and the respondents were willing to accommodate that need. discussion and conclusions to indicate if jagathon planners’ involvement would affect the planners’ social identity and their long-term commitment to the planning process and the institution were the ultimate goals of this research. the major findings of the interviewees’ responses are presented in figure 2, as the details will further indicate the conceptual model to be true. the findings of the interview indicated that the social identity theory does play a dominant role in student involvement at iupui and increased their self-realization. all of the interviewees mentioned that during the planning process of jagathon, they felt empowered and witnessed glimpses of self-development. after the completion of jagathon, planners felt a sense of pride in themselves and within the event itself. overall, this study displays that student involvement is linked to the prolonged commitment to a university, and jagathon is an effective tool for this idea. ultimately, jagathon became the main cause for the planners coming to campus and one of the major, if not only, activities they take part in at iupui. through the planning of jagathon, participants made life-long friends as affiliates and became a family. respondents expanded their networks and discovered their passions, as these leadership positions prepared them for future endeavors. with that said, interviewees’ professional skills developed including leadership, communication, and time management skills. throughout the entire planning process of jagathon, planners were working in teams, and discovered the essential need for differences. planners need to work with different people from different backgrounds and leadership styles. which, in turn, leads to the importance of diversity in group atmospheres. the findings within this study showed that individuals from diverse populations can socially identify with the same groups. the jagathon planning team represents the diverse and inclusive efforts that have been made over time; nonetheless, the atmosphere shall keep evolving. change will come, and the opportunity that it brings is enlightening. all in all, the findings of this study support the original conceptual model in table 1.2, which indicates that jagathon is a catalyst for introductory and sustained commitment to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ bao, h. & mcconnell, m. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 16-28. 27 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 16-28, doi: 10.18060/26303 copyright © 2022 huilin bao and maddie mcconnell this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. iupui. it is through the social identity theory where legacies can be left and impact can be felt when students feel like they belong. figure 2 limitations the limitations of this research can be universal to many qualitative studies. the small sample size that researchers conducted, is a valid critique. small sample sizes might affect the outcomes of the results. since the outcomes are from a small sample, it’s hard to generalize a larger population and use the results to represent the whole population of the study, in this case every individual that has planned or will plan a jagathon. with small sample size, it is also hard to indicate the new themes of the research as there’s limitations of the number of the interview participants. as researchers recruit for research participants, it is highly likely that there will be selection bias. using snowball sampling might affect the diversity of the interviewees and backgrounds. additionally, this study is finished within the iupui jagathon planning team, which can only represent the jagathon event only, there are no competing events that have been conducted or mentioned in this study. for future research and studies, first, researchers should start researching with a larger population to ensure the diverse nature of the interviewees. secondly, researchers should consider developing hypotheses with the research questions to conduct and indicate future results. thirdly, the interview was conducted after the completion of jagathon, the researchers should try to conduct the interview before, during and after the event to see if there’s any changes of the interviewee’s social identities during those times. there is an opportunity to create a larger alumni society within jagathon from this research. this can advocate for the long-term impact that jagathon has brought to them and the planning of their experience. the interviews were conducted in spring 2022, when jagathon had recovered from the covid-19 pandemic, which jagathon hosted virtually in 2021. students campus-wide were lacking information about jagathon, and the participation rate in both planning and attending may have been https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ bao, h. & mcconnell, m. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 16-28. 28 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 16-28, doi: 10.18060/26303 copyright © 2022 huilin bao and maddie mcconnell this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. affected because of it. now with secure control over the virus, the jagathon planning team is presented the opportunity to rewrite their story and leave a lasting impact. with that said, a future study can be conducted to measure the length of commitment dedicated to jagathon from the descriptive results of the current study. references beamon, k. k. (2010). are sports overemphasized in the socialization process of african american males? a qualitative analysis of former collegiate athletes’ perception of sport socialization. journal of black studies, 41(2), 281–300. http://www.jstor.org/stable/25780777 college data. (2020). being involved in college: how can it benefit me? retrieved from collegedata.com: https://www.collegedata.com/resources/campus-life/being-involvedin-college-how-can-it-benefit-me connelly, l. m. (2010). what is phenomenology? medsurg nursing, 19(2), 127-8. retrieved from http://ulib.iupui.edu/cgi-bin/proxy.pl?url=http://search.proquest.com/scholarlyjournals/what-is-phenomenology/docview/230522357/se-2?accountid=7398 creswell, j. w. (2012). qualitative inquiry and research design: choosing among five approaches. sage publications. davis, j. l., love, t. p., & fares, p. (2019). collective social identity: synthesizing identity theory and social identity theory using digital data. social psychology quarterly, 82(3), 254–273. https://doi.org/10.1177/0190272519851025 fujita, m., harrigan, p., & soutar, g. n. (2018). capturing and co-creating student experiences in social media: a social identity theory perspective. journal of marketing theory and practice, 26(1), 55-71. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/10696679.2017.1389245 jagathon: iupui's dance marathon. iupui student foundation. (n.d.). retrieved february 21, 2022, from https://sf.iupui.edu/jagathon/about-us.html jamal, t., pernecky, t. (2010). (hermeneutic) phenomenology in tourism studies. annals of tourism research. volume 37, issue 4. pages 1055-1075. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2010.04.002. maguire, m., & delahunt, b. (2017). doing a thematic analysis: a practical, step-by-step guide for learning and teaching scholars. all ireland journal of higher education, 9(3), 33513359. mcleod, s. (1970, january 1). social identity theory. simply psychology. retrieved february 21, 2022, from https://www.simplypsychology.org/social-identity-theory.html reichner, k. e. w. (2019). the impact of undergraduate student involvement in creating engaged alumni. the college of william and mary. weidman, j. (1989). undergraduate socialization: a conceptual approach. higher education: handbook of theory and research, 5(2), 289-322. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://www.simplypsychology.org/social-identity-theory.html events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/25829 copyright © 2021 xu li this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2021 volume 4 no. 2 residents’ perceptions of small-scale rural events: a dual theory approach xu li south dakota state university correspondence: xu.li@sdstate.edu (x. li) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation li, x. (2021). residents’ perceptions of small-scale rural events: a dual theory approach. events and tourism review, 4(2), 1-13. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:xu http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/25829 copyright © 2021 xu li this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. li, x. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 2 abstract previous studies have focused on residents’ perceived impacts on the host communities (perceived impacts at community level), and neglected residents’ perceptions of event impacts on their personal lives (perceived impacts at individual level). built upon social exchange theory and social representation theory, this study explored how local residents perceived the impacts of small-scale recurring events in a rural area. a total of 208 valid responses were obtained through a selfadministrated online survey. paired sample t-tests and independent samples t-tests were employed to test the hypotheses. the results showed that rural residents perceived greater economic, social and environmental impacts at the community level than the individual level. residents’ reliance on tourism influenced their perceptions of the event impacts. finally, implications for local government and event organizers were discussed. keywords: residents’ perceptions; event impacts; rural events; social exchange theory; social representation theory events play an important role in destination development and management. they are considered as image makers, man-made attractions, catalysts, and animators of static attractions, and thus highly valued by destination marketers (getz, 2008). events can bring visitors, expand tourist season, and boost destination economy. however, host communities may have to bear the burden of events. local residents are expected to welcome visitors, face the additional pressure on infrastructure and resources, and pay for the costs. events could disrupt their daily routines and affect their quality of life (li et al., 2015; ouyang et al., 2019). a healthy development of the event industry requires community leaders and planners to identify and examine various impacts brought by events. as the key stakeholders of the host communities, local residents’ attitudes towards events matter and will affect community leaders’ decision-making and the sustainability of events (jurowski & gursoy, 2004; sharpley, 2014). event impact analysis has been one of the central themes in event studies (getz & page, 2016). previous research has investigated the economic, social and environmental impacts of various events. most studies have been undertaken in urban contexts, with domination of one-off, large-scale, sport-related events. small scale community events in rural areas have received less attention (getz & page, 2016). rural events are in general small, geared towards local and seemingly insignificant. however, many of them are held on a recurring basis and could generate substantive and long-lasting impacts on the host communities in the long run (alves et al., 2010; fytopoulou et al., 2021). moreover, previous studies have concentrated on the impacts of a single event and overlooked the impacts of a set of events or the event sector in the community (chen, 2011; egresi & kara, 2014). further, it is suggested that local residents’ views be considered and taken into account when assessing the impacts of events (li et al., 2015; panyik et al., 2011). in reviewing the literature, most studies were found to have examined one aspect of residents’ perceived event impacts, the impacts on the host communities (i.e., perceived impacts at the community level). however, few studies have dealt with residents’ perceptions of event impacts on their own lives https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/25829 copyright © 2021 xu li this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. li, x. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 3 (i.e., perceived impacts at the individual/personal level). given the importance of understanding residents’ perceptions of events and the lack of studies on recurring rural events, the current study attempts to assess residents’ perceived impacts through an investigation into a number of recurring community events within rural areas. to be specific, the research aims to investigate: (1) rural residents’ perceived event impacts at the individual level; (2) rural residents’ perceived event impacts at the community level; (3) the differences in rural residents’ perceived event impacts between the community and individual levels; (4) the effects of tourism reliance on residents’ perception of event impacts. rural events approximately 97% of the united states’ land is rural and around 19% of the population lives there, almost 60 million people (us census bureau, 2017). rural economy heavily relies on resource-based activities, such as agriculture, forestry, mining, etc. (cromartie et al., 2020). it is widely acknowledged that rural areas lag behind non-rural areas in many aspects of economic performance, ranging from poverty rates to employment opportunities (o’dell, 2021). rural areas often face disadvantages that urban areas do not, such as physical isolation, population decline, and limited professional services. as a result, many rural communities have turned to events and festivals as an option to diversify economies and attract temporary and permanent residents (alves et al., 2010; rasoolimanesh et al., 2017). events can bring tourists and outside investments to rural communities, which can lead to more employment and business opportunities, increased household income and tax revenue for local governments, improved infrastructure, restoration of heritage resources, and beautification of the rural landscape. meanwhile, researchers have identified a number of concerns about rural events, such as overcrowding, traffic congestion, parking problems, increased crime, and cost of living, which all can disrupt rural residents’ quality of life (kaplanidou et al., 2013). many scholars have suggested that an assessment of event impacts be critical to the success and sustainability of rural event development, and thus be adopted as a useful tool to measure and monitor event performance (getz & page, 2016; panyik et al., 2011; rasoolimanesh et al., 2017). the impacts of events on rural communities the impacts of events are diverse and can be roughly categorized into positive and negative, depending on the nature of the consequences events bring to a destination. according to getz (2008), event impact studies has shifted its focus from the economic dimensions to a triple-bottomline approach with consideration of economic, social, and environmental impacts. in other words, events may influence host communities economically, socially and environmentally. economically, events can increase tax revenue, investment, employment opportunities, and household incomes. the negative economic impacts consist of a rise in the cost of living, price of goods and service, and property tax (latkova & vogt, 2012; rasoolimanesh et al., 2017). socially, improved infrastructure, better cultural and social understanding, increased community involvement and support, and enhanced community spirit and pride are examples of positive impacts. the negative social impacts of events include disruption of local life, changing of family value systems and relationships, increased crime and vandalism, and conflicts between locals and visitors (alves et al., 2010; reid, 2007). in addition, from an environmental perspective, events might result in more negative impacts than positive ones on the host community, such as damaged natural environment, air and water https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/25829 copyright © 2021 xu li this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. li, x. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 4 pollution, and increased waste (rasoolimanesh et al., 2017). there is a strong research emphasis on the inclusion of local residents in assessing event impacts (hjalager & kwiatkowski, 2018; panyik et al., 2011). local people get involved in events in various ways (e.g., volunteers, organizers, or participants). they are also considered as part of the event product, interacting with event attendees and other stakeholders, and creating the event atmosphere (chen, 2011; kaplanidou et al., 2013). local people are not only affected by events but also witness community changes brought by events. therefore, their understanding of event impacts is indispensable for the sustainability of events in rural settings and should be incorporated into event planning and development (chen, 2011; hjalager & kwiatkowski, 2018). theoretical framework a number of theoretical frameworks have been employed to explain how local residents perceive and react to the impacts of events. social exchange theory (set) and social representation theory (srt) are two dominant theories. set takes an economic approach and focuses on individual needs’ fulfillment. according to set, local resident attitudes toward events is an outcome of costreward evaluation in the event interaction process (zhou & ap, 2009). it is suggested that if residents perceive the positive outcomes brought by an event (i.e., rewards exceed costs), they are willing to engage in the exchange process and support the event. likewise, if residents view the event costs outweigh the benefits, they will disengage themselves from any exchange and hold a negative attitude. in the current study, set is adopted to explain the perceived impact of events at the individual level. in other words, the author used set to understand how rural residents perceive themselves benefiting from community events. srt was introduced as an alternative theory to illuminate how local residents understand and respond collectively to event impacts within a community (fredline & faulkner, 2000; li et al., 2015; pearce et al., 1996). as defined by moscovici (1982), social representations are mechanisms enabling people to construct and understand the meaning of their social world. according to srt, when people encounter a new or unfamiliar event, they will refer to their prior knowledge from past experiences, social interaction or other sources (e.g., the media) to make collective meaning of the event. social representations within a community can be identified through recognizing commonality or consensus of resident perceptions (pearce et al., 1996). in the current study, the author used srt to understand shared values and attitudes towards events within a community, that is, perceived event impacts at the community level. set and srt are two distinctive theories. each could be more useful in certain context. previous research has applied and validated set and srt in understanding residents’ perceived impacts of events. however, most of the studies focus on either set or srt and very few studies focus on both. li et al. (2015) recognized a complementing relationship between set and srt and suggested incorporating both theories into a study. srt is more useful in understanding impacts on the host community as a whole, whereas set helps explain perceived impacts on one’s own life. when combined, the two theories can be used to examine residents’ perceived impacts at both the individual and community levels, through which a full picture of perceived event impacts can be drawn. accordingly, the following hypotheses were developed: hypothesis 1a: there is a significant difference in residents’ perceived economic impacts of rural events between individual and community levels. hypothesis 1b: there is a significant difference in rural residents’ perceived social impacts https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/25829 copyright © 2021 xu li this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. li, x. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 5 of rural events between individual and community levels. hypothesis 1c: there is a significant difference in residents’ perceived environmental impacts of rural events between individual and community levels. the general tourism research has indicated that residents’ attitudes towards tourism development are influenced by a number of factors, including geographical proximity to tourism zones, economic dependency on the tourism industry, knowledge about tourism, level of contact with tourist and demographics such as age, gender, education, income, etc. (almeida et al., 2015; nunkoo & gursoy, 2012; vargas et al., 2011). few researchers have applied these factors to the event context. among the limited studies, researchers have drawn mixed conclusions. for instance, residents’ knowledge about events didn’t influence their perceptions of impacts (li et al., 2015). similarly, yao and schwarz (2018) concluded that distance from the event location had little influence on the residents’ attitudes. drawing on the social exchange theory, fredline and faulkner (2000) has argued that residents whose occupation is related to events are more likely to have positive attitudes because the economic benefits they obtain can trade off costs. however, they didn’t have empirical results to support their view. to fill the research gap, the author also investigated the relationship between residents’ economic dependency on the event/tourism industry and their perceptions of events. a series of hypotheses were developed: hypothesis 2a: residents’ perceived economic impacts of rural events at the individual level differ significantly between those who are economically reliant on the tourism industry and those who are not. hypothesis 2b: residents’ perceived social impacts of rural events at the individual level differ significantly between those who are economically reliant on the tourism industry and those who are not. hypothesis 2c: residents’ perceived environmental impacts of rural events at the individual level differ significantly between those who are economically reliant on the tourism industry and those who are not. hypothesis 2d: residents’ perceived economic impacts of rural events at the community level differ significantly between those who are economically reliant on the tourism industry and those who are not. hypothesis 2e: residents’ perceived social impacts of rural events at the community level differ significantly between those who are economically reliant on the tourism industry and those who are not. hypothesis 2f: residents’ perceived environmental impacts of rural events at the community level differ significantly between those who are economically reliant on the tourism industry and those who are not. methodology study site brookings, located in southeast south dakota, is the research site for this study. brookings is home to south dakota state university, the largest university in the state. the community has a variety of attractions ranging from museums, parks, shopping, dining to special events such as downtown at sundown, summer art festival, etc. to bring more tourists into the local area to boost the local economy and promote the image of the city, the municipality of brookings created an independent convention & visitors bureau (cvb) in 2012, after 30 years of operation under the leadership of the chamber of commerce (visit brookings, n.d.) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/25829 copyright © 2021 xu li this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. li, x. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 6 the study includes five local and regional annual events hosted in brookings: summer art festival, downtown at sundown, fourth of july celebration, hobo day, and festival of lights. these recurring events vary in terms of size, type, season and life cycle. due to their local tradition and popularity, the researcher selected these events to represent the events held in the region. data collection to assess local residents’ perceived impacts and support for the event industry, the author developed an online survey via questionpro.com. there were four sections in the questionnaire. section one contained screening questions on participants’ residence status. only those who lived in brookings, sd in the past 12 months and attended one of the five local events were qualified for the survey. sections two captured the perceptions of event impacts at both the individual and community levels. first, perceived impacts at the community level were measured. participants were asked their level of agreement (5 = strongly agree, 1 = strongly disagree) with the event impact statements. the 5-point likert scale was adopted from previous literature (e.g., chen, 2011; fredline & faulkner, 2000; li et al., 2015; wang & pfister; 2008; zhou & ap, 2009). then perceived impacts at the individual level were measured. respondents were asked to indicate how the perceived event impacts affected their individual life with 5-point likert scale where 5 = extremely affected, 1 = not at all affected). section three examined residents’ attitude and support for the event industry through a five-point likert scale where 5 = strongly agree and 1 = strongly disagree. section four collected survey participants’ demographic information, such as age, gender, education, occupation, source of income, etc. the survey instrument was pre-tested by several faculty, students, and three event industry professionals. they were asked to provide feedback regarding the wording, layout, and readability of the measurement items. the feedback was used to revise the questionnaire. the self-administrated online survey was advertised in late summer, 2019, through several local media platforms (e.g., newspaper, social media of local organizations). to encourage participation, respondents had a chance to win a $100 gift card through drawing. a total of 208 valid responses were obtained. data analysis data analysis was conducted using the statistical package for social sciences (spss version 25. 0). first, descriptive statistics was calculated to provide a profile of the survey respondents. second, paired sample t-tests were conducted to examine the differences in residents’ perceptions of event impacts between the individual and community levels (hypothesis 1). to test the relationship between residents’ economic dependency on the event/tourism industry and their perceptions of events (hypothesis 2), independent samples t-tests were employed. results as shown in table 1, the gender distribution was 62.5% females and 37.5% males. the vast majority of respondents were aged between 22 and 65 (74.5%). nearly two thirds of the respondents were caucasians. about 32.7% of the respondents received graduate school education, 29.8% had bachelor’s degrees, 19.2% had some college education, and 10.1% completed high school. close to half of the respondents held a full-time position. results also indicated that 35.6% of the respondents were economically dependent on the tourism industry. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/25829 copyright © 2021 xu li this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. li, x. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 7 table 1 profiles of respondents (n=208) demographic variables frequency % gender female 130 62.5 male 78 37.5 age younger than 22 22 10.6 22-35 63 30.3 36-50 55 26.4 51-65 37 17.8 65+ 31 14.9 ethnicity caucasian 129 62.0 hispanic 28 13.5 african-american 26 12.5 asian 24 11.5 other 1 0.48 education less than high school 17 8.2 high school 21 10.1 some college/associate’s degree 40 19.2 bachelor’s degree 62 29.8 master’s degree 39 18.8 doctorate degree 29 13.9 occupation student 27 13.0 housework 15 7.2 full-time employed 93 44.7 part-time employed 20 9.6 unemployed 17 8.2 retired 34 16.3 other 2 0.9 income from tourism no 134 64.4 yes 74 35.6 hypotheses testing the findings of the research show that residents recognized both the positive and negative impacts of events on the community and their individual lives as well (table 2). at the community level, respondents were most positive about the economic and social impacts. the highly ranked economic benefits of events were increased trade for local business (m = 4.21), improved local economy (m = 4.15), investment opportunities (m = 3.70), and employment opportunities (m = 3.54). respondents also rated the social benefits of events high in the areas of enhanced city reputation and identity (m = 3.61), leisure opportunities for local residents (m = 3.60), sense of pride of local residents (m = 3.42), sense of belonging to the community (m = 3.31). moreover, some negative impacts were noted in the economic and social categories. the main economic and social costs were increased prices of goods and services (m = 2.98), increased cost of living (m = https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/25829 copyright © 2021 xu li this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. li, x. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 8 2.82), and increased crime rate (m = 2.68). in addition, respondents had negative perceptions of the environmental impacts, with traffic congestion (m = 4.10) as the most serious concern, followed by litter (m = 3.22), pollution (m = 2.91), noise (m = 2.69), and damaged natural environment (m = 2.44). table 2 perceived impacts at community and individual levels items community mean individual mean t-value* employment opportunities 3.54 1.63 21.69 investment opportunities 3.70 1.78 22.03 increased trade for local businesses 4.21 2.16 18.55 increased cost of living 2.82 2.12 8.24 improved local economy 4.15 2.67 14.78 increased prices of goods and services 2.98 2.20 10.08 noise 2.69 2.17 6.93 litter 3.22 2.12 14.16 pollution 2.91 2.27 8.61 traffic congestion 4.10 3.03 12.56 damaged natural environment 2.44 1.76 11.27 improved environment 2.82 1.71 14.77 sense of pride of local residents 3.42 2.78 7.77 enhanced city reputation and identity 3.61 2.59 11.86 more leisure opportunities for local residents 3.60 2.81 8.7 sense of belonging to the community 3.31 2.37 11.14 increased crime rate 2.68 1.82 10.92 * p<0.001 at the individual level, respondents reported similar perceptions of the economic, social and environmental impacts of events. traffic congestion had the most negative impact on their personal lives (m = 3.03). local residents also felt that the events had affected their lives through more leisure opportunities (m = 2.81), increased sense of pride (m = 2.81), improved local economy (m = 2.81), and enhanced city reputation (m = 2.81). the results of paired sample t-test showed that the perceived impacts at the community level were more positive than at the individual level. therefore, hypotheses 1a-1c were supported. a series of independent samples t-tests were conducted to test hypothesis 2, which suggests the effects of tourism reliance on residents’ perceived event impacts. table 3 showed the results. at the community level, five out of the seventeen sets of comparisons showed significant differences, including three economic impacts, one social impact and one environmental impact. residents who were economically reliant on the tourism industry perceived more positive impacts and less negative impacts. two of the economic impacts were exceptions: increased trade and improved local economy. residents who didn’t rely on tourism income rated these two economic impacts higher. thus, hypotheses 2d, 2e and 2f were partially supported. at the individual level, four out of the seventeen sets of comparison showed significant differences, including three economic impacts and one environmental impact (table 3). residents https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/25829 copyright © 2021 xu li this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. li, x. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 9 who were dependent on tourism income indicated higher level of agreement on such impact items as “more employment opportunities,” “more investment opportunities,” “increased trade,” and “improved environment.” hence, hypotheses 2a and 2c were partially accepted. although residents who were reliant on tourism rated all the five social impacts higher than those who were not, none of the differences was statistically significant. thus, hypothesis 2b was rejected. overall, residents’ economic dependence on the tourism industry appears to affect their perceived impacts of events at both the community and individual levels. table 3 differences in perceived impacts between residents reliant on tourism and those not community level individual level tourism reliance mean non-tourism reliance mean t value tourism reliance mean non-tourism reliance mean t value economic impact employment opportunities 3.75 3.39 -2.34* 2.17 1.42 -3.72* investment opportunities 3.74 3.67 -0.42 2.12 1.59 -3.07* increased trade 4.02 4.32 2.08* 2.50 1.97 -2.58* increased cost of living 2.81 2.80 -0.08 2.10 2.07 -0.15 improved local economy 3.84 4.28 2.41* 2.89 2.54 -1.77 increased prices of goods and services 3.02 2.96 -0.33 2.28 2.11 -0.86 environmental impact noise 2.68 2.72 0.26 2.12 2.21 0.42 litter 3.34 3.21 -0.71 2.09 2.16 0.36 pollution 2.82 3.01 1.02 2.29 2.26 -0.11 traffic congestion 3.78 4.22 2.40* 3.08 3.06 -0.10 damaged natural environment 2.46 2.45 -0.03 1.73 1.80 0.37 improved environment 2.86 2.76 -0.02 1.90 1.58 -2.28* social impact sense of pride 3.48 3.39 -0.54 2.97 2.73 -1.19 enhanced city reputation and identity 3.75 3.49 -1.69 2.78 2.50 -1.49 more leisure opportunities 3.87 3.51 -2.22* 2.88 2.75 -0.60 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/25829 copyright © 2021 xu li this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. li, x. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 10 sense of belonging 3.26 3.27 0.07 2.56 2.25 -1.62 increased crime rate 2.50 2.78 1.67 1.87 1.79 -0.38 discussion and conclusion built upon two theoretical frameworks of social exchange theory and social representations theory, the current study investigates how rural residents have perceived the impacts of the major annual events on the community and their personal lives as well. the results showed that rural residents recognized the economic, social and environmental impacts at both the community and individual levels, and confirmed the usefulness of the two theories in explaining residents’ perceptions of event tourism. overall, greater impacts were perceived at the community level than the individual level. the findings support the conclusion of li et al.’s (2015) investigation into chinese residents’ perceptions of the 2010 world expo. they argued that the differences resulted from the underlying mechanisms of the two theoretical frameworks (i.e., set and srt). when evaluating the impacts of events at the individual level, respondents used the set and calculated their personal gains and loss from the events. in comparison, the event impacts at the community level were abstract and unfamiliar. respondents were more likely to use the srt to form a reference point and make judgement. both theories can complement each other and apply in different circumstances. this study differs from li et al.’s (2015) research in several ways. first, this study added a new dimension of the impacts of events: environmental impacts. due to the growing interest in adopting a holistic approach and measuring the impacts of events from multiple perspectives, the current study examined three types of event impacts: economic, social and environmental. although both the positive and negative impacts were perceived in each of the three dimensions, more negative environmental impacts were reported by the local residents. secondly, this study focused on a set of small-scale recurring events in a rural community, whereas li et al.’s study examined a single mega-event in an urban context. the findings showed that similar to mega-events, small-scale rural events held on a regular basis also generated economic, social and environmental impacts on the host community and the residents’ personal lives as well. local residents were more likely to agree with the positive impact statements than the negative ones. at the community level, the perceived economic and social benefits (e.g., improved economy and enhanced reputation) outweighed the negative environmental impacts (e.g., traffic congestion and litter). at the individual level, despite the traffic congestion problem, the residents were slightly aware of the impacts of events on their personal lives. the findings were in line with previous studies, indicating that residents’ awareness of event impacts is relatively low in rural areas (rasoolimanesh et al., 2017; sharpley, 2014). further, the current study included five major community events, and thus provided a rather comprehensive view of the impacts of events on the study area (chen, 2011; egresi & kara, 2014). in addition, findings from this research suggest that local residents’ economic reliance on the tourism industry affects their perceptions of the impacts of events. specifically, more positive impacts were perceived by those residents who were economically dependent on the tourism industry. rural residents who were not dependent on the tourism industry were likely to have an unfavorable attitude toward event development and its impacts. these are particularly true when the https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 1-13, doi: 10.18060/25829 copyright © 2021 xu li this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. li, x. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 11 impacts were measured at the individual level. these findings were in accordance with the general tourism studies (e.g., chen & chen, 2010; jurowski et al., 1997; nunkoo & ramkissoon, 2010), which indicated that tourism reliance is associated with positive attitudes toward the industry. at the community level, two economic impact items were exceptions. residents who were not reliant on tourism perceived more trade opportunities and better local economy than those who were reliant on tourism. a possible explanation might be that the two economic items were more about the overall economic condition of the community whereas the other economic item (i.e., employment opportunity) was more related to respondents’ own financial well-being. from a practical standpoint, findings of the study can help the rural government and event organizers develop a sustainable approach to community event management. these small-scale recurring events aimed to boost local economy, showcase local tradition, and enrich residents’ lives. negative environmental impacts (e.g., noise, pollution, congestions) were not considered as an issue due to the remote rural location. however, this study reported that traffic congestions and litter disrupted the lives of local residents. it is imperative for local government and event organizers to take immediate actions to mitigate and minimize the perceived negative impacts. it is also suggested that the attitude of local residents should be monitored on a regular basis. destination policy-makers should establish systematic procedures to ensure such assessment and incorporate the results into destination planning and management policies. to gain local support, event organizers should communicate with the host community about the event impacts and how the benefits of events contribute to their daily lives. this study shows that tourism involvement influences residents’ perceptions of event impacts. event organizers may plan some opportunities to involve local residents into the event planning and management process. this will foster the sense of personal gains (li et al., 2015). this study has some limitations. first, the survey used a convenience sample. local residents chose to participate in the survey based on their self-judgement. although the sample was adequate for statistical analysis, the conclusion cannot be generalized to represent the overall population. second, the data were collected in the summer, right after two of the five major events: summer art festival and downtown at sundown. thus, the responses might be more based on the two recent events rather than all the five. moreover, this study was operated at a particular point of time. like other tourism products, these recurring events have a life cycle. at different stages of development, residents’ perceptions might vary (kaplanidou et al., 2013; li et al., 2015). future researchers could conduct longitudinal studies to track the residents’ attitudinal changes over time. references almeida, f., balbuena, a., & cortés, r. 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(2009). residents’ perceptions towards the impacts of the beijing 2008 olympic games. journal of travel research, 48(1), 78-91. https://doi.org/10.1177/0047287508328792 acknowledgement the author would like to thank the college of education and human sciences at south dakota state university for the research grant entitled residents’ perceived impacts and support for events: evidence from brookings, sd. the grant makes the research and this article possible. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2011.01.009 https://doi.org/10.3727/152599508783943192 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2013.10.007 https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2017/08/rural-america.html https://doi.org/10.1016/j.annals.2010.10.004 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0047287507312402 https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jdmm.2017.02.007 https://doi.org/10.1177%2f0047287508328792 events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 36-48, doi: 10.18060/25965 copyright © 2021 jumana baqaain and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2021 volume 4 no. 2 social impacts of tourism perceived by host communities – a review paper jumana baqaain suosheng wang indiana university purdue university indianapolis correspondence: jbaqaain@iu.edu (j. baqaain) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr, visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation baqaain, j. and wang, s. (2021). social impacts of tourism perceived by host communities – a review paper. events and tourism review, 4(2), 36-48. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 36-48, doi: 10.18060/25965 copyright © 2021 jumana baqaain and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. baqaain, j. & wang, s. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 37 abstract this study aims to explore the significant social impacts of tourism experienced by residents in different societies and of different cultural backgrounds and the managerial ramifications for future tourism development. it is a descriptive, literature-rich study that investigates fifteen case studies focusing on the positive and negative social impacts of tourism as seen by residents or the host communities, a review of the theoretical concepts related to the topic, and factors that cause the positive-negative social impacts. keywords: sustainable tourism; host communities; impacts; perceptions; review introduction tourism has become a significant industry that has a vital role in developing many destinations. tourism benefits are unquestionable; it can bring economic, environmental, and social benefits to the host communities. tourism development generates an enormous job market, can enhance the quality of life, improve the infrastructure of a destination, and develop more facilities (zhuang, yao, & li, 2019). it can increase cultural exchange and environmental benefits, such as protecting parks and wildlife (andereck, valentine, knopf, & vogt, 2005). even though tourism's potential is measured in terms of its economic impacts as it increases the income level, attracts local /international investments (zhuang et al., 2019), tourism is considered as a dynamic sector that can add a lot to the social development of a country. there is a growing concern among academics and practitioners about the impacts/effects of tourism development on the host communities, considering residents as crucial stakeholders in supporting tourism development. besides, the support for tourism by the host community is associated with how residents perceive the costs and benefits that tourism brings. tourism development impacts are perceived differently by residents of different countries and cultural backgrounds, and host communities' attitudes fluctuate between negative and positive (zamani farahaniab & musaa, 2012). tourism development can bring huge benefits, but it also has potential costs; for example, high growth rates often result in local identity and culture loss when poor planning and management are in place (andereck et al., 2005). on the one hand, the social benefits of tourism are tremendous. tourism can enhance the image of a host destination, learning, awareness, family bonding, community pride, an appreciation of ethnic identity, increased understanding and tolerance of others, and stronger cultural identity (andereck et al., 2005; besculides, lee, & mccormick, 2002). on the other hand, negative impacts might include racial discrimination, the damage of the family structure, increase in crime, prostitution, traffic congestion, and crowding (zhuang et al., 2019; andereck et al., 2005). other negative cultural impacts also include over-development, assimilation, conflict, and xenophobia, and artificial reconstruction (besculides et al., 2002). as a result, a balanced development plan should be created from the starting point to increase the benefits and mitigate the negative impacts resulting from the presence of tourists in the host destination; because improper poor tourism planning can decrease the quality of the tourist https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 36-48, doi: 10.18060/25965 copyright © 2021 jumana baqaain and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. baqaain, j. & wang, s. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 38 experience and go in hand with degradation of the communities’ quality of life (pham, andereck, & vogt, 2019). therefore, this paper focuses on the social impacts of the tourism activities and growth as perceived by the local communities in different regions around the globe. the social impacts are the 'human impacts' of the tourism activities at a tourist destination and the consequences arising from the presence of tourists at the destination and their interaction with the residents (jovivic, 2011; gjerald, 2005; zhuang et al., 2019). this interaction brings outcomes such as modifications in the social character of the host's community, including their daily life, value system, family relationships, attitudes, opinions, traditional beliefs, and behavioral patterns (jovivic, 2011; gjerald, 2005; zhuang et al., 2019). this study explores how local communities perceive these impacts, whether positively or negatively, the factors that cause these different perceptions, and the managerial implications for a better tourism development in the future. review of case studies on social impacts of tourism the literature is rich in the empirical studies that have examined the social impact of tourism development as perceived by residents or host communities. many researchers have been studying the social implications of tourism since the early 1970s (nunkoo & ramkissoon, 2007; gjerald, 2005). there are several reasons for this growing interest in understanding residents' attitudes towards the impacts of tourism. in the article of sharma, dyer, carter, & gursoy (2008), they claimed that the possible benefits and costs that tourism may introduce to a region as it expands must be understood and investigated for the industry to gain greater acceptance and support, and for a socially cohesive community to emerge. in addition, they claimed that it is critical for local governments, policymakers, and businesses to better understand the factors that influence host communities' support for tourism. moreover, negative attitudes among residents, for example, could hinder long-term tourism development in a region, and the success of the industry depends on the friendliness of the locals. zamani-farahaniab & musaa (2012) argued that a cheerful host is critical in establishing a positive image of the touristic area, which leads to positive word of mouth and can influence positively repeated visitation to a destination. this research selected fifteen cases to work on, which took place in america, europe, asia, the middle east, and africa, representing developed and developing countries, urban and rural areas, various cultures, secular and religious regions, and various stages of tourism development. these selected studies have been recently published in highly ranked tourism journals such as "international journal of hospitality & tourism administration," "journal of tourism and cultural change," "annals of tourism research," and "international journal of tourism research." the study's primary purpose is to investigate the positive and negative social impacts of tourism as perceived by host communities and illustrate the essential factors that are deemed to affect residents' perceptions of tourism development. brief of the host communities being surveyed in the case studies 1. hispanic and non -hispanic communities' byway in southwestern colorado, the united states (besculides et al., 2002): this study examines the perceptions of cultural tourism by hispanic and non-hispanic residents living along the los caminos antigua’s scenic and historic byway in southwestern colorado, the united states. the lca byway is 129 miles long and covers the southern portion of the san luis valley in south-central colorado. the scenic byway was built to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 36-48, doi: 10.18060/25965 copyright © 2021 jumana baqaain and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. baqaain, j. & wang, s. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 39 preserve the beauty of the scenic and to develop more economic opportunities for the local communities through enhancing tourism development. the primary goal of the lca was to conserve the cultural heritage of the ethnic groups of the san luis valley. the byway passes through three counties, two of which are the poorest in colorado. communities along it ranges in population from 700 to 7,500 residents. the primary source of their income is agriculture, either farming or cattle ranching. the hispanic is the ethnic rural community living along the ancient roads having their traditional lifestyle, their unique culture that is isolated from the american culture due to geographical and historical isolation. 2. arizona, usa (andereck et al., 2005): according to the researchers, this study differentiates itself from most research in recent years because it is anchored in a u.s. statewide population sample, thus providing a broader representation of the general population than most past investigations. of note are the inclusion of many urban residents (including the phoenix, arizona, metropolitan area of over three million) and a large proportion of an ethnic minority (latino), a situation different from past research conducted in rural areas with essentially anglo populations. the resident’s income was between $20,000-$59.000 and education level higher than school diploma. at the time of the study, arizona witnessed economic growth in all its different areas and a decent level of tourism development. most of the respondents were from urban cities. 3. mauritius (nunkoo & ramkissoon, 2007): tourism contributes significantly to the economy after the manufacturing and agricultural sector. residents are in urban, rural, and coastal regions. the host is stationary living his everyday life and has limited spending capacity. the differences in the financial situations between the wealthy tourists and the host community with limited spending capacity. this is because in the rural areas of mauritius, tourism is a new activity, and as such, the level of tourism development in such locations is low. this can be explained by the fact that urban and coastal tourism is prevalent in mauritius, and there is a high concentration of tourism in such areas. 4. the sunshine coast region, australia (sharma et al., 2008): the region is located 100 km north of brisbane in queensland, australia. the sunshine coast region has experienced consistent annual growth of both domestic and international tourists. most of the residents who participated in the survey were in the age group of over 34 years. 18% of the responses reported that they received income from tourism, 29% of respondents had an annual household income of more than $60,000. 5. norway (gjerald, 2005): in the case of the north cape, both hosts and guests come from industrialized nations maritime communities in other parts of scandinavia; the nature of the north cape tourism is highly seasonal. the fieldwork was carried out in two different fishing villages, skarsvag and honningsvag. skarsvag is the northernmost fishing village globally and has approximately 100 inhabitants. honningsvag is the center of the north cape borough with a resident population of 2565. most of the inhabitants consider themselves islanders, 'mageryværinger,' and have close ties to other communities of the north cape borough, especially honningsvag. mass tourism is also much more present in honningsvag, and that is why honningsvag, in addition to skarsvag, was chosen to be the central location of the fieldwork. 6. sare’in and masooleh in iran (zamani-farahaniab & musaa, 2012): sarin is a town in the northwest of iran inhabited by 4446 people, providing a wide variety of tourist activities and attracting two million tourists annually for wellness and health purposes. the attraction is famed for its hot mineral springs. masooleh, located in the northern part of iran, is well known for its natural beauty, ancient history and architecture, and desirable climate conditions. the area is listed on the ichto, and in its peak season it might host 10,000 tourists per day. less than one thousand people inhabit the town, and the job opportunities are abundant, especially in the tourism sector. they are a https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 36-48, doi: 10.18060/25965 copyright © 2021 jumana baqaain and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. baqaain, j. & wang, s. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 40 small town where tourist attraction is in the vicinity. the tourist development is in the hand of the local community, and the tourist facilities are available in the area. 7. the cradle coast region, australia (tovar & lockwood, 2008): the study was conducted in the cradle coast region in the state of tasmania, northwest of australia, which is known for herds of dairy and beef cattle, vegetables and other horticulture, forest mountains, and the timber and mining industries. the estimated resident population of the study area was 102,830. the population declined across most areas of the study region because of net migration outflows. developing a regional tourism industry has been crucial in reversing this economic and social decline. 8. baan tawai, otop tourism village, thailand (huttasin, 2008): baan tawai, located in chiangmai province in the northern region of thailand, is well known for its craftsmanship in antique reproductions and the villagers’ fascinating woodcarving skills. some women in the village were employed to polish and color the works. baan tawai’s reputation and popularity as a village of wood craftsmen grew by word of mouth. in 2004, the otop tourism village plan named baan tawai the first otop tourism village in thailand. this resulted in baan tawai becoming one of the most popular tourist attractions in the north of thailand. 9. lenggong valley, malaysia (rasoolimanesh, jaafar, ahmad, & barghi, 2017): located in the northern state of perak, the valley was recognized as a whs in 2012. situated in a rural area, most lenggong valley’s residents work in the agricultural sector. lenggong valley’s total population was 15,036. the unique combination of natural and cultural assets makes it an attractive destination for local and international tourists. lenggong valley is currently at the early stage of tourism development. because of their involvement in the tourism industry, the residents were more aware of and subsequently more concerned about the negative impacts of tourism. 10. petra, jordan (alhasanat & hyasat, 2011; alrwajfah, almeida-garcía, & cortés-macías, 2019): petra is the most famous attraction in jordan. it was voted in 2007 as one of the “new 7 wonders of the world” and is considered one of the world’s most important cultural heritage sites. the total number of visitors to petra in 2007 was 577,860. located in the south of jordan, petra is the primary historical site with antiquities dating back to 7500 b.c. the archaeological park covers an area of 200 square km and is surrounded by sandstone mountains, which provide natural fortification. petraeus (the local community in petra) themselves have a passion for and pride in their national culture and heritage. the petraians are inherently loyal to the place and all its historical associations, and this passion is often the motivation for becoming involved in tourism. the population of this study is representative of five residential areas around petra, comprising a total number of 25,366 people, covering wadi musa, taybeh, rajiv, umm saihoun, and baydha, who are characterized by their arab-islamic culture and restrictive, conservative traditions. 11. dubai (zaidan, 2016): dubai ranks the fifth among top global destinations for international travelers. dubai is one of the fastest-growing tourism destinations of the early twentyfirst century and attracts millions of visitors each year. the influences are not always obvious, as they are challenging to measure and are often indirect or hard to identify. the impacts become more evident when tourism leads to changes in the rooted cultural image, as in the case of dubai, and thus intimidates local ethnic identity. conversely, tourism can also cause positive impacts as it fosters pride among residents of their city. 12. honk kong, china (piuchan, chan, & kaale, 2018): the tourism industry in hong kong has become an economic pillar, with the main tourists coming from mainland china, with 40 million visitors in 2013 out of 54 million tourists in hong kong. most of the respondents were occupying job positions at the entry-level in different organizations. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 36-48, doi: 10.18060/25965 copyright © 2021 jumana baqaain and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. baqaain, j. & wang, s. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 41 13. kaiping city, china (zhuang et al., 2019): kaiping is in guangdong province, china. kaiping diaolou and villages feature multi-storied defensive tower clusters in several villages. the study was carried out at three ancient villages (zili village, majianglong village, and jinjiangli village) around the towers adjacent to each other geographically. zili village has 15 different styles of architecture with varying shapes of elegant roofs, most of which were built in the 1920s and 1930s. although the three ancient villages were inscribed in the list of whs at the same time on 28 june 2007 and gained unprecedented chances for developing their tourism industry, the tourism developments in the villages were not synchronized. zili village, majianglong village, and jinjiangli village opened in 2003, 2007, and 2010 respectively, and thus their levels of tourism development are different. 14. botswana (mbaiwa, 2005): botswana’s okavango is a place of 122,000 people who belongs to different ethnic groups, over 90% of these residents depend directly or indirectly on the resources of delta to sustain their livelihood. the main economic activities for the rural people are fishing, hunting, rain-fed, crop farming, and livestock production. although various ethnic groups have different social and economic activities, there are similarities in their lifestyle in terms of norms, traditions, and customs. botswana’s tourism industry depends on wildlife resources and the wilderness experience in the okavango and the chobe areas. as a result, resources such as museums, historical sites, rock paintings, cultural and sports events remained untapped in their contribution to the tourism industry. 15. crete (andriotis, 2004): from 1971 to 2000, the number of total arrivals by charter flights to crete increased from 15,500 to almost 2.5 million. tourism in crete generates approximately 500 billion greek drachmasayear, and about 40% of the local population are directly or indirectly involved in tourism activities. today tourism is the most extensive economic activity on the island. findings from the review summary of social impacts being reported in the case studies the table below illustrates the main positive and negative impacts being reported in the selected case studies. table 1: social impacts as perceived by the local community type of host community positive impacts negative impacts 1.the rural community of the hispanic, usa (ethnic groups) learning/awareness/greater knowledge of my culture/heritage. stronger ethnic identity an amelioration of regional image. preservation of the cultural heritage /resources /traditions. increased understanding and tolerance of others. little concern that sharing their culture might have negative impacts. 2.phoenix-arizona urban area, usa awareness of my heritage. increase the community pride and sense of belonging. improve the social services and amenities. enhance the image of the area. litter, traffic, congestion, and crime. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 36-48, doi: 10.18060/25965 copyright © 2021 jumana baqaain and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. baqaain, j. & wang, s. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 42 3.mauritius urban, rural, and coastal regions enhance the image of the area. worsening the image of the area petty crime is becoming a problem. prostitution is another emerging problem. seasonality problem. 4.the sunshine coast region, australia urban area opportunity to meet new people, greater knowledge of my culture and society. traffic congestion and crime incidents. 5.north cape, norway (village) stimulation of pride and the sense of community belonging enhance resident's quality of life and satisfaction crime and alcoholism, litter, traffic congestions, and overcrowding. 6.sarin, and masooleh, iran (touristic towns). preserve the historical sites, enhance the image, improve quality and life satisfaction, better local infrastructure, recreational opportunities, maintenance of public facilities, cultural exchange, cultural preservation. do not perceive any negative impacts due to tourism. 7.the cradle coast region, australia (rural region) stimulation of pride, enhance the quality of life. increase in recreational options. overcrowding 8.otop valley, thailand (rural community ). stimulation of pride. preservation of the cultural heritage and traditions uplifting women by providing additional job opportunities. appreciation and awareness of own culture. do not perceive any negative impacts due to tourism. 9.lenggong valley, malaysia (rural and whs) improve the public infrastructure and public facilities. conservations of historical sites. they don’t perceive that tourism would result in traffic congestion, noise, and pollution. 10.petra, jordan stimulation of national, locals’ pride an amelioration of regional image. increased understanding and tolerance of other cultures. improve the public infrastructure. the behavior of young generations becomes worse. degradation of morality. crowding. the demonstration effect. 11.dubai stimulation of locals’ pride. improve the public infrastructure and public facilities. better quality of life. increase in recreational options and activities. loss of cultural identity /tourists do not respect the norms of the residents. increased crime conflicts and tension arise between the community 12.hong kong improved public infrastructure. improved education. overcrowding in public facilities rude awakening. worsen the image of the city. negative impact on the local culture. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 36-48, doi: 10.18060/25965 copyright © 2021 jumana baqaain and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. baqaain, j. & wang, s. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 43 13.three ancient villages and whss, china strengthen the community bonds. improve the quality of life and lifestyle of people; residents are less money-oriented. enhance the sense of community belonging. less traveling for younger generations. family bonds loosened. 14. rural community and ethnic groups (botswana) appreciation of own culture. stimulation of local pride. revitalized and preservation of cultural practices/traditions. conversation of wildlife and nature. improved public infrastructure and social services. empowerment of local community. enclave tourism, racism, and relocation of local communities. breaking up the family structure. increase in crime and prostitution. demonstration effect. the behavior of young generations becomes worse. 15.island urban community, crete improvement in public infrastructure. increase of cultural activities (crafts, arts & music). the local community has no concerns about negative impacts on the social level. influencing factors of residents’ perceived social impacts according to the previous studies, local communities are not likely to share identical attitudes towards tourism impacts. while there is no evidence on the set of factors that lead to the raised positive or negative perceptions, the reviewed articles illustrated some of the factors that would be influential in affecting residents' support for tourism development and helping explain the relationship between tourism impacts and host population perceptions (zamani-farahaniab & musaa, 2012). according to alhasanat and hyasat (2011), the factors that influence the perception of tourism impacts can be classified into two groups, intrinsic and extrinsic. intrinsic factors refer to dependency on tourism, community attachment, distance from tourism zone, interaction with tourists, personal values, and demographic variables such as age, gender, and education (alrwajfah et al., 2019). extrinsic factors include the type of tourism, tourists, stage of tourism development, seasonality. examples of such factors are discussed below. distance from the tourist zone: according to alrwajfah et al. (2019), people living within the tourist zone have more negative attitudes towards the development and are concerned about the negative impacts of tourism in the area. at the same time, other studies dispute and claim residents living close to the tourism zone perceive more positive effects of tourism than residents who do not live in it. the results revealed in huttsain's (2008) study support the claim. length of residence: residents with the most substantial ties to an area, whether through place attachment, long-term residency, often have positive perceptions of tourism and its development (alrwajfah et al., 2019). other studies debated that the longer the residents live in the community, the more hostile they are toward tourism (andriotis, 2004). socio-demographic: educations/ income /gender and age. residents' attitudes are not significantly influenced by socio-demographic variables, including gender, age, and the community attachment variables, as claimed by andereck et al. (2005). besides, the study by tovar and lockwood (2008) agreed that gender, age, and length of residence did not influence respondents' perceptions of specific impacts at the personal level, in addition at the community level, there was no proof that either length of residency or distance from the tourist zone influenced residents` perceptions. some cases revealed that older residents have more positive attitudes toward the industry than younger residents, younger and more educated residents were more worried about the https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 36-48, doi: 10.18060/25965 copyright © 2021 jumana baqaain and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. baqaain, j. & wang, s. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 44 negative impacts of tourism development on their community (rasoolimanesh et al., 2017; nunkoo & ramkissoon, 2007), whereas in the study of gjerald (2005), the researchers found that older generations seem to be concerned about the family structure and family lifestyle more than the younger people. the study in crete by andriotis (2004) revealed that the most significant variable affecting residents' perceptions within the sample was education. dependency on the industry: the higher the level of engagement in the industry, the more positively residents perceive the impacts of tourism (alhasanat & hyasat, 2011; andereck et al., 2005; andriotis, 2004). on the other hand, the respondents involved in the tourism industry had more concerns about the perceived negative impacts of tourism in lenggong valley, malaysia (rasoolimanesh et al., 2017). other impacting factors also include the involvement of the host community in the decisionmaking, awareness about the industry, the number, and type of tourists, the ratio between tourists and residents (zamani-farahaniab & musaa, 2012). managerial implications drawn from the case studies the following comments are drawn from the selected case studies, which are deemed to have important managerial implications for the tourism industry. 1. a steady, measured increase in tourism balances tourist satisfaction and retention, positive word-of-mouth, and interest in the local community. this aids in the progressive development of infrastructure and allows the host community sufficient time to acclimate. 2. increase community participation in the process of decision-making. in planning, residents' participation should be a technique taken by diverse communities seeking sustainable tourism development. community participation empowers residents by involving them in problem identification and decision-making. local authorities can educate residents about the unique skills to manage tourism (nunkoo & ramkissoon, 2007; huttsain, 2008). 3. it is important to educate tourists about the local culture and appropriate behavior to avoid cultural conflicts between hosts and tourists. tourist guides should play an important role in informing tourists about the host community's culture, values, and beliefs (alhasanat & hyasat, 2011; piuchan et al., 2018). 4. the local community will highly value tourism development if policymakers increase the benefits and the social welfare while targeting tourists with high-capacity spending rather than traditional marketing that encourage mass tourism (nunkoo & ramkissoon, 2007). 5. policymakers should consider the destination's capacity and ability to absorb the influx of tourists (zaidan, 2016). 6. the involvement of all stakeholders in tourism planning (i.e., local authorities, nongovernmental organizations, private enterprises, and residents) should have discussions regularly and when needed (mbaiwa, 2005). local participation should start in the early stages of the planning process and stay active through the decision-making process (zaidan, 2016). 7. a benefits-based approach to managing tourism should consider both the benefits and costs to residents and focus on management actions that ensure benefits to their communities (besculides et al., 2002). 8. awareness campaigns are necessary to educate the residents and sharpen their beliefs in the benefits of tourism development and try to influence the residents to perceive the negative impacts of tourism (andereck et al., 2005). 9. it is also essential for the tourism planners to consider the views and concerns of younger people and the well-educated into the tourism policies and strategies (nunkoo & ramkissoon, 2007; https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 36-48, doi: 10.18060/25965 copyright © 2021 jumana baqaain and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. baqaain, j. & wang, s. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 45 rasoolimanesh et al., 2017). 10. a decent awareness of the physiological and sociological motivations behind the residents' different attitudes will help solve the conflict and lead to a better future in tourism. (andereck et al., 2005). discussion this paper explored the social impacts of tourism as perceived by the residents, as well as the factors causing these negative and positive perceptions, in an effort to identify the managerial implications for tourism development. the summaries of the articles on the social impacts of tourism reveal that the residents` attitudes toward tourism development fluctuate between negative and positive and vary between countries with different cultural backgrounds. this study distinguished itself from other studies in that it has made a comparison between fifteen different destinations which took place in america, europe, asia, the middle east, and africa, in developed and developing countries, urban and rural places, various cultures, secular and religious regions, and various stages of tourism development. tourism was perceived as a reason to enhance the destination image, development of local infrastructure, improvement in social services (health, education), and increase recreational options. the positive social impacts as perceived by the local communities are increased community pride, a stronger sense of national identity, and community belonging. these positive outcomes are reasons that residents of a destination perceived better quality of life and an increase in life satisfaction, especially at the initial stages of the tourism development, as tourism can be seen as the main driver for local government to renovate the public infrastructure and to increase the number of shopping facilities, restaurants, and recreational facilities to attract tourists to the destination. moreover, in many rural communities with ethnic groups, tourism increases residents' pride in the local culture and appreciation of their own culture. tourism helps residents better understand and tolerate other cultures. restoration of historic buildings, empowerment of the locals, preservation of local and cultural practices are perceived by rural communities as positive outcomes associated with tourism. one of the unique positive impacts, as perceived by the local community in the rural area of otop valley thailand, is uplifting the position of women by providing additional job opportunities. a general conclusion is that tourism development is highly welcomed by different host communities, especially at the inception stage of the growth. in particular, the findings of the studies conducted in the rural communities in the developing countries coincide with the doxey irritation model (doxey, 1975) that residents are at the euphoria stage at the initial stages of the development. residents do not perceive any negative impacts due to tourism. communities with ethnic groups are more concerned about sustaining their own culture while sharing it with tourists from different cultures. therefore, this is one of the biggest challenges that interface community planners to maintain sustainable growth with the minor damage to these indigenous groups. on the contrary, the findings in the study by mbaiwa (2005) on botswana focus more on the negative impacts incurred at the initial stage of tourism development in developing countries. although tourism is a new economic sector in the region, the rural community perceived tourism as the reason for enclave tourism, racism, and relocation of local communities, and breaking up the family structure, which are unique negative impacts that have been discovered in this paper. another finding that opposed the concept of the doxey irritation index (doxey, 1975) is the study on the crete island, a mature tourism area by andriotis (2004), who disputed that although tourism in the https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 36-48, doi: 10.18060/25965 copyright © 2021 jumana baqaain and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. baqaain, j. & wang, s. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 46 area is at the mature stage, urban residents do not perceive any negative impacts, and their perceptions have not yet reached the antagonism stage. the findings of the study also showed that residents in urban communities in the developed countries perceived traffic congestions, crowding, litter, and increase in crime incidents and prostitution as the common negative social impacts of tourism development. these are physical impacts that have a great influence on residents' quality of life and negatively impact the resident's perceptions toward future tourism development. following the butler's (1980) life cycle model (butler, 2006), the studied areas in the developed countries might see their tourism at the stagnation stage where the existing infrastructure (roads, railways) may not be able to cope with the high influx of tourists and the capacities of many facilities are exceeded which led to traffic congestion and overcrowding. policymakers must consider the high number of tourists and the destination capacity with the rapid urbanization to avoid negative impacts of the development. these negative impacts are the main challenges for policymakers to prevent or mitigate the adverse effects and improve the transportation network, reduce traffic congestion, and noise, and decrease crime in the region (sharma et al., 2008) to maintain a sustainable tourism development. the findings support the theory of the demonstration effect, which has been discussed by many researchers, that tourism may impact values, customs, and traditions in addition to changes in dressing patterns (mbaiwa, 2005). these negative impacts are primarily noticed in developing countries (e.g., in dubai, petra, and botswana). the cultural divergences might be the reason behind this negative perception. in other words, the more significant the difference of characteristics (race, nationality, appearance, culture, and affluence) between the interacting groups, the greater the potential for negative social impacts (robin & ramkissoon, 2007). in the cases taking place in the arabic countries visited by western tourists, the younger generations are highly influenced by the tourists` behavior and lifestyles. this influence affects their behavior negatively and might lead to the loss of their cultural identity. moreover, tourists might not unintentionally respect the local values and beliefs; therefore, conflicts might arise among both parties, as in the case of dubai. nevertheless, one case study showed some contradictive results. iran, a muslim country where tourism is at the early stage in the towns of sarin and masooleh, people do not perceive tourism development as being associated with any negative impacts on the local community, in contrast with the results identified in the countries of dubai, uae and petra, jordan which are also muslim and influenced by severe islamic principles. these countries perceived that tourism is associated with many negative impacts on the host communities. besides, zamani-farahaniab and musaa (2012) debated in the case study of iran that the higher islamic practice and religious piety among respondents, the more likely they are to view that tourism provides positive benefit. given the inconsistency, more studies are suggested to explore the consistency or reasons for not being consistent. conclusion a review of the recently published case studies indicates that, in sum, the social impacts refer to changes in the quality of life of local people, behaviors, beliefs, and lifestyles at tourism destinations because of the interaction between tourists from different cultural backgrounds and residents. these impacts can be positive or negative; it depends on the type of community that perceives the consequences, the level of development, and the intrinsic and extrinsic factors that influence residents' perceptions. the findings of this study show many inconsistencies of the impacts as perceived by local https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 36-48, doi: 10.18060/25965 copyright © 2021 jumana baqaain and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. baqaain, j. & wang, s. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) 47 communities in different countries, which are deemed possible as the host communities are not identical and similar. still, it is believed that positive tourism impacts motivate the community to support tourism development and participate in tourism activities. the sustainability and support of the tourism industry depend on the positive perceptions of local /host residents (rasoolimanesh et al, 2017) as well as the active participation of the host communities. therefore, if the tourism development is appropriately managed, it may increase the positive perceptions of the social impacts among the local communities and subsequently lead to mitigation of residents' negative attitudes. moreover, the social impacts of tourism should be examined constantly at each specific destination to increase the benefits of tourism. such research sets a good foundation for similar studies in the future in terms of exploring the wide variety of positive and negative social impacts existing in various host communities, what specific social impacts of tourism may be expected in different host communities, and what factors to be aware of with regards to better understanding the causes of the impacts. further, the managerial implications will be helpful for the destination planners and policymakers about how to increase the positive impacts and mitigate the negative impacts to ensure sustainable tourism development in the host communities. references andriotis, k. 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(2017). community participation in world heritage site conservation and tourism development. tourism management, 58, 142-153. sharma, b., dyer, p., carter, j., & gursoy, d. (2008). exploring residents' perceptions of the social impacts of tourism on the sunshine coast, australia. international journal of hospitality & tourism administration, 9(3), 288-311. tovar, c. & lockwood, m. (2008) social impacts of tourism: an australian regional case study. international journal of tourism research, volume 10, issue 4, 365-378. zamani-farahaniab, h. & musaa, g. (2012) the relationship between islamic religiosity and residents’ perceptions of social impacts of tourism in iran: case studies of sare’in and masooleh. tourism management, volume 33, issue 4, pages 802-814. zhuang, x., yao, y., & li, j. j. (2019). social impacts of tourism on residents of world cultural heritage sites in china. sustainability, 11(3), 840. zaidan, e. (2016). the impact of cultural distance on local residents’ perception of tourism development: the case of dubai in uae. tourism: an international interdisciplinary journal, 64(1), 109-126. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26647 copyright © 2022 philippa kirwan and samantha morris this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2022 volume 5 no. 2 the eudemonic and hedonic impacts of attending live and virtual music and art events philippa kirwan samantha morris technological university dublin, ireland correspondence: samantha.morris@tudublin.ie (s. morris) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation kirwan, p. & morris, s. (2022 the eudemonic and hedonic impacts of attending live and virtual music and art events. events and tourism review, 5(2), 1-15. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:samantha.morris@tudublin.ie http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr kirwan, p. & morris, s. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 1-15. 2 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26647 copyright © 2022 philippa kirwan and samantha morris this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract this paper examines the under-investigated well-being impacts of arts and music events attendance, in both a live and virtual capacity. using eudaimonia and hedonia as a measure for well-being, three objectives were investigated; 1) do live arts and music events meet attendees eudemonic and hedonic needs? 2) do virtual arts and music events meet attendees eudemonic and hedonic needs? 3) how do live and virtual music and art events compare in meeting attendees eudemonic and hedonic needs? the study focused on attendee’s experiences having attended both live and virtual events. using nine semi-structured interviews this research found that live music and art events offer more eudemonic and hedonic impacts for the attendee than virtual events. additionally, participants at live events experienced hedonia, although it was unclear whether all participants experienced eudaimonia, achieving overall well-being. participants of virtual events, on the other hand felt that the social aspects and atmosphere were lacking, while a few of the participants did not achieve any eudemonic or hedonic impacts on their well-being. keywords: events; music and arts; wellbeing; eudaimonia; hedonia introduction there has been a great deal of research carried out regarding the impacts of the events industry. although most literature has focused on the economic, environmental and tourism aspects, the well-being impacts of attendees remains underdeveloped. literature that does cover the wellbeing impacts generally focuses on sports events, leaving the well-being impacts of music and art events yet to be explored. in addition, fraser, et al., (2021) indicated there was not sufficient research available to determine whether virtual music and arts events could impact the attendee’s well-being. with that in mind this research investigates the well-being impacts for attendees of live and virtual arts and music events. the research has three objectives 1) do live arts and music events meet attendees eudemonic and hedonic needs? 2) do virtual arts and music events meet attendees eudemonic and hedonic needs? 3) how do live and virtual music and art events compare in meeting attendees eudemonic and hedonic needs? well-being can be measured using two elements, eudaimonia and hedonia (seaborne et al., 2019). eudaimonia means to achieve happiness through living well (saragih & amelia, 2020), while hedonia means to achieve happiness through experiencing pleasure (saragih & amelia, 2020; ryan, huta, & deci, 2008). when someone experiences both eudaimonia and hedonia, they have achieved overall well-being. literature review eudaimonia eudaimonia originates from the greek philosopher aristotle and means of doing and living well. at music and arts events, a person can achieve full eudaimonia by being a transcendentalist. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kirwan, p. & morris, s. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 1-15. 3 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26647 copyright © 2022 philippa kirwan and samantha morris this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. this means to seek a balance of pleasure and escapism while experiencing self-reflection and personal meaning throughout the event (saragih & amelia, 2020). hedonia hedonia originates from the greek philosopher aristippus and means pleasure or a positive sensation. hedonia can often leave long-term effects of gratification, nonetheless, it cannot singlehandedly lead to well-being. while attendees sometimes visit music or arts events with the sole motive of seeking hedonic pleasure, some attendees have learning motives too (saragih & amelia, 2020; ryan, huta, & deci, 2008). social impact of music and arts events the social impacts of music and arts events is an area that has been somewhat neglected in research, yet equally as important as other event impacts. literature surrounding the social impacts of music and arts events generally focused on the impacts of the event functionalities and characteristics that can influence the attendee’s experience, the impacts of social capital and social cohesion within communities, and the positive impacts creative music and arts participation can have on personal development or identity salience. research conducted by luonila & kinnunen (2020) focused on finding whether the event attendees desires were similar to the event organisers desires. luonila & kinnunen (2020) explored the characteristics of a good arts event and the impact those qualities may have on the attendee’s experience. for example, the practical facilities such as toilets, food, and other functionalities found at events as well as the entertainment itself. hixson (2014, p. 5) highlights the importance of music and arts events for personal development or identity salience, “the importance of an identity for defining ones self-relative to other identities the individual holds”. the impacts art participation can have on personal development include behavioural modification, attitudinal change, relationship development or enhancement, psychological well-being, improved communication skills and increased awareness. specifically for younger age groups music and arts events encourage people to try on different personalities with the possibility of determining their future self, ensuing identity salience. fraser, et al., (2021) share similar opinions, suggesting audience participation at live music or arts events is understood to create positive impacts on the attendee’s social well-being. while those journal articles display characteristics of eudaimonia focusing mainly on personal growth and development, they do not include the hedonic benefits events can offer to attendees. music events and well-being literature exploring the well-being impacts of attending music events are scarce. however, ballantyne, et al., (2014) and ballantyne (2011) have examined the impacts and the psychological and social benefits of music events. attending music events such as concerts and festivals are the ideal listening experience. the music connection between performers and the attendees, along with the interactions with other event attendees are important factors that contribute to the overall experience of a music event. the music event atmosphere also assists in providing a positive experience for the attendee (ballantyne, ballantyne, & packer, 2014; ballantyne j. p., 2011). according to ballantyne, (2011) active participation in music such as attending the event can contribute to identity development by providing the opportunity to self-express, enhance moods, and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kirwan, p. & morris, s. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 1-15. 4 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26647 copyright © 2022 philippa kirwan and samantha morris this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. increase spirituality. similarly, ballantyne, et al., (2014) suggests music festivals provide the environment for attendees to develop psychologically, for example, personal growth, social wellbeing, self-expression, social integration and psychosocial well-being. ultimately, those two sources have discovered music events provide eudemonic and hedonic experiences for the attendee (ballantyne, ballantyne, & packer, 2014; ballantyne j. p., 2011). nevertheless, it has not yet been discovered whether virtual music events can offer the same overall well-being impacts for the attendee, thus presenting a gap within the literature. arts events and well-being there is insufficient literature focusing primarily on the well-being impacts of attending arts events. nevertheless, research conducted by totterdell & poerio (2020) and weziak-białowolska & białowolski (2018) discovered there are great impacts that can be achieved through attending art events. a range of arts events are available such as art galleries, theatres, exhibitions, plays and concerts. according to weziak-białowolska & białowolski (2018) attending those artistic events can enhance a person’s emotions, moods, psychological state and artistic activities (weziakbiałowolska & białowolski, 2018). similarly, totterdell & poerio (2020) suggests attending art events can have eudemonic and hedonic benefits. for example, the pleasurable experiences spent surrounded by art can increase the hedonic impacts. whereas elevating feelings such as life meaning, personal growth and the inspiration to create art is identified as eudemonic responses to an aesthetic environment. both of those journal articles outline related outcomes to attending the art events such as eudaimonia, hedonia, prosociality, improved cognitive functions, healthier behaviours, reduced anxiety and stress (totterdell & poerio, 2020). therefore, it is clear art events can have positive impacts on the attendee’s overall well-being, although it has not been discovered whether virtual art events can have the same impacts as live events. this suggests there is a gap within the literature. the power of creativity to enhance well-being mental well-being is a combination of eudaimonia and hedonia (paleari, pivetti, galati, & fincham, 2021; o'connor, et al., 2020). literature has researched the power creativity has to enhance someone’s well-being e.g., music and arts (kirrman, 2010). according to kirrman (2010), the arts can inspire well-being and creative participation within a person, while attending festivals and events can encourage people to stop living in their heads. a person who lives inside their own head is constantly reflecting inwards. for example, over-thinking or over-analysing the future and the past (usage, 2016). whereas valuing the time amongst friends, family and society while being surrounded by music and arts can help a person escape this feeling. attending festivals and events can have a transcendentalist effect on people to become more involved in activities such as creative workshops, public art exhibitions, fashion shows or music-making (kirrman, 2010; clarke & knifton, 2009; saunders j. , 2005). however, during covid-19 there was less opportunities to attend music or arts events, never mind gaining involvement in community music or arts activities. social distancing and quarantining have forced people to limit their movements. this raises many questions regarding those creative outputs. for example, what activities have people found to fulfil the need of eudaimonia or hedonia, and can those activities replace festivals and events long-term? this will either verify the importance of music and art festivals to enhance a person’s well-being or confirm people have evolved towards other sources of creative entertainment. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kirwan, p. & morris, s. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 1-15. 5 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26647 copyright © 2022 philippa kirwan and samantha morris this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. virtual events and wellbeing in 2019, pre-covid the nhs in the uk identified that people’s reliance on technology and social media is creating a barrier for social situations negatively affecting well-being. whereas nowadays, social media and technology have become the forefront for facilitating social connections and interactions (tonkin & whitaker, 2021), it is possible covid-19 has cemented the reliance on social media and technology for social interactions. if online events and hybrid events are fully established, will they be socially sustainable, or will festivals and events resume as before? vinnicombe & sou (2017) and gilchrist (2009) believe that the festival atmosphere was a leading motivator in attending live events. gloor (2020) confirms this by admitting while online experiences are great, they simply cannot replace the experience from a live show. the energy between attendees, performers and others involved is much greater than “when you’re looking at a computer screen” (gloor, 2020, p. 13). therefore, it is critical to receive feedback surrounding the atmosphere and social aspects from those who have attended both live and virtual events. it is also important to compare the eudemonic and hedonic benefits of both live and virtual events. this will inform event organisers whether their events are enabling attendees to achieve well-being. overall, this is a defining moment for the future of music and arts events. people might be willing to tolerate or enjoy online interaction during covid-19 lockdowns, although long-term factors such as atmosphere and socialisation might influence the return of social events. eudaimonia and hedonia since covid-19 according to yang, et al (2020) in a study that was carried out in asia during the first wave, lockdown rules are changing people’s social activities as well as their purchasing habits. people are investing less in hedonic products and activities used for entertainment or personal interests, rather focusing on a utilitarian lifestyle. however, tonkin & whitaker (2021) contradict this statement by saying, ‘in the current climate of fear and anxiety generated by the coronavirus pandemic, playfulness is being used as a recognised coping strategy to frame and re-frame situations during times of stress and emotional distress’ (tonkin & whitaker, 2021, p. 2). this begs the question if people are seeking escapism and life satisfaction during the pandemic through eudemonic or hedonic methods. if so, this study will investigate what types of eudemonic and hedonic pleasures people are pursuing during the pandemic, specifically focusing on the music and arts event attendees during these unprecedented times. one of the most distressing features of the coronavirus response is the strict social distancing which has been extended beyond a year, ‘contradicting everything that drives us as a social species’ (tonkin & whitaker, 2021, p. 2). loneliness, social isolation and entrapment are a few of the consequences of the pandemic. tonkin & whitaker (2021) claim ‘a lack of social connection is bad for physical and mental health and loneliness increases the likelihood of premature mortality by 26%’ (tonkin & whitaker, 2021, p. 1). this is a horrifying statement considering options for social interactions have been decreased vastly. people worldwide have experienced an immense reduction of social interactions and personal freedoms ultimately disrupting eudemonic and hedonic growth. in 2017, the uk all party parliamentary group on arts, health and well-being identified the importance of the creative arts for health and well-being in a comprehensive and evidence-based report (tonkin & whitaker, 2021). identifying whether participants have experienced loneliness, social isolation and entrapment as a result of the decrease in social events will help support the argument surrounding the importance of live music and arts events. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kirwan, p. & morris, s. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 1-15. 6 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26647 copyright © 2022 philippa kirwan and samantha morris this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. virtual events since covid-19 the covid-19 outbreak has shaken the live music and arts industry. festivals, concert tours and exhibitions have been postponed or temporarily cancelled. by march 12th, 2020, two of the world’s largest live event companies, live nation and aeg were forced to suspend all events for the foreseeable future (gloor, 2020). times were unprecedented for almost a year and a half; however, people are still uncertain what the future holds for events. many music and arts event companies have shifted to host online virtual events. users of the online live streaming website ‘twitch’ have risen by 524%. pre-covid twitch had an average of 92,000 monthly viewers, however during march 2020 views rose to 574,000 (gloor, 2020). fraser, et al., (2021) describe those virtual experiences as ‘networked collectivism’, explaining how those virtual events “provide opportunities for computer-mediated sharing of cultural [events] in real-time or asynchronously” (fraser, crooke, & davidson, 2021, p. 3). specifically, during times of loneliness and reduced social interactions, virtual events can act as a social surrogate providing attendees with a form of entertainment. virtual event attendees have been interacting through social platforms such as twitter and other forms of online discourse such as chat boxes. on twitter, the attendees use hashtags and keyword terms for specific events in their interactions. this allows for other attendees to create discussion and acknowledge the impacts of that particular event (fraser, crooke, & davidson, 2021). during these extraordinary times, musicians and artists have adapted their delivery of music into digital means e.g., virtual events. there have been collaborations through online platforms from professional and amateur musicians, actors and artists. online communities are forming in an effort to make the social distancing somewhat tolerable (fraser, crooke, & davidson, 2021; tonkin & whitaker, 2021). considering virtual events have gained popularity since covid lockdowns, there is deficient research available to determine whether virtual music and arts events have the ability to trigger emotional contagion, enhancing the attendees eudemonic and hedonic well-being (fraser, crooke, & davidson, 2021). it is important to establish whether music and art events hosted online can have the same eudemonic and hedonic impacts as live events, or do they exist merely for lockdown entertainment purposes. if festival attendees are satisfied with attending those online events, what will this mean for the future of live music and arts events in a post-covid world? methodology this research investigated three objectives; 1) do live arts and music events meet attendees eudemonic and hedonic needs? 2) do virtual arts and music events meet attendees eudemonic and hedonic needs? 3) how do live and virtual music/art events compare in meeting attendees eudemonic and hedonic needs? the research was qualitative in nature and employed nine semistructured interviews. the research population consisted of music and arts event enthusiasts. to ensure the participants were appropriate for the interview, criteria were formed. the criteria included the following three standards: 1. the participant must have attended at least one live music and arts event pre-covid. 2. the participant must have attended at least one virtual music or arts event during covid lockdowns. 3. participants must be above the age of 18 years old. participants were approached via instagram using the self-selection sampling approach, the participants were not asked direct questions in relation to eudaimonia, hedonia or any of their elements. however, the questions developed were open and allowed the participant to answer https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kirwan, p. & morris, s. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 1-15. 7 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26647 copyright © 2022 philippa kirwan and samantha morris this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. honestly and in a non-biased manner. examples of the questions asked included: could you describe what inspired you to attend the music/ arts event/ festival? could you describe how you felt before attending the music/arts event? could you see any changes in your well-being during or after attending the virtual festival/event? interviews lasted between 30-35 minutes and were conducted over ms teams. all 9 interviews were recorded. content analysis was conducted to determine emerging themes. results were analysed using a framework developed by seaborn, et al., (2020) which was previously used to measure hedonia and eudaimonia impacts of a sports event of an older population. the dyad framework (figure 1) was appropriate to use for this research question as the aims and objectives were similar to seaborn et al., (2020) study. figure 1: framework to measure eudaimonia and hedonia as proposed by seaborn, et al., (2020) findings and discussion objective 1: eudemonic and hedonic impacts of attending live events the first objective focused on the impacts the participants experienced having attended live music or arts events. participants were asked to describe their involvement in the event, e.g., involvement with peers, music, or other available activities. table 1 below shows the hedonic impacts for attendees at live events, while table 2 shows the eudemonic impacts for attendees of live events. table 1: hedonic impacts for attendees at live events hedonic impacts as proposed by seaborn et al., (2020) examples of impact from interviews relaxation ‘some good stories with friends’. comfort ‘stay with whomever i go with, so i don’t get lost in crowds’. fun ‘you’d be smashing out of breath coming out of the venue, singing and dancing all night’. ‘expressiveness’. ‘good buzz’ pleasure ‘another girl started speaking to us and we hung out with her for the whole evening’. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kirwan, p. & morris, s. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 1-15. 8 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26647 copyright © 2022 philippa kirwan and samantha morris this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. ‘there is nothing i love more than seeing a painting i have admired for a long while and seeing it in real life.’ table 2: eudemonic impacts for attendees at live events eudemonic impacts as proposed by seaborn et al., (2020) examples of impact from interviews meaning ‘some good stories with friends’. ‘it was my first festival with my brother, so it was a great experience to go with him and bring him to a music event’. personal growth ‘feed the soul’ and ‘inspired’ ‘regroup [their] feelings’ ‘own pace and be with [their] own thoughts and enjoy it on [their] own’ expressiveness singing and dancing. ‘expressiveness’. self-actualisation another world’ four of the participants described their participation at the event as interactions with their friends and family. positive interactions among friends, family and peers have both eudemonic ‘meaning’ and hedonic ‘pleasure’. one participant explained her interactions with other event attendees and described a couple of instances where she made connections at the event. according to kirrman (2010), clarke & knifton (2009), and saunders (2005), spending time with friends, family and peers while also being surrounded by music and arts can have a significantly positive impact on someone’s well-being. similarly, getz (2019) and gilchrist (2009) suggest socialisation at events help the attendee build relationships with peers and develop hedonistic values such as a sense of belonging or camaraderie. therefore, findings from the interviews and the literature support each other. overall, it is evident those four participants experienced both eudemonic and hedonic well-being as a result of socialisation at the event. two participants described their involvement with the live music event as dancing and singing. dancing and singing could be described as both ‘fun’ and ‘expressiveness’. fun is on the hedonic side of the dyad and expressiveness is on the eudemonic side of the dyad, therefore the involvement from those participants suggests they may have achieved overall well-being throughout the event. the participants were then asked how they felt during or after the live event, and whether they could see any changes in their well-being. seven of the participants stated they were happier which implies they experienced pleasure from the hedonic side of the dyad throughout the event. while two of the participants described the event as a ‘good buzz’, which indicates they had fun throughout the event, which is also on the hedonic side of the dyad. this indicates most of the benefits participants experienced as a result of the music and arts event were hedonic. two participants described their experience at the event as a bonding experience with their https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kirwan, p. & morris, s. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 1-15. 9 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26647 copyright © 2022 philippa kirwan and samantha morris this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. friends, family and peers. this would suggest those participants gained a sense of ‘meaning’. developing a sense of meaning after attending an event would be considered a eudemonic characteristic. five of the participants stated the event had an overall positive impact on their wellbeing. for the participant to experience overall positive impacts on their well-being it would suggest they experienced both eudaimonia and hedonia at some stage during the event. ryan, et al., (2008) believes hedonia can often leave long-term impacts of gratification, although it does not have the power to achieve overall well-being. this is confirmed by paleari, et al., (2021) and o'connor, et al., (2020) who have stated overall well-being is a combination of eudaimonia and hedonia. in contrast, more than half of the participants claim they felt positive impacts on their overall well-being as a result of attending the live event. this would indicate the majority of the participants did experience both eudaimonia and hedonia at some stage during the live event. objective 2: eudemonic and hedonic impacts of attending virtual events the second objective focused on the impacts the participants experienced having attended virtual music or art events. table 3 below shows the hedonic impacts for attendees at virtual events, while table 4 shows the eudemonic impacts for attendees of virtual events. table 3: hedonic impacts for attendees at virtual events hedonic impacts as proposed by seaborn et al., (2020) examples of impact from interviews relaxation ‘no crowds’ fun ‘i’d put on a glittery dress, i might make a margarita, and i have these disco lights i bought myself’. pleasure ‘the closest thing to the real thing’ while another participant said they were ‘hoping that a virtual music event would fill the void of not getting to go to any live events.’ ‘see if [the virtual event] could bring the atmosphere, and the same feeling of happiness you get when you’re at a live event’ ‘curious but not very excited because you’d miss the feeling of being part of a social event, but you are just sitting in front of your computer watching it, it’s very passive’. ‘i was really chasing that feeling’ ‘there was always people talking about it on twitter or a group on twitter with a hashtag talking about [the virtual event]. so i’d engage that way.’ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kirwan, p. & morris, s. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 1-15. 10 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26647 copyright © 2022 philippa kirwan and samantha morris this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. table 4: eudemonic impacts for attendees at virtual events eudemonic impacts as proposed by seaborn et al., (2020) examples of impact from interviews meaning ‘a few bands that i like had new albums and stuff out, so it was good to see them perform in the virtual world’. personal growth ‘get a little inspired and take out my paint set myself and do stuff’. expressiveness ‘the closest thing to the real thing’ ‘hoping that a virtual music event would fill the void of not getting to go to any live events.’ four of the participants stated there was no opportunity to interact or participate in the virtual event. this was the most common response to this question. this is similar to what gloor (2020) found in their study where virtual events were compared to looking at a computer screen. this would indicate that for these participants, the that the virtual events they attended did not offer opportunities to become involved ultimately creating no eudemonic or hedonic impacts. four participants highlighted the opportunity to chat among peers via chat box during the virtual event, although none of the participants got involved with those chat boxes. therefore, those events did offer the opportunity for eudemonic expression among peers, although none of the participants gained any eudemonic impacts from this feature. as can be seen in table 3, one participant mentioned threads were available on twitter. this gave virtual event attendees the opportunity to ‘express’ themselves also allowing for eudemonic impacts. another participant mentioned there was a question-and-answer session before the music event began, therefore creating engagement between the artists and audience. the participant did not take part in this question-and-answer session, although they did highlight the fact a question-andanswer session would not happen at a regular music event. therefore, the virtual event created an opportunity for attendees to get involved. this adds to the value of the event and creates a sense of eudemonic meaning for those attendees. two participants who attended arts events took a guided tour which created a small bit of participation with the artwork. it allowed for an in-depth understanding of each art piece. while the other participant who attended an arts events acknowledged the opportunity to read about the art pieces. therefore, the participation available at those art events created hedonic pleasure for the attendees. both those participants also admitted attending the virtual arts event inspired them to create their own art pieces from home while stating they would not be as inspired to go home and create art after attending a live art event. according to kirrman (2010) clarke & knifton (2009) and saunders (2005), attending events can have a transcendentalist impact on people to become more involved in arts and music. results here suggest that virtual arts event inspired hedonic ‘pleasure’ and eudemonic ‘expressiveness’. the participants were then asked how they felt during or after the virtual event, and whether they could see any changes in their well-being. four of the participants believed the virtual event positively impacted their well-being and they felt happier after afterwards. this indicates those participants gained both hedonic pleasure and eudemonic expressiveness as a result of attending the event. in contrast, two of the attendees felt it had the opposite effect, making them feel somewhat https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kirwan, p. & morris, s. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 1-15. 11 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26647 copyright © 2022 philippa kirwan and samantha morris this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. depressed after attending the virtual event. this suggests the virtual event negatively impacted their well-being. the other three participants stated the virtual events were good although not as good as live events and felt no change to their well-being. nonetheless, three of the participants enjoyed the virtual event because there were no crowds of people in attendance. this would indicate those participants experienced hedonic relaxation and comfort as a result of the event. alternatively, three other participants thought the event felt empty as if the crowd and atmosphere were missing. this suggests, for these, a virtual event was lacking eudemonic meaning. fraser, et al., (2021) indicated there was not sufficient research available to determine whether virtual music and arts events could impact the attendee’s well-being. however, findings to this objective suggest that there were more positive impacts than negative impacts for attendees at virtual events. objective 3: how do live and virtual event experiences compare the final objective focused on comparing the live and virtual events aiming to establish whether or not they could both offer a quality experience for the attendee. table 5 below shows the themes from the findings when attendees compared impacts of live and virtual events. table 5: themes related to comparison of live and virtual experiences live events virtual events increased social connections and interactions opportunities for different types of interaction such as question and answers session enjoy social aspects before, during and post event. building anticipation less opportunity for interaction with other attendees before, during and after event sense of escapism sense of escapism more atmosphere and energy provides a front row seat to an event increase in overall wellbeing, environmentally friendly, chance to observe at own pace, the final objective focused on comparing the live and virtual events aiming to establish whether or not they could both offer a quality experience for the attendee. the first question asked the participants to compare their experiences having attended both live and virtual music or arts events. two of the participants felt live and virtual events could not be compared as they were completely different types of experiences. whereas four of the participants felt live events create more of a connection between peers, performers and the arts. three of the participants believed the live events were more enjoyable than virtual events, while two of the participants felt there was more energy and atmosphere at live events. two of the participants stated they look forward to the entire day of the live event, meaning the pre-event ventures and the activities after the event. these findings confirm the literature with both getz, (2019) and gilchrist (2009) highlighting how positive social experiences can influence further participation in events. this would suggest those participants who had positive social experiences at the live events would be inclined to attend live events in the future. whereas those participants who missed the social aspects at the virtual events would be less likely to attend a virtual event in the future. alternatively, one participant stated they were happy not having to travel to the virtual event meaning they could attend the event from the comfort of their own home. while a different participant highlighted virtual events are more https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kirwan, p. & morris, s. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 1-15. 12 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26647 copyright © 2022 philippa kirwan and samantha morris this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. environmentally friendly than live events. another participant enjoyed the fact every attendee had a front-row seat at the virtual event. overall, the participants had split opinions when it came to comparing live and virtual events, although it seems participants were in favour of live events. the second comparative question asked participants if they felt live and virtual events offer the same opportunities for the attendee. the majority of the participants believed live and virtual events do not offer the same opportunities, although they both offer different opportunities. this is similar to gloor (2020)’s opinion stating online experiences cannot replace those of a live event. however, two participants who had attended virtual arts events felt they offered greater opportunities than live events, including q&a sessions and a chance to observe art at a more relaxed pace. both participants were also inspired to create their own artwork after attending virtual art events, therefore creating more eudemonic opportunities. this suggests the virtual events had more transcendentalist opportunities, while the live events had more pleasure-seeking experiences for the attendee’s (kirrman, 2010; clarke & knifton, 2009; saunders, 2005). overall, the results of this question have indicated live events have more eudemonic and hedonic opportunities for the attendee. the final comparative question asked the participants whether live or virtual events impacted their well-being the most. seven of the participants stated live events impacted their well-being the most. two of the participants felt virtual events impacted their well-being the most. clarke & knifton, (2009), kirrman, (2010) and saunders (2005) state social outings such as events have the power to increase the quality of life and the overall well-being of the attendee. the results from the findings agree with this statement considering seven out of nine participants in this study claim their overall well-being was more improved after a live event. those findings would suggest the virtual music and arts events offered a sense of escapism throughout the pandemic, unfortunately, they could not offer social impacts or atmosphere for the attendees. therefore, the future of virtual music and art events is uncertain. however, considering the virtual events industry is relatively new, there are opportunities for innovations to improve the attendee experience. event organisers should use feedback from virtual event attendees to further develop the social aspects of the attendee’s virtual experience. ultimately making the future of virtual events more promising. conclusion this research has concluded that live events offer more positive experiences for the attendees overall well-being than virtual events. it has been discovered that live events are valued and needed for the eudemonic and hedonic impacts they can provide for the attendee. although, it is clear from the findings virtual arts events provide more eudemonic and hedonic impacts than virtual music events. nevertheless, virtual events served a great purpose throughout the pandemic, although it seems music and art event enthusiasts are eager for the return of live events. limitations due to covid lockdowns and restrictions, it meant the interviews were conducted virtually. this was limiting as many participants may not have felt as comfortable conducting such a personal interview via zoom. in addition, because the research was conducted during covid-19, this research reflects a particular time and place, i.e., during a global pandemic. it is recommended further studies be conducted in the future when music and art event enthusiasts have the option to attend either live or virtual events. references https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kirwan, p. & morris, s. 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(2018). involvement with the arts and participation in cultural events-does personality moderate impact on well-being? evidence from the u.k. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kirwan, p. & morris, s. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 1-15. 15 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26647 copyright © 2022 philippa kirwan and samantha morris this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. household panel survey. psychology of aesthetics, creativity, and the arts. yang, y., li, o., peng, x., & wang, l. (2020). consumption trends during the covid-19 crisis: how awe, coping, and social norms drive utilitarian purchases. frontiers in psychology, 11. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ abstract eudaimonia hedonia music events and well-being arts events and well-being the power of creativity to enhance well-being virtual events and wellbeing eudaimonia and hedonia since covid-19 virtual events since covid-19 the final objective focused on comparing the live and virtual events aiming to establish whether or not they could both offer a quality experience for the attendee. table 5 below shows the themes from the findings when attendees compared impacts of li... the final objective focused on comparing the live and virtual events aiming to establish whether or not they could both offer a quality experience for the attendee. the first question asked the participants to compare their experiences having attended... events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 33-46, doi: 10.18060/27380 copyright © 2023 m mansha tahir this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2023 volume 6 determinants of restaurant love: mediating role of restaurant trust m mansha tahir allama iqbal open university, pakistan correspondence: manshatahir75@gmail.com (m. m. tahir) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation tahir, m. m. (2023). determinants of restaurant love: mediating role of restaurant trust. events and tourism review, 6, 33-46. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:manshatahir75@gmail.com http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr tahir, m. m.. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 33-46. 34 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 33-46, doi: 10.18060/27380 copyright © 2023 m mansha tahir this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract this research paper examines the influences of restaurant reputation, restaurant experience, and restaurant trust on restaurant love where restaurant trust is used as mediator. majority (53%) of the 365 respondents were male. respondents’ data were collected with closed-end questionnaire and random sampling technique was followed while selecting the respondents. the researcher used spss and amos to analyze the collected data. the data analysis shows that restaurant reputation and restaurant experience positively influence the restaurant trust and restaurant love and trust mediates between the relationships of reputation and love as well as between the relationship of experience and restaurant love. this research has, implications, limitations, discussed in the last section. keywords: restaurant love; restaurant reputation; restaurant experience; restaurant trust; schema theory introduction restaurants, food points, hotels, and other segments of hospitality and tourism industry are striving to attract and retain customers. businesses do their best to improve their image/ reputation and service quality. it can be helpful in retaining existing customers as well as bringing new customers. people tend to revisit their loved places and brands. various factors contribute towards this love which is the focus of the present research. this study investigates the impact of reputation, experience, and trust on brand love as a social psychology concept. brand love is, “the degree of passionate emotional attachment a satisfied consumer has for a particular trade name” (carroll & ahuvia, 2006, p.3). triangular theory of love (sternberg, 1986) provided foundations for researchers to study the concept of love in social psychology. further work by researchers (shimp & madden, 1988) and an empirical study (ahuvia, 1994) contributed towards this theory. passion or love was termed as an important dimension of brand relationship quality (fournier, 1998). brand or brand name plays a significant role in success or failure of the business. brand love has significant influence on customers’ decisions regarding purchase, repurchase and recommendations of products and services (drennan et al., 2015; song et al., 2019; vlachos & vrechopoulos, 2012). restaurants focus on customer relationship as a competitive advantage and business forecasts (song et al., 2022). brand love is crucial in this brand-customer relationship because brand love represents a psychological connection and affection between customer and a particular brand (han et al., 2022). brand is an important antecedent of customer relationship which plays key role in the success of business (yun & kim, 2021). purpose of the study research on brand love is very important because of the importance of brand love as discussed above. purpose of the study is to investigate the determinants of brand love. the present study introduces research model comprising of restaurant reputation, experience, trust and love. model depicts the direct influences of determinants of restaurant brand love. trust is shown as mediator in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ tahir, m. m.. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 33-46. 35 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 33-46, doi: 10.18060/27380 copyright © 2023 m mansha tahir this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. brand reputation-love and brand experiencelove relationships. research questions this study has the following research questions: 1) what is the impact of restaurant reputation on restaurant love? 2) what is the impact of restaurant reputation on restaurant trust? 3) what is the impact of restaurant experience on restaurant trust? 4) what is the impact of restaurant experience on restaurant love? 5) what is the impact of restaurant trust on restaurant love? 6) how restaurant trust mediates between restaurant reputation and restaurant love? 7) how restaurant trust mediates between restaurant experience and restaurant love? literature review restaurant reputation, restaurant love and restaurant trust reputation is a valuable resource of firms (barney, 1991), which is a collective assessment of firm by its stakeholders (barnett et al., 2006; fombrun, 1996). customers have impressions and beliefs regarding a product or service. such impressions, beliefs, ideas and perceptions are called reputation (ryu et al., 2012). brand reputation plays key role in customer satisfaction and retention. good reputation leads to brand success. according to herbig and milewicz (1995), brands with good reputation are successful and earn their market share by making profits. businesses including restaurants do their best to establish and maintain good reputation to keep their customers satisfied and loyal. according to veloutsou and moutinho (2009) reputation is characteristics of brand as perceived by stakeholders and “the development of brand reputation means more than keeping customers satisfied, it is something a company earns over time and refers to how various audiences evaluate the brand” (p. 315). reputation has significant impact on attitudes toward products and services (brown, 1995) and purchase intentions (yoon et al., 1993). brand love is customers’ attitude towards the brand (rubin, 1973). based on this discussion, the present research assumes that restaurant brand reputation has positive relationship with restaurant brand love and establishes the following hypothesis: h1: restaurant reputation has positive relationship with restaurant love. corporate reputation having strategic value (raithel & schwaiger, 2015), positively influences trust, customer satisfaction and loyalty (sung & yang, 2008; walsh et al., 2009). trust is a significant determinant of buying behaviors in restaurants (bredahl, 2001). positive brand reputation indicates low risk level, reduces uncertainty, enhances trust, and influences buying decisions of customers (sˇmaizˇiene˙, 2008). trust plays key role in establishing and maintaining good relationship between businesses and customers (elliott & yannopoulou, 2007). restaurant industry is a service industry where customers may be uncertain about services, quality of food and other issues such hygiene and safety measures. cretu and brodie (2007) argue that reputation has more important role to play in restaurant industry. consumer trust is crucial in building and maintaining relationships in hotel (lovell, 2009) and restaurant (oh, 2002) industry. reputatin enhances trust in service quality (herbig & milewicz, 1995) and studies confirm positive impact of brand reputation on brand trust (suh & houston, 2010; torresmoraga et al., 2010). so, this study establishes the hypothesis as: h2: restaurant reputation has positive relationship with restaurant trust. restaurant experience, restaurant trust and restaurant love https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ tahir, m. m.. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 33-46. 36 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 33-46, doi: 10.18060/27380 copyright © 2023 m mansha tahir this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. consumers seek information and knowledge of brand through experiences which shape their beliefs and feelings. these feelings and beliefs build and enhance their attitudes towards the brands (wright, 2006). positive brand experience is among the factors of brand attachment and brand trust. studies regarding fashion brands (dolbec & chebat, 2013) and hotel brands (kang et al., 2017) show that brand attachment is enhanced by brand experience. researchers (alloza, 2008; klein et al., 2016) defined brand experience as responses from consumer-brand interaction and these responses last for long period of time (brakus et al., 2009; roswinanto & strutton, 2014). in restaurant industry, consumers/ customers respond to their consumption experiences and perceive restaurant brand as good or bad. as a rule of thumb, good restaurant experiences imprint good image and poor experiences imprint poor image in minds of customers. in other words, experiences leave impressions in minds of customers. researchers (chen-yu et al., 2016), through the lens of schema theory (bartless, 1932), see brand experience as formation of impressions. schema theory, “describes how people perceive new experiences by activating the mental schema stored in their memory” (chen-yu et al., 2016 p.5). memory schema (previous experience of brand/s) influence future purchase decisions (alba & hasher, 1983). customers gain brand’s understanding through brand experiences which enhances their brand trust (lau & lee, 1999). research show that brand experience has significant relationship with brand trust (sharifi & esfidani, 2014; weisberg et al., 2011). therefore, hypothesis h3 was proposed as under: h3: restaurant experience has positive relationship with restaurant trust. according to verhoef et al. (2009) brand experience creates customer loyalty. restaurant experience can be either direct or indirect. buying and consuming food or enjoying services give direct experience whereas advertisement and marketing provide indirect experience (brakus et al., 2009). various qualitative studies show that brand experience and brand love are interrelated (bagozzi et al., 2017). previous research shows the significant contribution of brand experience in creation of brand love (bicakcioglu et al., 2018; garg et al., 2016; huang, 2017; sarkar et al., 2019). as a result of the above mentioned research findings, the present research posits the following hypothesis: h4: restaurant experience has positive relationship with restaurant love. restaurant trust and restaurant love brand experience builds brand trust which ultimately results in brand attachment (langner & seidel, 2015). brand trust can be defined as consumers’ faith in brand performance (albert & merunka, 2013). brand trust is a positive and affective brand experience by consumers (esch et al., 2006), and is linked to altruism, brand honesty, reliability and love (albert & merunka, 2013). research findings show that strong brand trust is result of customer satisfaction (delgado-ballester & munuera-aleman, 2001). trust promotes commitment, loyalty and positive attitude towards brand (knox & walker, 2001) and contributes to brand love (drennan et al., 2015). trust has strong relationship with intimacy and love (larzelere & huston, 1980) and brand love and emotions (kaufmann et al., 2016). further, research findings suggest that trust is an antecedent of long-term relationships (matzler et al., 2008). so, it is believed that brand trust has positive impact on brand love and following relationship is hypothesized: h5: restaurant trust has positive relationship with restaurant love. mediating role of brand trust the present research investigates the mediating impact of brand trust between relationship of brand reputation and brand trust. it also studies the mediating role of brand trust in relationship of https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ tahir, m. m.. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 33-46. 37 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 33-46, doi: 10.18060/27380 copyright © 2023 m mansha tahir this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. brand experience and brand love. brand image (brand reputation in the present study) has significant impact on brand trust (flavian et al., 2005; ladhari & michaude, 2015; lin et al., 2017; sallam, 2016) and enhances (chen, 2010). research shows that brand experiences build trust which develops attachment (park et al., 2006; silva & alwi, 2006). brand experience also provides satisfaction and value for consumers (brakus et al., 2009). satisfied customers tend to stay with the brand (berry et al., 2002; heinrich et al., 2008). studies show that brand trust is built by brand experience/s (francisco-maffezzolli et al., 2014). brand trust creates positive emotional attachment (frasquet et al., 2017; louis & lombart, 2010; vlachos et al., 2010). based on these findings, following hypotheses are established: h6: restaurant trust mediates the relationship between restaurant reputation and restaurant love. h7: restaurant trust mediates the relationship between restaurant experience and restaurant love. research model based on literature review and established hypotheses, following is the proposed research model: methodology data for the present research were collected from customers of the restaurants in rahim yar khan district of punjab province of pakistan. the data were collected during the months of january and february 2023. the customers aged over 18 years were randomly selected as the participants of this study. this simple random sampling provided equal opportunities to all customers for being selected. the participants were requested to fill the printed questionnaires. the researcher collected 365 questionnaires. first 40 questionnaires were used in pilot study which showed satisfactory reliability (cronbach's alpha) values between 0.825 and 0.903. after these satisfactory findings, further data were collected. the present research used questionnaire with close-end questions. the questionnaire contains https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ tahir, m. m.. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 33-46. 38 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 33-46, doi: 10.18060/27380 copyright © 2023 m mansha tahir this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. the five-point likert scale with (1= strongly disagree, 2= disagree, 3= neutral-neither agree nor disagree, 4= agree, and 5= strongly agree). questionnaire comprises of measurement items adapted from previous studies which are presented in table 1. table 1. measures code construct item source restaurant reputation (resr) resr_1 this restaurant is trustworthy. han et al. (2015) resr_2 this restaurant brand is reputable. resr_3 my friends highly appreciate this restaurant brand. song et al. (2019) resr_4 this restaurant is popular with people. restaurant experience (rese) rese_1 i feel good when i experience this restaurant brand. kim et al. (2018) rese_2 this restaurant brand gives me pleasure. rese_3 it is fun to experience this restaurant brand. rese_4 experiencing this restaurant brand is enjoyable. restaurant trust (rest) rest_1 i think this restaurant brand is trustworthy. kim et al. (2018) rest_2 i think this restaurant brand is competent. rest_3 i think this restaurant brand is honest. rest_4 i have confident in the quality of this restaurant brand. restaurant love (resl) resl_1 this is a wonderful restaurant. carroll & ahuvia (2006) and shen et al. (2021) resl_2 this restaurant brand makes me feel good. resl_3 this restaurant brand is totally awesome. resl_4 i love this restaurant. resl_5 i am very passionate about this restaurant brand. the researcher used statistical package for the social sciences (spss), v.19 and analysis of moment structures (amos), v.21 to analyze the data. the relevant results or research findings are discussed under results section. results respondents’ profile table 2 shows summary of descriptive statistics of the respondents (age, education and gender). in age category, most of the respondents 151 (41.30%) fall in 26 to 33 years’ age group, followed by 34 to 41 age group which is 132 (36.20%) respondents. most of the respondents are with masters or higher education. female respondents are slightly less than male respondents. table 2. demographic characteristics of respondents respondents’ characteristics category frequency percent age 18 25 40 11.0 26 33 151 41.3 34 41 132 36.2 42 49 25 6.8 50 and above 17 4.7 total 365 100.0 education intermediate 55 15.1 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ tahir, m. m.. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 33-46. 39 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 33-46, doi: 10.18060/27380 copyright © 2023 m mansha tahir this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. graduation 141 38.6 masters and above 169 46.3 total 365 100.0 gender female 170 46.6 male 195 53.4 total 365 100.0 data reliability and validity reliability and validity tests show satisfactory results. reliability of the data was assessed with values of cronbach’s alpha. all alpha values are above 0.70 and are satisfactory (hair et al., 2010; kline, 2016; nunnally, 1978). values of average variance extracted (ave) were above 0.50 and are acceptable (hair et al., 2010; nunnally, 1978). ave and factor loadings were calculated to assess the convergent validity (fornell & larcker, 1981). values of composite reliability (cr) were also acceptable as these are above 0.70 (hair et al., 2012). values of cronbach’s alpha, ave, factor loading and composite reliability are given in table 3. discriminant validity is ascertained by comparing square root of ave with correlations between two constructs. discriminant validity results are satisfactory as values of square root of ave are greater than inter-construct correlations (fornell & larcker, 1981; hair et al., 1998; park et al., 2014). these findings are shown in table 4. results of hypothesized measurement model (using amos-v.21) are also satisfactory because model fit indices fits the data well. these values were as: χ²/d =3.814, gfi=0.950, cfi=0.909, nfi=0.908, tli=0.817, rmsea=0.339. table 3. reliability and convergent validity construct m sd cronbach’s α fl cr ave resr 0.871 0.719 0.691 resr_1 3.52 0.918 0.725 resr_2 3.53 0.939 0.773 resr_3 3.53 0.875 0.737 resr_4 3.45 0.896 0.805 rese 0.928 0.763 0.783 rese_1 3.17 1.098 0.791 rese_2 3.08 1.021 0.803 rese_3 3.01 1.081 0.718 rese_4 3.12 1.094 0.781 rest 0.929 0.734 0.704 rest_1 3.35 1.094 0.844 rest_2 3.38 1.059 0.825 rest_3 3.32 1.099 0.783 rest_4 3.37 1.118 0.847 resl 0.879 0.792 0.732 resl_1 3.34 1.093 0.810 resl_2 3.32 1.072 0.814 resl_3 3.46 1.059 0.823 resl_4 3.41 1.060 0.796 resl_5 3.38 1.076 0.819 0.739 0.738 note: resr = restaurant reputation, rese = restaurant experience, rest= restaurant trust, resl= restaurant love. values represented at significance of p < 0.05. table 4. discriminant validity analysis construct m sd resr rese rest resl https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ tahir, m. m.. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 33-46. 40 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 33-46, doi: 10.18060/27380 copyright © 2023 m mansha tahir this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. restaurant reputation (resr) 3.51 0.766 1 restaurant experience (rese) 3.10 0.975 0.326** 1 restaurant trust (rest) 3.36 0.999 0.339** 0.402** 1 restaurant love (resl) 3.38 0.822 0.255** 0.336** 0.763** 1 **. correlation is significant at the 0.01 level (2-tailed). a. listwise n=365 hypotheses testing relationships among variables were checked with amos using structural equation modeling (sem) technique. data analysis shows positive significant direct relationships among variables. it indicates that all hypotheses relevant to direct relationships are supported. results are summarized in table 5 as under. table 5. summary of relationships of independent and dependent variables hypothesis structural path beta values (β) r-square (r2) significance (p< 0.01) result h1 resr resl 0.41 0.000 supported h2 resr rest 0.36 0.000 supported h3 rese rest 0.57 0.000 supported h4 rese resl 0.33 0.000 supported h5 rest resl 0.62 0.000 supported rest direct relationship 0.72 resl direct relationship 0.52 note: resr = restaurant reputation, rese = restaurant experience, rest= restaurant trust, resl= restaurant love. values represented at significance of p < 0.01. standardized path coefficients (β) values show significant impact of independent variables on relevant dependent variable. all hypotheses are supported (p < 0.01). restaurant brand reputation (resr) and brand experience (rese) bring 72% variation in restaurant brand trust (rest) as its shows r-square (r2) value of 0.72. there is 52% variation in restaurant brand love due to restaurant trust as relevant r-square (r2) value is 0.52. mediation analysis the researcher used spss process macro (5000 bootstrap) with probe interactions (p≤ 0.01) and 95 percent confidence interval, to test mediation of restaurant brand trust in relationships; (a) between restaurant reputation and restaurant love, (b) between restaurant experience and restaurant love. these results are summarized in table 6. table 6. summary of mediation results hypothesis structural path estimate lower upper significance result https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ tahir, m. m.. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 33-46. 41 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 33-46, doi: 10.18060/27380 copyright © 2023 m mansha tahir this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. bound bound (p< 0.01) h6 resr rest resl 0.763 0.187 0.375 0.000 supported h7 rese rest resl 0.587 0.184 0.324 0.000 supported resr = restaurant reputation, rese = restaurant experience, rest= restaurant trust, resl= restaurant love. results of mediation analysis show that trust fully mediates between both relationships. so, h6 and h7 are accepted. discussion and conclusion the present research explored the impacts of restaurant brand reputation and restaurant brand experience, on brand trust and brand love. it also studied the relationship between restaurant brand trust and restaurant brand love. the present study fills this gap to the date. positive and significant impact of restaurant reputation on restaurant love and restaurant trust suggests that restaurant customers are conscious to brand reputation which builds their trust on, and love for restaurant/s. these findings are in accordance with the previous studies in respect that good reputation leads to brand love (breckler, 1984). brand experience has significant positive impact on restaurant trust and restaurant love. it suggests that positive restaurant experience of consumers emotionally attach them with the restaurant, builds trust and love for that restaurant. previous studies show positive relationship of brand experience and brand love (brakus et al., 2009; oliver et al., 1997; wallace et al., 2014). brand experience leads to trust on brand (sharifi & esfidani, 2014). the present study validates these findings. positive influence of restaurant brand trust on restaurant love is also in accordance with the previous studies (albert & merunka, 2013; drennan et al., 2015; kaufmann et al., 2016). this study has theoretical and practical implications as well. theoretical implications data analysis showed positive relationship of experience, reputation, trust and love of restaurant. restaurant experience of customers and reputation of restaurant have positive influence on restaurant trust and restaurant love. restaurant trust also mediates in relationships of reputation, experience and love for restaurant. this study has significant theoretical contributions by providing model for determinants (reputation and experience) of restaurant brand trust and brand love. this research enriches the body of knowledge in fields of reputation, experience, trust and love of restaurants. reputation of restaurant helps in maintaining a long-term relationship between customers and the restaurant. personal experience of customers also builds their trust on the restaurant. restaurant trust leads to love for restaurant and customers tent to visit such restaurants in future. it also provides insights for future use of this model in the light of schema theory. practical implications restaurants can attract and retain customers by improving reputation and trust of customers in their restaurants. to do so, they should focus on strategies to improve their reputation. they should also struggle to provide better quality products, services and environment for their customers. good service features of restaurants lead to customer loyalty (tahir, 2022). so, it is very important for restaurants that they provide high-quality goods and services to their customers. when customers experience such products and services, they have more trust in restaurant which leads to love for restaurant. customers tend to buy more frequently from their trusted restaurants. restaurants should https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ tahir, m. m.. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 33-46. 42 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 33-46, doi: 10.18060/27380 copyright © 2023 m mansha tahir this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. try to provide good and positive experiences to restaurant customers. restaurants should focus on the reputation of their restaurants. these efforts can attract new customers as well as retain the existing customers. good reputation and experience can be competitive advantage of the restaurant/s and can enhance trust, loyalty and love from customers. trust on restaurant significantly mediates in relationships of restaurant reputation and experience, and restaurant love. restaurants should recognize and regard the customers who have trust on the restaurant. limitations and future research this study has a number of limitations. statistical data analysis shows the significant positive relationships between variables, but these results cannot be generalized because data were collected from one district only. future studies can address this issue by covering larger geographical areas. construct items for the questionnaire were selected and adapted to meet the needs of respondents. restaurant brand experience includes few items from previous studies whereas experience has many dimensions with separate measurement items. brand experience has dimensions such as affective, behavioral, intellectual, and sensory brakus et al. (2009). individual impact of these experience dimensions with the relevant measurement items can be studied in future research. the present research introduced research model, but it was used in cross-sectional study. future research can use this model in longitudinal studies. the present research referred to schema theory while studying the relationships of variables. it just investigated the impact of independent variables. future studies should focus on phenomenon of creation of brand trust and brand love through the lens of schema theory. the present research included age, education and gender of participants. future studies can include other demographic characteristics such as income and marital status of the participants. data were collected from restaurants only and future studies can consider food points, food stalls and other forms of food kiosks. references ahuvia, a. c. (1994). i love it. towards a unifying theory of love across diverse love objects. alba, j., & hasher, l. 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(2021). a study on the influence of relationship benefit on brand trust and loyalty: focused on franchise foodservice company. culinary science & hospitality research, 27(8), 60-67. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.1080/10627260802153207 events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 1-17, doi: 10.18060/27804 copyright © 2024 scott springer and katrina milan this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2024 volume 7 no. 1 the experiences of first-time managers at a hawaii tourist destination scott springer katrina milan brigham young university—hawaii correspondence: scott.springer@byuh.edu (s. springer) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation springer, s. & milan, k. (2024). the experiences of first-time managers at a hawaii tourist destination. events and tourism review, 7(1), 1-17. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:scott.springer@byuh.edu http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr springer, s. & milan, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 1-17. 2 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 1-17, doi: 10.18060/27804 copyright © 2024 scott springer and katrina milan this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract hawaii is one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. serving the millions of annual tourists to hawaii are managers and supervisors who operate the tourist destinations frequented by these visitors. for this qualitative study, 17 individuals serving as first-time managers (ftms) in a prominent tourist destination in hawaii were interviewed to identify the challenges they faced in their transition into management roles and how they have overcome these challenges. the study also identified factors that help individuals better prepare for the transition from employees to first-time managers. keywords: first-time manager; tourism; hawaii; manager transition; challenges hawaii has long been viewed as a desirable global tourist location. statistical data (hawaiian tourism authority, 2023) subsequent to the covid-19 pandemic shows 4,858,170 visitors landed at daniel k. inouye international airport on hawaii’s island of oahu. visitors have returned in large numbers since the pandemic. according to the department of business, economic development, and tourism for hawaii (dbedt, 2023), more than 870,000 visitors arrived in hawaii in december 2022, a total that represents 91.5 percent of the visitors in the same month in 2019. visitors to hawaii come from all corners of the globe. the hawaii tourism authority (hta, 2023) lists its eight major market areas (mma) as the u.s. west, the u.s. east, japan, canada, europe, oceania, other asia, and latin america. in 2022, 4.5 million visitors arrived to hawaii each year from the western united states; another 1.5 million arrived from japan. as self-reported on in-flight surveys, the most common reason that visitors stay in oahu, the most populous island of hawaii, for more than two days is “vacation,” with secondary purposes of “anniversary/birthday” and “honeymoon”. in general, the most popular activities for tourists to hawaii include eating at luaus, watching dance performances, visiting historical sites, hiking, participating in outdoor recreational adventures (such as all-terrain vehicles or skydiving), surfing, and visiting world-famous beaches. of these activities, the most popular are high-adventure trips, culture and history related activities, and romantic escapades (go hawaii, no date). tourism management serves a fundamental role in the popularity of these activities and growth of the number of visitors. in this article, we explore factors that influence effective hospitality and tourism management focused on the perspective of first-time managers. purpose of the study this study analyzed the experiences of 17 individuals serving as first-time managers (ftms) in a prominent tourist destination in hawaii. the study sought to answer the following research questions related to their employment at the hawaii tourist destination: rq1: what challenges did you face in your transition to a management role and how did you overcome them? rq2: what factors would have helped you better prepare for the transition to a management role? https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ springer, s. & milan, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 1-17. 3 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 1-17, doi: 10.18060/27804 copyright © 2024 scott springer and katrina milan this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. this article will explore themes that developed from the data resulting from qualitative interviews with the 17 participants. also, a set of recommendations will be provided to aid employees who make the transition to become first-time managers in the tourism industry. study location and participants the location for this study was a popular tourist destination in hawaii that provides visitors an inclusive experience about oceania through cultural performances, food, and other cultural activities. before the covid-19 pandemic, this tourist destination welcomed approximately 1.3 million visitors per year and employed up to 1,100 people. about 75% of the employees are students at a nearby university. the site of this study is identified in this article as tourist destination to ensure anonymity. all 17 participants for this study were serving in their first formal supervisory or management position of any type (not just their first supervisory position at the study site) during the time of data collection. the participants were selected for the study using quota sampling based on meeting the following criteria: a) they were currently employed as first-time managers or supervisors at the tourist site, b) they had been employed in their management positions for 24 months or fewer, and c) they were willing to submit to two interviews conducted in english. each participant signed a consent letter agreeing to participate in the study. participants were selected using the purposive sampling method. table 1 lists the participants in the study, their gender, job titles, and the number of months they had served as first-time managers at the time of data collection. table 1. participants in the study participant pseudonym participant gender job title months in current role 1 adam m food services lead 6 2 ben m entertainment supervisor 4 3 christina f entertainment supervisor 2 4 dan m tour guide lead 3 5 emily f luau supervisor 10 6 faye f customer service lead 12 7 gabby f concessions assistant manager 12 8 helen f custodial supervisor 2 9 iris f food service supervisor 18 10 james m tour guide lead 12 11 kai m concessions supervisor 3 12 luke m food services manager 12 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ springer, s. & milan, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 1-17. 4 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 1-17, doi: 10.18060/27804 copyright © 2024 scott springer and katrina milan this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 13 marcus m restaurant supervisor 6 14 noah m training and development manager 15 15 oscar m retail operations manager 5 16 peter m hr manager 14 17 rose f food production assistant manager 5 literature review literature related to the research questions answered by this study will be addressed in this section. the literature falls into two streams: a) challenges that ftms generally face in their new managerial positions, and b) management issues related to hospitality and tourism. a number of articles have identified the challenges that ftms face in their new positions. among these are adjusting to people management, developing managerial and personal effectiveness, motivating others, conflict management, and communication (gentry, logan and tonidandel, 2014). unless ftms are properly trained, they may be unprepared to face the responsibilities of their new roles (schuler, jackson and tarique, 2011). ftms in today’s workforce face challenges not seen in previous generations including technological advances and globalization (hershatter and epstein, 2010). however, ftms have more opportunities to improve companies’ processes than did previous generations thanks to the improvement of information technology and quality control processes such as tqm, lean, and six sigma (harmon, 2010). other studies in the literature focus on the stressors brought upon by leading others. these stressors include meeting the expectations of others, especially supervisors and direct reports (park and faerman, 2019) and changes in the ftm’s personal life such as work hours, sleep time, and family responsibilities (watkins, 2012). such challenges may increase the stress level of a ftm, causing emotional and even physical health to decline (gentry, logan and tonidandel, 2014; hay, 2014). companies can do much to help ftms succeed in their new roles. one study indicates that ftms have a better chance of succeeding in their new positions if they were given time to prepare for their responsibilities and gain some supervisory experience (plakhotnik, 2017). the company’s culture and the process of delivering feedback also plays a significant role in a ftm’s successful transition into management. when the company’s culture and feedback delivery encourage contribution from ftm, the common “sink or swim” approach is eliminated. (plakhotnik, 2017). other articles have investigated management issues through the lens of hospitality and tourism. the hospitality and tourism industry revolves greatly around people. in this highly interactive industry, customers’ perception of high-quality service is greatly dependent on the interactions between guests and employees (kandampully, zhang and jaakkola, 2017). adequate training and encouragement from the management are vital for employees to optimize the guest experience. according to sürücü, maşlakcı, and şeşen (2021), transformational leadership positively impacts the creative and innovative behaviors of tourism employees. managers of hospitality and tourism face a number of challenges unique to the industry. a study conducted by lohmann and von bergner (2012) states that managers in global tourism find especially challenging the fields of globalization, tourism impact on nature, safeguarding destinations’ core values, adaptation, and managing tourism assets. according to lekaota (2015), the negative attitudes and responses of external stakeholders, such as the local government and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ springer, s. & milan, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 1-17. 5 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 1-17, doi: 10.18060/27804 copyright © 2024 scott springer and katrina milan this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. residents, are seen to be another challenge faced by managers in the industry. tourism managers need not only to connect with the guests and their own team but also to the local community of the destination. involving the community in tourism planning and design is viewed as a responsibility of tourism managers and developers (lekaota, 2015). tourism managers must be trained to develop an awareness of complex situations and translate company policies into practice (mccool & khumalo, 2015). in addition, researchers suggest that tourism managers must develop confidence in the abilities they hold as leaders (mccool and khumalo, 2015; weerakit and beeton, 2018) and must encourage collaboration in the workplace (mccool and khumalo, 2015). sürücü, maşlakcı, and şeşen (2021) also emphasize the importance of building a team culture based on good relationships between leaders and members. in addition to requirements for successful management, developing a deeper and greater understanding of the customer attitude, demands, and experiences is vital (lohmann and von bergner, 2013). while previous research mentioned has extensively looked into the challenges and critical success elements of ftms, very little research focused on ftms in the hospitality and tourism industry has been conducted. despite the increasing volume of literature on tourism management, there is limited research examining the transition tourism managers experienced in their first supervisory role. furthermore, few studies have investigated the impact of multiculturalism in the challenges and successes faced by ftms. addressing these gaps are essential for developing a more inclusive understanding of the experiences of ftms in the tourism industry. method each participant in the study was interviewed twice using a standard list of questions (see appendix 1). the first interview consisted of a more specific list of questions that sought to understand the background, transition to management, challenges experienced, successes, and preparation in moving into management of the participants. the second interview consisted of follow-up questions based on the participants’ responses from the initial interview. this ensured the validity and accuracy of the data coded. the interviews were recorded, transcribed, and then coded using firstand second-coding methods described by saldaña (2013) to identify relevant themes from the data. some interviews were conducted in person; others were conducted through video technology. all interviews were conducted between january 2020 and may 2021. findings and discussion the first and second research questions of this study address the challenges of moving into management and the potential solutions to overcoming these challenges. each of the 17 participants shared at least one challenge in becoming a first-time manager. these challenges can be grouped into two categories: a) general challenges of moving into management, and b) challenges for a firsttime manager that are unique to the hawaii tourist destination where all were employed at the time of data collection. these findings specific to the hawaii tourist location may be particularly relevant for ftms in other tourist destinations around the world. this section will conclude with details from the participants about what factors would have helped them transition more effectively into management. anecdotes and direct quotations from the participants interviewed will be shared throughout this section. pseudonyms are used to maintain participant anonymity. general challenges. a person moving from line employee to a management or supervisory role typically faces similar challenges in the transition, irrespective of the industry. some of these challenges are discussed in studies mentioned in the literature review (see for example, hershatter https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ springer, s. & milan, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 1-17. 6 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 1-17, doi: 10.18060/27804 copyright © 2024 scott springer and katrina milan this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. and epstein, 2010; harmon, 2010; watkins, 2012; gentry, logan and tonidandel, 2014; hay 2014; and park and faerman, 2019). the participants of this study shared additional challenges they have faced in their transitions to management roles. the challenges most frequently mentioned by participants in this study were as follows: a) insufficient managerial training, b) a lack of respect from peers due to youthfulness, c) supervising peers and friends, and d) learning to involve team members in decision making. these four themes are summarized into table 2. table 2. general challenges of ftms themes supporting data general challenges lack of training received no training in managing a team “i needed help, but i was not given any—i was just thrown out there with, ‘ok, go figure it out,’ and i didn’t know a from b.” boss told them to “just do it," instead of providing training. youthfulness most significant challenge was “being underestimated by older managers who judge you for who you are and what you did in the past instead of what you can become.” peers not respecting her due to age struggled “being a young manager in a division in which there are so many great senior managers.” supervising peers experienced difficulty in supervising friends and former peers “they didn’t really take me seriously.” “before i was a lead, i liked being friends with [my employees]. so this has been hard for me to handle the people that i supervise.” encountered problems with managing his team when his promotion caused him to skip over other management positions. relationships with employees establishing meaningful relationships with employees was challenging improved relationships with employees through regularly conducted one-on-one meetings https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ springer, s. & milan, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 1-17. 7 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 1-17, doi: 10.18060/27804 copyright © 2024 scott springer and katrina milan this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. "i am so connected to the employees and making sure they are successful.” focusing on leadership development has strengthened her relationship with her team members. lack of training. a prominent challenge mentioned by the ftm participants in the study was a lack of training in management responsibilities before supervising others. prior to becoming a tour guide lead, james had no experience in creating a team dynamic, developing team goals, and dealing with relationship issues that arise in team management, and he received no training in these areas when he started his job. he has learned to handle these challenges by learning from others. his strategy is simple: “never be afraid to ask people questions,” he shared. helen had served in other non-supervisory roles at the study site but had no experience or expertise in the responsibilities of serving as custodial supervisor. “i needed help,” she said. “but i was not given any—i was just thrown out there with, ‘ok, go figure it out,’ and i didn’t know a from b.” dan, a tour guide lead in his first three months supervising others, also did not receive training in management. instead of providing training, dan’s boss led by telling others, “just do it.” this lack of direction drove dan to improve. “at the end of the day, i can tell people that i survived. … this is good motivation for me.” this lack of training prompted some participants in the study to develop the skills of seeking guidance from others. james of the guest services department emphasized the importance of accepting help from his employees. it is critical, he said, that he learned to “let them help me out, because this is not my department, it is our department.” peter, a hr manager, believes the involvement of every worker is necessary for making group decisions. seeking the honest input of employees often generates conflicting opinions about the matter. to resolve this conflict, he said, that usually involves getting somebody else into the conversation. we may call our director and say, “hey, let’s get you in on this and see what you think.” or, i try to get my supervisor involved. so you really kind of bring people into the conversation. this really helps us deal with situations. youthfulness. another challenge related to youthfulness, both in age and in experience level. many of the participants of the study were in their 20s and worked with managers and directors much older than them. this youthfulness sometimes caused problems and frustrations. for example, noah, a training and development manager in the hr department, shared his most significant challenge in his first 15 months as a manager was “being underestimated by older managers who judge you for who you are and what you did in the past instead of what you can become.” his solution to overcoming this challenge is to “try to understand their point of view, their perspective, and how they are seeing the changes.” gabby, a concessions assistant manager with one year in the role, shared similar frustrations with peers not respecting her due to her age. this may be a consequence of working in a high-functioning department. she said she has struggled “being a young manager in a division in which there are so many great senior managers.” supervising peers. a common challenge shared by participants was that of supervising peers. this challenge was heightened by the fact that the majority of employees at tourist destination are university students of a similar age; thus, many ftms interviewed for the study were previously friends and colleagues with their direct reports. adam, a food services lead with six https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ springer, s. & milan, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 1-17. 8 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 1-17, doi: 10.18060/27804 copyright © 2024 scott springer and katrina milan this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. months in the role, was one who supervised friends and former peers. this made it difficult to give instructions and directions to his team. for example, he tried unsuccessfully in his first several weeks to have his team members move quickly to close up the food establishment so everyone could go home together. “they didn’t really take me seriously,” he said. as he started to “be firm, to be serious” with his team members, they began to respect his authority and respond to his directions more positively. marcus faced similar problems supervising peers in his six months as a restaurant supervisor. he shared, “before i was a lead, i liked being friends with [my employees]. so this has been hard for me to handle the people that i supervise.” his problems were alleviated, at least in part, by applying the motto to “always be friends with them and never regard [the management position] as power.” kai, a marketing supervisor, stated that he encountered problems with managing his team when his promotion caused him to skip over other management positions. he said, “the leader right now that we have is my lead. she was my lead when i was a regular employee, and now that i’m supervisor, she’s still the lead.” relationships with employees. a final challenge that emerged frequently from the data is that of learning to establish meaningful relationships with employees. several participants (emily, helen, iris, & luke) shared that they have learned to do this through one-on-one meetings and interviews. according to iris, a supervisor in the custodial department, the regularly conducted individual meetings with employees provided managers with a way through which they can seek feedback and ideas from their front-line employees. in addition, emily, a luau supervisor of 10 months, stated that these meetings allowed her to establish personal goals with her team members. gabby said she considered her biggest area of success in being a manager as “training the workers on how to become leaders.” she told how her previous manager instilled in her the importance of leadership development, which is “why i am so connected to the employees and making sure they are successful.” she reported that this focus on leadership development has strengthened her relationship with her team members. challenges specific to tourism. many of the challenges shared by the participants were unique to the tourist destination in hawaii where the study took place. these challenges may be similar to those faced by ftms at other tourist locations. they include the following challenges: a) addressing problems arising from guests and visitors, b) collaborating with upper management, c) dealing with language and cultural difficulties, and d) working with limited resources. these four themes are summarized into table 3. table 3. challenges specific to tourism faced by ftms. themes supporting data challenges specific to tourism guests and visitors. staff shortage during periods of high visitors. “i have to distribute everyone so we have enough workers in the areas and places we need,” inventory shortage during high visitors counts entertaining guests while food is cooking as "one of the biggest challenges" encountered https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ springer, s. & milan, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 1-17. 9 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 1-17, doi: 10.18060/27804 copyright © 2024 scott springer and katrina milan this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. "a lot of movement in food and labor” to feed up to 2000 guests collaborating with upper management inconsistent implementation of policy changes that are not well-communicated struggled to align “with what upper management wants to see and have happen with what we are able to do with the performers we have.” felt underappreciated and overworked by the demands of upper management culture and language “in the beginning, i had a lot to learn about these cultures. embracing the cultures has really helped me have an open mind to everything.” diverse cultural backgrounds impacting different methods employees are motivated “choose the right words to say so they aren’t going to be offensive.” limited resources complained of a small department budget, an undersized staff, and outdated technology staffing shortage and equipment issues as the top most challenging aspects of new managerial post guests and visitors. a common theme faced by the ftms in the study was the challenge of solving issues that involve the guests and visitors to the tourist location. while guest-facing issues are always present in tourism, the responsibility of problem solving these issues often falls upon those line managers such as the ftms in this study. despite welcoming more than 1 million visitors per year, the study site experiences the usual highs and lows common in the tourism industry. during periods of high visitors, the study site occasionally runs short of workers, a problem that iris, a food services supervisor, deals with first hand. “i have to distribute everyone so we have enough workers in the areas and places we need,” she shared. iris’s team frequently runs out of food, too, during high visitor counts. guests still need to be entertained while the food is cooking. “this is one of the biggest challenges that i have encountered.” throughout her 18 months in a managerial role, iris has successfully lobbied her manager to hire workers during the peak seasons (such as summer) to offset the staffing shortages. and with “proper coordination with the kitchen, we don’t run out of food,” she said. handling large volumes of food was the biggest challenge luke faced as food services manager in his first year supervising others. prior to working at the study site, luke felt comfortable serving crowds of guests, having managed small buffets for several restaurants. but feeding up to 2,000 guests per day at the study site represented “ a lot of movement in food and labor,” he said. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ springer, s. & milan, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 1-17. 10 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 1-17, doi: 10.18060/27804 copyright © 2024 scott springer and katrina milan this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. “getting people to understand that movement is a bit of a challenge.” relying on his coworkers helped him juggle the stressful and demanding responsibilities. his coworkers, whom he described as “people that were committed to the restaurant and to high standards,” knew what was expected of them, they lived up to these expectations, “and they did it from the heart.” collaborating with upper management. serving hundreds or thousands of guests per day requires extensive and effective communication between upper management and line supervisors and managers. if policy changes are not well communicated down the organization, for example, those responsible for implementing these new practices will not implement them consistently. this is especially demanding on the supervisors who oversee this work. emily expressed that she felt frustrated that negative customer reviews would trace back to her team members, and, as a result, reflect poorly on her work as their supervisor. any negative reviews are concerning, of course, but the lack of direct control over the situations causing the negative experiences weighed heavily on her as a ftm. “i am not the one interacting with the guests. i am supervising people,” she lamented. she reported that holding more regular one-on-one meetings with her team members helped close this gap and bring her closer to solving the issues that may have triggered the negative reviews. ben’s most significant managerial challenge as an entertainment supervisor also related to upper management. he shared that he struggled to align “with what upper management wants to see and have happen with what we are able to do with the performers we have.” taxing him further, ben’s team members often waned in energy and motivation “because we do the same show each night and it can be tiresome and repetitive sometimes.” feeling underappreciated and overworked by the demands of upper management worsened this situation for ben as their supervisor. he reported that his tactic was to “look out for the dancers” as best he could. “i want them to know that i am there to advocate for them to upper management so there is greater understanding.” culture and language. hawaii is one of the most ethnically and culturally diverse states in the united states. according to the u.s. census bureau (2022), hawaii has a population of more than 1.4 million people, of which 25.3 percent are white, 36.8 percent are asian, 10.5 percent are native hawaiian and other pacific islander, and 25 percent are two or more races. this diversity also applies to the study site. tourist destination employs individuals from multiple pacific island and asian countries, along with employees from hawaii and the u.s. mainland. in addition to welcoming visitors from all over the world, hundreds of tourist destination’s employees are originally from a variety of countries throughout the asian rim and oceania. several ftms in the study reported that team communication, always important in the tourism industry, proved especially difficult in this multicultural environment. gabby from california noted the multiculturalism in the management team as well as in her own staff. “in the beginning, i had a lot to learn about these cultures,” she observed. “embracing the cultures has really helped me have an open mind to everything.” faye, working as a customer service lead at tourist destination, stated that leading individuals from diverse backgrounds posed challenges for her different personalities of employees resulting in different methods they are motivated. in addition to diverse personalities is the employees’ culturally diverse backgrounds. being aware and learning this plays a big part in the food and beverage department as they interact with guests from all over the world. adam, a food services lead, expressed his lack of confidence in his communication ability because he is not a native english speaker. he said it was especially difficult as an ftm to “choose the right words to say so they aren’t going to be offensive.” limited resources. managing with limited resources is difficult for ftms at any organization, including at one of the top tourist attractions in hawaii where the study took place. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ springer, s. & milan, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 1-17. 11 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 1-17, doi: 10.18060/27804 copyright © 2024 scott springer and katrina milan this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. peter, a human resources manager of 14 months, complained of a small department budget, an undersized staff, and outdated technology. rose, an assistant manager in food production, identified staffing shortage and equipment issues as the top most challenging aspects of her new managerial post. these comments from peter and rose echoed those of other participants who shared that managing with limited resources increased the stress on already demanding jobs. peter found the most useful strategy for overcoming resource issues was to consult with his team. “a lot of times i will get stuck on something and i will go ask them and say, ‘well, this is going on. what do you think? if you were in this situation, how would you handle it?’” preparing for management. nearly all the participants of this study shared ideas on how they might have prepared more effectively for a management position. three factors in particular emerged from the data: a) a need for more management training, b) a desire for practical experience in management, and c) the importance of developing certain personal characteristics suitable for management. although the participants spoke specifically of their experiences at tourist destination, these lessons about preparing employees for management responsibilities may apply to other tourism locations, as well. these three factors are summarized into table 4. table 4. factors that might have prepared ftms for management factors supporting data preparing for management management training “more training on having faith in myself as a manager” wished for training in “being more confident.” training in time management needed training in “not being afraid of communication” training in delegation and “how to approach [my employees], the way i tell them, and when i tell them.” practical experience wished to start in a lower (related) position and gain the experience needed before promotion wanted direct exposure to the administrative side of the business before moving into management “if i had known how things run and what purpose they have then, it would have been easier for me to understand and learn it on my own now.” wanted to shadow other managers to “do what a leader does before becoming a leader." desired to have been assigned a formal mentor https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ springer, s. & milan, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 1-17. 12 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 1-17, doi: 10.18060/27804 copyright © 2024 scott springer and katrina milan this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. personal characteristics wished he had learned better “how to take counsel.” learning humility in interacting with employees “if you don’t trust yourself, you won’t be able to see your potential.” recognizing your strengths as a leader management training. the most commonly stated factor for a more successful transition to management at tourist destination was additional supervisory training. this desire for training correlates with earlier finding that a top challenge for tourist destination employees is insufficient managerial training. participants offered specific areas where training would have been helpful before they assumed their supervisory responsibilities. noah wanted “more training on having faith in myself as a manager” while gabby wished for training in “being more confident.” christina, an entertainment supervisor in her first two months in the position, could have used training in time management, and how to “treat everyone equally and not favor some people.” helen said she needed training in “not being afraid of communication” with her employees. similarly, faye desired training in delegation, specifically “how to approach [my employees], the way i tell them, and when i tell them.” oscar, a retail operations manager of 5 months, also wished he had received training in delegation. only through personal experience did he learn that “sometimes you have to let your employees make mistakes and let them figure it out.” a more proactive approach to training may also have helped some participants. peter, the hr manager, admitted he could have been more proactive in his own training. he said he would have benefited from researching hr processes, laws, and regulations before leading his hr department. he added, “i wish i had taken more time to really research and find things on my own instead of just trying to wait for my manager to tell me.” practical experience. several ftm participants said they wished they had been afforded opportunities to gain practical, hands-on experience in management and supervisory prior to assuming their leadership roles. emily lamented that she didn’t start in a lower (related) position and gain the experience needed before her promotion to luau supervisor. rose, a food production assistant manager with 5 months in the role, wanted direct exposure to the administrative side of the business before moving into management because “if i had known how things run and what purpose they have then, it would have been easier for me to understand and learn it on my own now.” christina, an entertainment supervisor, shared similar sentiments: “when i first starting working [before becoming a supervisor], i did not really pay attention to all the simple things because i thought, ‘this is my role; i can just focus on one thing because other people are taking care of that part of the job.’ but looking back and being in this position, those simple things i should have paid attention to.” kai, just 3 months into his job as concessions supervisor, said it would have helped him to shadow other managers so he could “do what a leader does before becoming a leader” himself. ben wished he had been assigned a formal mentor because “if you have nobody to teach you what to do, there is no way you can figure it out.” https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ springer, s. & milan, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 1-17. 13 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 1-17, doi: 10.18060/27804 copyright © 2024 scott springer and katrina milan this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. personal characteristics. preparation for management is also aided by the acquisition of certain personal characteristics suitable for supervisory responsibilities. the ftms in the study identified several that would have especially benefited them in their transition to management. the food services manager luke wished he had learned better “how to take counsel.” rose echoed this idea. after a negative interaction with one of her employees, rose received advice from a senior manager to “eat humble pie and go speak with that employee.” however, she admitted, “i struggle with this. i don’t want to eat humble pie.” marcus commented that an important characteristic is learning to trust oneself because “if you don’t trust yourself, you won’t be able to see your potential.” ben, an entertainment supervisor, emphasized that his move to management would have gone more smoothly if he had learned to more quickly recognize his strengths as a leader. he added: it’s easy to get into the mentality that you are inadequate or unqualified. when you are suggested or asked to be a manager, though, it means that there is something that is seen in your something that you have to offer. so that helps with the preparation knowing that. recommendations and conclusion the purpose of this study was to understand the challenges faced by ftms at a hawaiibased tourist attraction along with some of the factors that would have helped them prepare more effectively for their managerial roles. findings suggest that transitioning into a management position for the first time inevitably brings several difficulties including a lack of training in the responsibilities as supervisors, building relationships with team members, and effective communication. this section contains three recommendations on how to better prepare ftms for their positions in various areas of tourism. the first recommendation is to develop a training program focused on industry knowledge and soft-skills development. it is evident that to better prepare managers, prospective or new supervisors must be aided with sufficient training, especially in the early stages of their transition. it has been acknowledged that tourism managers must be trained to translate company policies into practice, even in complex situations (mccool & khumalo, 2015). when proper training is received by tourism managers, customers are not only more likely to revisit the destination but are also more likely to provide word of mouth marketing (ozturk & gogtas, 2015). it is recommended that tourism organizations focus on the following main areas in curating training programs: 1. industry knowledge training staffing shortages, inefficient movement of inventory, and dependence of the business on peak/off seasons are only a few of the industry challenges mentioned by the ftms. a manager transitioning from being a front-line employee requires a clear understanding of these challenges in order to make suitable administrative decisions. in addition, hospitality and tourism companies have a standard of excellence that needs to be met. learning and frequently reviewing the organization’s standards of excellence as well as becoming familiar with the nature of the hospitality and tourism industry is crucial for a new manager’s success. 2. soft skills development it has been acknowledged that successful hospitality managers need key soft skills such as self-confidence and self-awareness that influence their drive and behavior (weber et al., 2020). specific skills mentioned by ftm participants in this study include communication, confidence, trust and relationship building, taking criticism, decision-making, and delegating. tourism https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ springer, s. & milan, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 1-17. 14 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 1-17, doi: 10.18060/27804 copyright © 2024 scott springer and katrina milan this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. organizations might consider incorporating these components as they create or identify training programs that are most suitable for their departments. the second recommendation is to promote a culture of collaboration and inclusion in the workplace. this can be done through holding regular one-on-one meetings among ftms and their team members and among ftms and their superiors. such meetings allow feedback to come to the surface. because feedback is most advantageous to an organization when it is from someone with a high level of knowledge and expertise in the field (lechermeier & fassnacht, 2018), ftms must meet with their front-line employees to communicate industry-specific challenges. after all, frontline employees interact most frequently with guests and are therefore more knowledgeable with guests’ buying behavior. one-on-one meetings also increase employee engagement in and commitment to the organization, as the data from the interviews at tourist destination indicate. these meetings are excellent forums for allowing employees to participate in the decision-making process of policies that affect them (amin et al., 2014). furthermore, policy changes are better communicated and implemented through one-on-one meetings. in addition, it is recommended that tourism organizations, including the chosen study site, continue to focus on training their managers to adapt to issues involving cultural diversity. this may be met through cultural workshops that emphasize appropriate ways of communicating and motivating employees in the context of culture. such cultural workshops may be helpful in training ftms to foster a culture of inclusion where both they and the people they are leading feel supported and appreciated. the last recommendation is to create a mentorship program for prospective ftms. multiple participants interviewed expressed a desire for direct exposure to the management position or to be able to shadow a mentor prior to receiving the manager position. findings of this study show that while ftms often learn their duties and “figure it out” after some time, they would have preferred that they were supported by their superiors in the demands of their new role. this is consistent with a previous study by tughra (2018) indicating that ftms believe they could have been more efficient with handling their challenges if they had received sufficient support from their superiors. a carefully designed mentorship program can enable pre-selected ftms to shadow a superior prior to moving into the role of manager, encouraging a smoother transition. the intention behind such a mentorship arrangement is to help ftms feel more prepared or confident in their roles. overall, ftms of tourist destination in hawaii faced field-related and interpersonal struggles due to their lack of readiness for their first management positions. the recommendations above provide potential solutions applicable not only to tourism organizations in hawaii, but also in other parts of the world. talent, time, and resources are maximized when hospitality and tourism organizations invest in programs to support new managers. limitations & further research the main limitation of this study is its singular study location. while the findings and recommendations presented have relevance to all ftms in any industry, some variables such as language barriers and multiculturalism in the workforce in the study are unique to tourist destination. extending the study to other locations would be helpful to determine how these recommendations translate to other industries and geographical destinations. because the data was collected through interviews, another limitation may be the data’s subjectivity to respondent bias which could impact the accuracy of information. in future studies, this can be avoided by having each participant be interviewed by multiple interviewers. using quantitative surveys on top of interviews can also help participants describe their experiences. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ springer, s. & milan, k. 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(2022.) quick facts hawaii. available at https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/hi (accessed 04 april 2022). watkins md (2012) how managers become leaders. the seven seismic shifts of perspective and responsibility. harvard business review 90(6): 64-72. weber mr, lee j and crawford alleah (2020) a suggested best practices for enhancing performance of soft skills with entry-level hospitality managers. anatolia 31(1): 76-87. weerakit n and beeton rjs (2018) leadership competencies for hospitality management staff in thailand. journal of human resources in hospitality & tourism 17(3): 314-339. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ springer, s. & milan, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 1-17. 17 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 1-17, doi: 10.18060/27804 copyright © 2024 scott springer and katrina milan this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. appendix 1: standard list of questions the following questions were asked of all participants in the interviews: background questions: ● what is your current title? ● how long have you served as a manager? ● how many employees report to you directly? ● to whom do you report? list the title of this person. ● over which areas do you have direct control as a manager? ● over which areas do you have no control as a manager? transition to management: ● describe the process that led to you becoming a manager. ● what motivated you to become a manager? ● what expectations did you have going into your management position? ● what were your concerns about transitioning into a management role? ● how would you describe your experience so far as a first-time manager? · challenges of management ● describe the challenges you have faced as a first-time manager. ● what has helped you address or resolve these challenges? · successes of management ● describe the areas in which you believe you have most succeeded as a first-time manager. ● to what do you credit these successes? · preparation for management ● how useful has your education been in preparing you for a management position? ● how much support do you receive from your current manager and from the organization in your managerial position? ● looking back, what would have helped you better prepare to become a manager? · conclusion ● what else would you like to mention about your experiences as a first-time manager that i have not asked in this interview? https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 55-62, doi: 10.18060/26327 copyright © 2022 nancy richter this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review june 2022 volume 5 no. 1 the role of experience and service offerings in tourist information centers (tics) in germany nancy richter schmalkalden university of applied sciences correspondence: n.richter@hs-sm.de (n. richter) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation richter, n. (2022). the role of experience and service offerings in tourist information centers (tics) in germany. events and tourism review, 5(1), 55-62. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr richter, n. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 55-62. 56 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 55-62, doi: 10.18060/26327 copyright © 2022 nancy richter this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract a central question for the development of tourist information centers is what visitors expect of this institution. does the offer of experiences play a role in the competitiveness of a tic? a study based on qualitative interviews examines the perspectives of the most important stakeholders of tourist information centers: visitors, managers, and touristic service providers. the study shows that it is worthwhile to distinguish between pure service offers and experience offers and to use both in a targeted manner to ensure competitive advantages. keywords: tourist information center, experiences, services, qualitative research introduction the tourist information center (tic) is the focal point of the brand promise of a destination and should not be neglected by destination managers, even if its relevance is decreasing due to the use of digital technologies (lyu et al., 2015). tics represent a touchpoint for the most important target groups of a region and have a high potential for value creation (burzinski, 2020). this requires on-going adaptation and renewal to serve the visitors' needs. according to a nationally representative online survey in germany, the tic is the first-place visitors’ search for information during a trip. at 43.4%, it ranks ahead of personal advice about accommodation, city maps, google maps or comparable maps, interviews with locals, weather apps, brochures and flyers, recommendations from friends and acquaintances, books, websites, social media channels, various apps, messenger services, or local media (burzinski, 2020). the tic of the future will be thought of holistically and will be an essential source of information for tourists during their trip (burzinski, 2020). the tic provides important information and creates enthusiasm for a destination (sung, 2019). this definition already shows the two most important tasks of tics: service tasks and experience offers. certain services and functionalities are taken for granted by the visitor. experiential offers, on the other hand, offer emotional elements that the visitor remembers (chen, 2017). a survey by burzinski (2020) shows that when it comes to demands on the tic, visitors more often or almost exclusively name functional and service aspects and rate experience-oriented offers as less important. if the tic follows the existing visitor wishes derived from online surveys, then the focus should be on fulfilling the above-mentioned free and fee-based service offers. however, in recent times the travel industry has become more and more experience-oriented and customers seem to expect entertainment. the following research question arises: do experience offers play a role in the competitiveness of a tic? experience design in the tourism industry the tic is a central facility for visitors during a trip (burzinski, 2020; sinus institute, 2018; fesenmaier, 1994). like the tourism industry as a whole, tics are changing towards targeted experience orientation and design (wagner et al., 2019). in marketing research, experience is defined as the "individual perception, feelings, thoughts and observations during the consumption of https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ richter, n. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 55-62. 57 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 55-62, doi: 10.18060/26327 copyright © 2022 nancy richter this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. products, services, and activities, as well as the memories of these experiences" (wagner et. al., 2019, p. 4). the concept of customer experience also highlights the opposition between services and experiences: “customers do not buy service delivery, they buy experiences; they do not buy service quality, they buy memories” (hemmington, 2007, p. 749). travelling operates as a counter-world to everyday life, and experiences and positive memories take on great significance. in recent decades, concepts such as the experience society by schulze (2005) or the experience economy by pine and gilmore (2011) have found their way into tourism literature. these approaches proclaim a shift towards a hedonistic attitude in society (schulze, 2005) or a call for a transition to an experienceoriented economy (pine et al., 2011). in the experience economy, experience has the same status as a good, a product, or a service (pine et al., 2011). an experience is created when producers consciously use services and products to produce unforgettable events for people. disneyland is a prime example of an experience production. early examples can also be found in the leisure and media industry: theatre, film, music, theme parks, etc. in the case of the tic, how experience offers are defined is dependent on the destination brand (burzinski, 2020). destinations only have meaning for visitors if every single brand touchpoint is perceived by the customer as an experience. the experience economy tracks the customer experience across all interaction points to draw the right conclusions. in tourism, the concept of the experience economy seems to be of particular importance. it offers an opportunity to stand out from the competition and to create lasting emotional impressions. to evaluate the role of experiences, this research examines different target groups’ expectations of a tic. methodology within the framework of purely guideline-based online visitor surveys (e.g., burzinski, 2020), visitors of tourist information centers rated functional factors as particularly important. as far as the demands on the space are concerned, aspects that are considered self-evident and describe the basic functions of a tic were named above all. experiential offers such as virtual reality, films on screens, children's play corners, interactive touch screens, attractive design/furniture, a café or bar, or a shop with souvenirs were rated as less important. the visitor survey thus contrasts with the assessment already presented in which experience design is becoming increasingly important in the tourism industry. to get to the bottom of this difference, an empirical method is used, in which visitors of a tic are interviewed on-site in the context of their visit to a tic. the selected 6 tics already have a high experiential character and are equipped with one or more of the abovementioned examples of experiential offers. in addition, stakeholders of the tic such as tourist service providers, employees, and the managers of the respective tic were interviewed and asked about the demands on a tic. the interviews were conducted as semi-structured interviews in the context of an explorative qualitative field study (bortz et al., 2002). the focus of the chosen method was not the generation of objective-representative data, but rather to sound out a topic area and, if necessary, to form hypotheses. the environmental conditions of the respective persons were also in focus. the following table provides an overview of the interviewees. table 1: interview participants and locations role tourist information country/city visitor 1 experience-oriented ti in a large city (100,000 inhabitants or more) germany/erfurt https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ richter, n. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 55-62. 58 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 55-62, doi: 10.18060/26327 copyright © 2022 nancy richter this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. visitor 2 experience-oriented ti in a large city (100,000 inhabitants or more) germany/erfurt visitor 3 experience-oriented ti in a large city (100,000 inhabitants or more) germany/erfurt employee tic 1 experience-oriented ti in a large city (100,000 inhabitants or more) germany/erfurt employee tic 2 experience-oriented ti in a large city (100,000 inhabitants or more) germany/erfurt employee tic 3 experience-oriented ti in a large city (100,000 inhabitants or more) germany/erfurt manager tic 1 experience-oriented ti in a large medium-sized city (50,000 inhabitants or more) germany/weimar manager tic 2 experience-oriented ti in a large small town (10,000 inhabitants or more) germany/bad langensalza manager tic 3 experience-oriented ti in a rural community (under 5,000 inhabitants) germany/bad liebenstein tourist service provider 1 experience-oriented ti in a small medium-sized town (20,000 inhabitants or more) germany/eisenach tourist service provider 2 experience-oriented ti in a rural community (under 5,000 inhabitants) germany/oberweißbach results the distinction between functional factors in the expected service and aspects of experience design was evident. experiences were not expected or mentioned by the visitors. rather, visitors were emotionally surprised, pleased, fascinated and attracted by the environment in which they found themselves. they expressed their emotions and feelings, which were positive throughout. when asked about their concrete expectations of the tic, no feelings were expressed, but purely functional facts were listed. this indicates that the significance of experiential offers can be evaluated within the framework of a field study or in the context of the individual visitor experience. table 2: interviews with visitors interviews with visitors service/functional factors experience/emotional factors "well, first of all, i expect to get all the general information about tourist offers in the city, i.e., information about museums, leisure activities, opening hours and entrance fees. that's basically it" (visitor 1). "it would be good if you could also somehow get information on your own at a "i'm here because my godchild told me about it and he thought it was so cool with the robot here in front and then we said, let's take a look at what's going on here and then we looked around and we were really fascinated" (visitor 2). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ richter, n. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 55-62. 59 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 55-62, doi: 10.18060/26327 copyright © 2022 nancy richter this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. computer desk or tablet or something" (visitor 1). "i expect that they can give me information on everything, if i have questions about the city in particular and about certain events" (visitor 2). "we expect information that we don't already know" (visitor 3). "well, this place is really nicely furnished, nice seats and comfortable" (visitor 2). "i think it's pretty ideal here with the beautiful shapes and colours" (visitor 3). "i was amazed by this, with the vr glasses. yes, there is a little film that runs and you can watch it. yes, also how faithfully it is equipped, no, i think that's really cool. i didn't expect that at all" (visitor 2). "it is always good when there is seating that is comfortable" (visitor 1). the survey of the tic staff shows a similarly clear difference between the requirements for services on the one hand and experiences on the other. the emotional reactions of the visitors were observed by the employees and evaluated as positive interactions. similarly, the service aspects were seen as a natural part of the job. service orientation sometimes goes beyond the actual tourism business. experience-oriented offers should facilitate communication, be interactive, and make it easier to create individual offers. table 3: interviews with tourist information officers interviewing the staff and managers of a tourist information service/functional factors experience/emotional factors "many visitors come and say we have just arrived and what have you got? yes, that's where it starts. where can we go in the evening? do you have a city map?" (employee tic 3). "it is at least assumed that we as a tourist information are informed about everything, that we know everything. yes, of course that is not always the case, but of course we try our best. that is the actual requirement of a tourist information center" (employee tic 3). "but there are also visitors who come with questions like 'how long does the parking meter run there or how much do i have to pay in the car park? then i say ok, that's not really our main business, but of course we try to help" (employee tic 3). "there are several motivations to seek out the tics. one is actually the search for information. but also "are you looking for a room for us or how do i get from a to b? visitors just know that when they arrive at our place. [...] the task is simply to be inspiring and to give insider tips" (employee tic 2). "yes, there are these interactive monitors here with presentations of event spaces, the visitors and i enjoy it. when i can show something to the visitors and then notice that it goes down really well, that's sometimes even a real aha effect, like 'ok, we wouldn't have expected that at all'" (employee tic 3). "a very special highlight for us are of course the vr glasses and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ richter, n. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 55-62. 60 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 55-62, doi: 10.18060/26327 copyright © 2022 nancy richter this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. quite clearly the search for souvenirs or books, for example." (manager tic 1) "yes, exactly, i find that our visitors like to be advised. so they like to come and ask what to do, what can you offer me? what else can i do this evening?" (manager tic 2). "brochure material is still a big issue. visitors come to take brochures and then, of course, advice about the whole region" (manager tic 2). "digital communication with visitors is becoming increasingly important. i have already thought about using such chat functions for simple, fast communication with the visitor, or? (employee tic 2). "the landlords are not yet completely digital, we have many older landlords or landlords who do this on the side. i always try to argue that our landlords come into our booking system, that we also make them bookable online. but many of them are not interested in being bookable online [...] how do we do that? well, we've always done it that way, that we call the landlords for the visitors, but a lot of tourist information centers tell me no, we don't do that anymore. the effort is too big and i would definitely sign that. the effort is huge, on some days we spend hours on the phone for visitors, especially now when everything is booked out, it's a pure catastrophe" (manager tic 2). "very exciting is the idea of another tourist information office near here, which is planning an open area in front of the tourist information office, where there is a screen that is voice-controlled and can give information about available accommodation, where intelligent, uh, systems are behind it and where you can also search for an accommodation" (manager tic 2). the vr glasses films. as far as i know, no one else in the area has that either" (employee tic 1). "many people, when they come in here, are caught up by the atmosphere and say 'wow, so beautiful, so modern, we've never seen that before', which is always a great way to start a conversation, and then of course the classic 'we want the city map, we want a tram map'" (employee tic 2). "it is also important to create digital offers that can actually be perceived intuitively, i.e., to lower the inhibition thresholds in dealing with digital elements as much as possible" (manager tic 1). "i see it as an important topic to make ticketing available online for the visitor, but also to make the experience even closer to him and to work even more individually for the visitor" (manager tic 3). the service providers also formulate their expectations of the tic as both experienceoriented and service-oriented. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ richter, n. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 55-62. 61 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 55-62, doi: 10.18060/26327 copyright © 2022 nancy richter this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. table 4: interviews with service providers of a destination interviews with service providers of a destination service/functional factors experience/emotional factors my expectation of the tourist information is the service for us. i can't afford to know which restaurants are all open, which hotels are all open? are there any new offers? is there perhaps a new package to which we can refer, so i really see this mediator function between the tourist partners and the visitors as very, very important" (service provider 2). "then, of course, it should be very modernly equipped so that visitors can download opening hours from museums, for example, via app or qr code. especially because this information has changed again and again during the pandemic. tics should always be equipped with good print media, i.e., city maps with identification of the places of interest and also the gastronomy. so that all the possibilities for the visitor are directly available" (service provider 1). "above all, a tic should present the place with pride and also promote it beyond the region and present it at all kinds of portals and trade fairs. [...] i have observed that my visitors often extend their stay if it is possible and say how beautiful it is here" (service provider 1). analysis and summary without specifically asking about experiences or services, all interviewed stakeholders expressed the great importance of the experience and service offerings of a tic. visitors actively perceive experience elements and make positive emotional statements about their impressions. tics should not only be designed to be purely functional and service-oriented but also emotional and experience-oriented. in tourism, people are convinced by emotions. only in this way can a tic stand out from the competition. experiential offers are not expected or demanded by the visitors but are consistently evaluated as positive and memorable as soon as they are available. those responsible for tics have also recognized the importance of experiences and emotions. it became clear that the stakeholders of tics can only perceive and evaluate experience offers if they experience them personally. in comparison, functional service offers can be consciously mentioned and evaluated even without personal experience. the individual perception and context of visitors of a destination can also lead to different classifications of features. interactive elements or vr films do not inspire enthusiasm and trigger positive emotions for every visitor. however, tics can use the acquired knowledge to specifically integrate experiences into their offerings. the precondition is that they know their visitors and the expectations they have of the destination. references bortz, j., & döring, n. (2002). qualitative methoden. in forschungsmethoden und evaluation (pp. 295-353). springer. doi: 10.1007/978-3-540-33306-7_5. burzinski, m. (2020). reisepuls deutschland. future.ti 2020 studie zur zukunft der touristinformationen. retrieved from: https://shop.destinet.de/shop/future-ti-2020-studie-zurhttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ richter, n. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 55-62. 62 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 55-62, doi: 10.18060/26327 copyright © 2022 nancy richter this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. zukunft-der-tourist-informationen-p286651651. chen, x. y., & an, y. g. (2017). a research on the landscape design of beijing tourist information center. destech transactions on social science, education and human science, (aetms), doi 10.12783/dtssehs/aetms2017/15887. fesenmaier, d. r. (1994). traveler use of visitor information centers: implications for development in illinois. journal of travel research, 33(1), 44-50. https://doi.org/10.1177%2f004728759403300106 hemmington, n. (2007). from service to experience: understanding and defining the hospitality business. the service industries journal, 27(6), 747-755. https://doi.org/10.1080/02642060701453221. lyu, s. o., & hwang, j. (2015). are the days of tourist information centers gone? effects of the ubiquitous information environment. tourism management, 48, 54-63. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tourman.2014.11.001. pine, j.; gilmore, j. (2011). the experience economy. harvard business review. isbn 1422161978, 9781422161975. schulze, g. (2005). die erlebnisgesellschaft: kultursoziologie der gegenwart. campus verlag. isbn 10: 3593378884. sinus institut (2018). vertiefende zielgruppeninformationen zu den thüringen tourismus personas auf basis der sinus-milieus®. befunde aus qualitativen telefoninterviews. internal document. sung, m. j., & kim, s. i. (2019). a study on factors of tic (tourist information center) in seoulfocus on itaewon. journal of digital convergence, 17(5), 347-351. https://doi.org/10.14400/jdc.2019.17.5.347. wagner, d., schobert, m. and steckenbauer, g.c. (ed.) (2019). experience design im tourismus – eine branche im wandel. gestaltung von gäste-erlebnissen, erlebnismarketing und erlebnisvertrieb. springer, gabler. isbn: 978-3-658-24513-9. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 58-66, doi: 10.18060/27658 copyright © 2023 waed al tamimi, mohamed w. fareed and monther jamhawi this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2023 volume 6 student-led initiatives for cultural heritage awareness: the case of “meshkat”, jordan waed al tamimi mohamed w. fareed monther jamhawi university of sharjah, uae correspondence: mw.fareed@gmail.com (m. w. fareed) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sureto select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation tamimi, w. a., fareed, m. w. & jamhawi, m. (2023). student-led initiatives for cultural heritage awareness: the case of “meshkat”, jordan. events and tourism review, 6, 58-66. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:mw.fareed@gmail.com http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr tamimi, w. a., fareed, m. w. and jamhawi, m. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 58-66. 59 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 58-66, doi: 10.18060/27658 copyright © 2023 waed al tamimi, mohamed w. fareed and monther jamhawi this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract jordan's rich cultural heritage, including its historical landmarks, architecture, and traditional crafts, is a source of pride for its people. however, the lack of systematic awareness and consciousness puts it at risk of being lost or forgotten. many activities and campaigns had been conducted but they were scattered and unorganized. on the other hand, there were some student led initiatives that played a promising try in promoting cultural heritage and in raising awareness. this study aims to explore the role of student-led initiatives in raising awareness of cultural heritage, using the case of “meshkat”, a student-based initiative conducted at the university of jordan. the study employed a qualitative research approach, and data were collected through interviews, discussions, and observation of meshkat's activities. the results indicate that this initiative provides an effective platform for students to engage in volunteer work and gain practical experience. additionally, student-led initiatives offer an opportunity for collaboration between students, local communities, and experts in cultural heritage preservation. therefore, this study recommends promoting and supporting similar initiatives in other communities. keywords: heritage; cultural heritage awareness; intangible heritage; community participation; students initiatives 1 meshkat is a student-led initiative initiated in 2012 at the university of jordan by waed al-tamimi when she was a student. its primary objective was to raise awareness among the university students and the people of jordan who has a diverse cultural heritage. the initiative's name “meshkat” was inspired from the nich’s lamp. it is mentioned in the holy quran as "a lamp in a niche" (surah an-nur, 24:35), the meshkat initiative used this name as means of enlightenment to encourage students to explore and discover the cultural heritage of jordan, which is often hidden and unknown to many. introduction maintaining a community's identity and values through cultural heritage awareness is a vital aspect of preserving cultural heritage (stankova & vassenska, 2015). strategies such as heritage festivals, walks, trails, awards, street plays, newspapers, and integrating heritage into education have been implemented to achieve this (shimray, 2019). however, research has emphasized the need for community participation and education in cultural heritage preservation. education is viewed as the primary means of transferring a society's knowledge, morals, ethics, values, principles, and beliefs (boxtel et al, 2011). heritage education, on the other hand, utilizes cultural artefacts, artworks, and values to facilitate learning (shankar & swamy, 2013). heritage education aims to enable learners to understand history and culture and appreciate the creative endeavours, scientific knowledge, and contributions of diverse groups (srivastava, 2015). in this context, student-led initiatives can play a crucial role in promoting cultural heritage awareness. however, there is a research gap regarding the role of such initiatives in this field. therefore, this study aims to contribute to filling this gap by exploring the unique ways in which student-led initiatives can promote cultural heritage awareness. the research question for this study is: what is the role of meshkat, a student-led initiative, in promoting cultural heritage awareness? this study is significant as it has the potential to provide policymakers, practitioners, and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ tamimi, w. a., fareed, m. w. and jamhawi, m. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 58-66. 60 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 58-66, doi: 10.18060/27658 copyright © 2023 waed al tamimi, mohamed w. fareed and monther jamhawi this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. academics with insights into the critical role of students in promoting cultural heritage awareness. the study focuses on meshkat, a student-led initiative at the university of jordan, which was founded in 2012 by the students of the faculty of archaeology and tourism. the initiative aimed to translate theoretical material into practical activities and involved over 70 students who collaborated to create a unique collaborative setting. literature review in accordance with the united nations sustainable development goals (sdgs), which serve as a roadmap for achieving a more sustainable future, the meshkat initiative at the university of jordan embodies the interconnected and interdependent nature of economic, social, and environmental challenges. it acknowledges the crucial role that higher education institutions, such as the university of jordan, play in contributing to these goals through research, education, their own operations, and community engagement (united nations, 2019). within the framework of goal 4, "quality education," one of the key targets is to ensure that all learners acquire the knowledge and skills required to promote sustainable development. meshkat aligns with this objective by fostering an environment of education for sustainable development, emphasizing the importance of knowledge, skills, and values in advancing a more sustainable future. this approach is in line with the principles of education for sustainable development (esd) (le blanc, 2015). the implementation of esd principles at the university of jordan can occur through various channels, including the formal curriculum, co-curricular and informal activities, as well as the hidden curriculum. the hidden curriculum represents the subtle, implicit learning that takes place within the university environment (winter et al., 2015; briggs et al., 2019; nilsson et al., 2016). aim and objectives this research aims to demonstrate effective strategies for utilizing student activities and events as a means of raising community awareness about the significance of cultural heritage. by showcasing a range of activities implemented by the meshkat initiative, the ultimate goal is to promote cultural awareness on both tangible and intangible cultural heritage, considering cultural awareness as a preventive conservation tool. in order to achieve this aim, the following objectives were identified: • objective 1: to identify, classify the key activities implemented by meshkat through thematic analysis. • objective 2: to identify the challenges faced by meshkat in implementing cultural heritage awareness activities and explore strategies adopted to overcome these challenges. • objective 3: to explore the potential for meshkat's cultural heritage awareness activities to be scaled up and replicated in other universities and communities within jordan and beyond. research methods this study used a qualitative research approach to investigate the impact of meshkat, a student-led initiative at the university of jordan, on promoting cultural heritage awareness. qualitative research was chosen as it provides an in-depth exploration of the phenomenon under investigation, allowing for the capture of participants' experiences and perspectives. the study's https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ tamimi, w. a., fareed, m. w. and jamhawi, m. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 58-66. 61 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 58-66, doi: 10.18060/27658 copyright © 2023 waed al tamimi, mohamed w. fareed and monther jamhawi this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. methodology involved observing meshkat's activities and conducting thematic analysis to identify patterns and themes in the data. thematic analysis was chosen as it is a useful method for analyzing qualitative data, providing a framework for identifying and categorizing patterns and themes. the data analysis process involved coding the data and grouping it into themes and sub-themes. the analysis aimed to identify meshkat's role in promoting cultural heritage awareness, including its impact on students, the community, and cultural heritage preservation. qualitative research and thematic analysis were suitable for this study as they allowed for a comprehensive exploration of meshkat's impact on cultural heritage awareness. the approach enabled the identification of key factors and themes related to the research question, providing a deeper understanding of the phenomenon under investigation. by using this method, the study was able to capture the complex and diverse perspectives and experiences of the participants, providing valuable insights into the role of meshkat in promoting cultural heritage awareness. overall, the study's methodology was appropriate for investigating the research question and provided meaningful results. results key activities implemented by meshkat: a thematic analysis the activities of meshkat were organized thematically around seven main topics as follows: a. preserving archaeological sites focused on preventing encroachment and vandalism. in 2013, meshkat organized a theatrical performance about the umm jimmal site in jordan, which was attended by the director of the department of antiquities and other officials responsible for safeguarding jordan's heritage. the event was open to the public and was attended by approximately 1,000 people. the main goal was to raise awareness of the importance of preserving archaeological sites. this theme emphasizes the need to safeguard jordan's heritage for future generations. b. promoting jordanian heritage on the occasion of world heritage day. meshkat arranged an exhibition in 2013, which showcased and identified jordan's archaeological sites, with a particular focus on those that are less known. the photographs on display were taken by college students during their field visits. this theme emphasizes the importance of raising awareness in promoting jordan as a tourist destination. c. celebrating jordanian history, is focused on encouraging students to research and gather information on notable local and international historians who wrote about the history of jordan including "popular proverbs of the levant" by bin zaid al uzaizi which highlighted the intangible heritage of jordan through spoken arabic proverbs. this theme highlights the importance of connecting younger generations with history through research. d. showcasing crafts and handicrafts, is focused on displaying a variety of artisanal products for university students to explore. this theme highlights the importance of preserving traditional crafts and handicrafts and enhancing the local economy through the promotion of these products. e. definition of civilizations characteristics; on the occasion of saturnalia, the ancient roman holiday starting on december 17 and coinciding with the winter solstice, meshkat organized an event to demonstrate how knowledge is transmitted across generations and to showcase the various aspects of civilizations, including sciences, arts, economy, agriculture, as well as https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ tamimi, w. a., fareed, m. w. and jamhawi, m. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 58-66. 62 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 58-66, doi: 10.18060/27658 copyright © 2023 waed al tamimi, mohamed w. fareed and monther jamhawi this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. customs and traditions of ancient rome through various activities such as a theatrical show of roman wedding, military show, workshops, video of roman architecture, etc. f. promoting shared heritage and responsibility, in 2015, meshkat organized a workshop where a jerusalemites tour guide discussed the shared heritage between jordan and palestine and how to promote responsibility for their preservation and promotion. g. tours within jordan with local committee engagement, which involved arranging tours across jordan's northern and southern regions for public and private school students, as well as jordanian families. this theme emphasized the importance of experiential learning and the role of travel in promoting cultural exchange and understanding. the tours allowed participants to visit archaeological sites, museums, and other heritage landmarks and provided opportunities for them to learn about jordan's rich cultural heritage and history firsthand. this theme highlighted the role of promoting educational and cultural tourism in fostering a deeper appreciation for jordan's cultural heritage. overall, the themes of meshkat's activities are focused on promoting cultural heritage and history, raising awareness of the importance of preserving archaeological sites, promoting cultural exchange and understanding, and fostering collaboration and cooperation between countries in the preservation and promotion of cultural heritage. these themes are important for achieving the goals of cultural preservation, education, and tourism, and emphasize the role of organizations such as meshkat in promoting cultural heritage and history. figure 1. key activities implemented by meshkat: a thematic analysis, source: (proposed by researchers, 2023) challenges and strategies in the implementation and sustainability of the meshkat initiative the meshkat initiative, aimed at promoting cultural heritage awareness, encountered several https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ tamimi, w. a., fareed, m. w. and jamhawi, m. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 58-66. 63 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 58-66, doi: 10.18060/27658 copyright © 2023 waed al tamimi, mohamed w. fareed and monther jamhawi this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. challenges and limitations during its implementation. the primary challenge faced by the initiative was the lack of adequate financial support to cover the costs of materials and activities. initially, the faculty members and an engineering office provided personal support for the first event. however, the initiative later received support from the deanship of student affairs at the university of jordan, which allocated funds for the implementation of its activities. despite limited financial support, the initiative overcame this challenge by effective planning and focusing on essential issues. instead of letting the lack of significant financial support hinder its progress, the initiative collaborated with government agencies such as the jordanian museums of folk costumes and utilized available resources to effectively communicate its ideas. apart from financial challenges, the meshkat initiative also faced the issue of a high number of student volunteers interested in participating in heritage-related activities. to address this challenge, the initiative implemented an organizational structure to manage its activities effectively. this involved listing the names of interested students and their fields, and distributing tasks through groups based on student preferences determined through a questionnaire. this approach allowed students to choose the field they were interested in, with some participating in acting, while others conducted research. to ensure effective collaboration, the initiative appointed leaders for each group when the number of students grew to over 70. meetings were organized during university hours and between lectures. the meshkat initiative acknowledged the need to ensure its long-term sustainability beyond the graduation of its inaugural class. to tackle this issue, the initiative implemented a strategy, but encountered a major obstacle in maintaining productive communication and collaboration between alumni and current students. this challenge hindered the initiative's efforts to sustain its operations. as a result, meshkat decided to shift its focus and establish connections with private schools. additionally, the initiative organized heritage exhibitions and tours. however, despite these efforts, the success achieved outside of the university environment did not match that of the initiative's original operations. this was primarily due to the lack of a dedicated full-time team of volunteers following graduation. potential for meshkat's activities to be scaled up and replicated based on the themes of meshkat's activities, there is potential for similar student-led initiatives to be scaled up and replicated in other countries or regions. by replicating the themes and activities of meshkat, students can contribute to the preservation and promotion of cultural heritage in their own communities and beyond based on the following potentials: a. by organizing events or campaigns to raise awareness about the importance of preserving cultural heritage and the consequences of vandalism or encroachment. they can also collaborate with local authorities to establish protection plans for archaeological sites. b. by promoting local heritage through exhibitions, cultural festivals, or workshops to showcase the unique cultural heritage of their region or country. they can also use social media or other digital platforms to promote cultural tourism and attract visitors. c. by celebrating history: students can research and present the history of their region or country through various forms of media, such as documentaries, podcasts, or online articles. they can also organize conferences or seminars to discuss important historical events or figures. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ tamimi, w. a., fareed, m. w. and jamhawi, m. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 58-66. 64 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 58-66, doi: 10.18060/27658 copyright © 2023 waed al tamimi, mohamed w. fareed and monther jamhawi this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. d. by showcasing crafts and handicrafts: students can collaborate with local artisans to showcase their traditional crafts and handicrafts. they can also organize workshops or training programs to pass on the skills and knowledge of these crafts to younger generations. e. by promoting shared heritage and responsibility: students can collaborate with students from neighbouring countries to discuss and promote the shared heritage and cultural diversity of their respective regions. they can also organize cultural exchange programs or joint initiatives to preserve and promote cultural heritage. f. by educational tours: with the aid of the university’s administration and travel agencies, students can organize tours or field trips to archaeological sites, museums, or other cultural landmarks to provide hands-on learning experiences for themselves and other students. they can also incorporate educational activities or assignments to deepen their understanding of cultural heritage and history. discussion of the outcomes/effects the findings underscore that student-led initiatives, such as meshkat, offer a platform for students to engage in volunteer work, but questions arise regarding the practical value of this involvement. while these initiatives claim to promote cultural heritage awareness and preservation through collaboration among students, local communities, and heritage preservation experts, the effectiveness of such efforts remains questionable. numerous significant challenges, such as issues related to funding, administrative support, and logistics, persistently hamper the operations of these initiatives. meshkat's responses to these challenges, including soliciting external organizational support and establishing partnerships with local communities, raise concerns about their sustainability and autonomy. meshkat's approach to cultural heritage preservation and promotion, while outwardly creative, leaves room for critique. their initiative to raise awareness about archaeological site preservation, as seen in the umm jimmal event, raises questions about the long-term impact of theatrical performances in safeguarding cultural heritage. similarly, their celebration of world heritage day and the showcasing of archaeological sites through student photography may not have the profound impact claimed, as the link between these events and increased tourism remains speculative. encouraging students to research and present historical works, although forward thinking, may be an inadequate response to the deeper issues of disengagement from cultural heritage. their promotion of traditional crafts and handicrafts, while involving students, lacks innovation by merely proposing digitization as a solution to make these skills globally accessible. the exploration of ancient civilizations through events like saturnalia appears as a superficial endeavor in the absence of critical assessment of the educational outcomes. furthermore, meshkat's focus on shared heritage and responsibility, alongside experiential heritage tours, lacks an evidence-based approach to measuring their impact, leaving room for skepticism about their real influence. their strategies to address challenges and the proposed thematic analysis fall short of addressing the structural issues plaguing such initiatives, raising concerns about their long-term viability. the themes and their adaptability to diverse cultural contexts are inadequately substantiated, casting doubt on their effectiveness in inspiring cultural heritage preservation efforts globally. in conclusion, meshkat's efforts in the cultural heritage preservation field present a veneer of innovation with substantial room for critical scrutiny and reassessment. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ tamimi, w. a., fareed, m. w. and jamhawi, m. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 58-66. 65 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 58-66, doi: 10.18060/27658 copyright © 2023 waed al tamimi, mohamed w. fareed and monther jamhawi this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. conclusions and recommendations innovative student-led initiatives like meshkat serve as dynamic platforms for hands-on learning, offering the potential to bridge the gap between theoretical knowledge and practical engagement, particularly in the realm of cultural heritage preservation. while these endeavors are commendable, a critical evaluation reveals the need for reevaluation and innovation to secure their long-term impact and sustainability. challenges such as financial constraints, administrative support, and logistical hurdles persist and demand proactive resolution. meshkat's multifaceted approach to cultural heritage preservation, although laudable, warrants a deeper examination of its efficacy in driving substantive shifts in cultural attitudes and behaviors. recommendations for these initiatives include rigorous impact measurement, diversification of funding sources, the integration of technology, sustainability planning, community-centered approaches, advocacy for policy changes, global collaboration, and a relentless focus on research and innovation. in essence, a renewed commitment to assessment, innovation, and sustainability is essential to propel student-led initiatives like meshkat towards more enduring and impactful contributions in the domain of cultural heritage preservation and beyond. to maintain the sustainability of student-led initiatives, institutionalizing the initiatives as official programs through the initiatives office at the university or the college responsible for overseeing the initiative is recommended. this approach offers a sustainable solution for the continuity of the initiative and allows future students to build on the achievements of their predecessors. references boxtel, c. v., klein, s., & snoep, e. (2011). heritage education: challenges in dealing with the past. netherlands institute for heritage, amsterdam. shimray, somipam r. and k. ramaiah, chennupati, "cultural heritage awareness among students of pondicherry university: avstudy" (2019). library philosophy and practice (e-journal). 2516. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/2516. shankar, b., & swamy, c. (2013). creating awareness for heritage conservation in the city of mysore: issues and policies. international journal of modern engineering research, 3(2), 698-703. srivastava, s. (2015). a study of awareness of cultural heritage among the teachers at university level. universal journal of educational research, 3(5), 36-44. briggs, s.j., robinson, z.p., hadley, r.l. and laycock pedersen, r. (2019), "the importance of university, students and students’ union partnerships in student-led projects: a case study", international journal of sustainability in higher education, vol. 20 no. 8, pp. 14091427. https://doi.org/10.1108/ijshe-01-2019-0050 nilsson, m. griggs, d. and visbeck, m. (2016), “policy: map the interactions between sustainable development goals”, nature comment, [online], available at: www.nature.com/news/policymap-the interactions-between-sustainable-development-goals-1.20075 united nations (2019), “about the sustainable development goals”, accessed at: www.un.org/ sustainabledevelopment/sustainable-development-goals/ (accessed 27 january 2019). le blanc, d. (2015), “towards integration at last? the sustainable development goals as a network of targets”, sustainable development, vol. 23 no. 3, pp. 176-187. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/libphilprac/2516 http://www.nature.com/news/policymap-thehttp://www.un.org/ tamimi, w. a., fareed, m. w. and jamhawi, m. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 58-66. 66 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 58-66, doi: 10.18060/27658 copyright © 2023 waed al tamimi, mohamed w. fareed and monther jamhawi this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. winter, j., cotton, d., grant, v. and hopkinson, p. (2015), “the university as a site for transformation around sustainability”, international journal of innovation and sustainable development, vol. 9 nos 3/4, pp. 303-320. stankova, m., & vassenska, i. (2015). raising cultural awareness of local traditions through festival tourism. tourism & management studies, 11(1), 120-127. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 52-57, doi: 10.18060/26915 copyright © 2022 lauren c. palmer and mona mirehie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2022 volume 5 no. 2 investigating collegiate athletes’ wellbeing during the travel season lauren c. palmer mona mirehie indiana universitypurdue university indianapolis correspondence: mmirehie@iu.edu (m. mirehie) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation palmer, l. c. & mirehie, m. (2022). investigating collegiate athletes’ wellbeing during the travel season. events and tourism review, 5(2), 52-57. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr palmer, l. c. & mirehie, m. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 52-57. 53 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 52-57, doi: 10.18060/26915 copyright © 2022 lauren c. palmer and mona mirehie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract the purpose of this study was to explore collegiate athletes’ sense of wellbeing during the travel season. a qualitative approach was adapted which was founded on the principles of positive psychology. data were collected utilizing in-depth semi-structured interviews with student athletes via phone or video calls. participants were recruited through purposive and convenient sampling. to analyze data, thematic content analysis was conducted, and subjective wellbeing theory (diener, 1984) was used as a guide for data analysis. interviewees reported that during the competition trips they experience positive emotions such as fun, excitement, and happiness; as well as negative emotions such as stress, anxiety, and exhaustion. incorporating tourist activities into teams’ travel itineraries and giving the athletes a voice in the travel decision making were found to be effective in enhancing athletes’ wellbeing. keywords: sport event travel; collegiate athletes; wellbeing; positive psychology introduction collegiate student athletes are usually at high risk of mental issues such as anger, anxiety, distress or depression (kimball & freysinger, 2003) likely due to difficulties of transitioning from high school to higher education (pritchard, wilson, & yamnitz, 2004) as well as pressures associated with fulfilling their academic and athletic responsibilities (papanikolaou, nikolaidis, patsiaouras, & alexopoulos, 2003). factors such as possible loss of the high school star-athlete status, interpersonal conflict, injuries, time pressure, missing classes because of athletic trips and the need to make up the missed work negatively impact student athletes’ wellbeing (humphrey, yow, & bowden, 2000). difficulty in establishing positive relationships with family (wilson & pritchard, 2005), other students, coaches, and teachers have been particularly highlighted as an additional stressor (humphrey et al., 2000; papanikolaou et al., 2003). athletes also reported suffering from physical health issues such as tension, fatigue, lack of sleep, digestive issues, and headache (humphrey et al., 2000) which could be other manifestations of poor mental health. although previous studies on this topic provide valuable insights into sources of stress (e.g., wilson & pritchard, 2005), and possible curing or coping strategies (e.g., pinkerton, hinz, & barrow, 1989), maintaining athletes’ mental health and preventing the disorders/illnesses from happening has received limited attention so far. prevention of mental issues by fostering positivity and helping individuals to flourish (seligman, 2002) is the focus of positive psychology which is centered on meaningful subjective experiences (seligman & csikszentmihalyi, 2000). accordingly, wellbeing is not only the absence of illness but involves the presence of positive emotions, positive relationships, and a sense of accomplishment (seligman, 2002). the positivity is determined through individuals’ subjective assessment of their experiences. diener (1984) postulated that wellbeing is comprised of individuals’ cognitive and affective subjective judgements of different aspects of their life. in other words, subjective wellbeing is a state of overall contentment with life where positive emotions outweigh the negatives. so far, a positive psychological approach in assessing student athletes’ wellbeing in relation https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ palmer, l. c. & mirehie, m. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 52-57. 54 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 52-57, doi: 10.18060/26915 copyright © 2022 lauren c. palmer and mona mirehie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. to team’s travel experiences has received little attention from scholars. to address this gap, this study explored collegiate athletes’ wellbeing through a positive psychology lens. findings have implications for designing preventative interventions that help protect collegiate athletes from mental disorders and maintain their wellbeing throughout the travel/competition season when they perform under high pressure and experience heightened levels of stress. literature review a predominant theme in previous studies on student athletes’ mental health has been exploring mental issues such as anxiety, depression, distress, and anger followed by recommendations for possible healing strategies (e.g., kimball & freysinger, 2003; pinkerton, hinz, & barrow, 1989). for example, pinkerton et al. (1989) found that student athletes were more likely to struggle with issues related to fear of failure, identity conflict, social isolation, poor athletic performance, academic and career problems, physiological burnout, eating disorder, alcohol and drug abuse, and injuries compared to non-athletes. however, they underutilize counseling and mental health services (pinkerton et al., 1989). the authors concluded that early and positive therapeutic relationships are imperative in helping collegiate athletes’ well-being. similarly, kimball and freysinger (2003) stated that participation in collegiate sports both buffers and generates stress for athletes. likewise, wilson and pritchard (2005) compared stress levels of collegiate athletes with other college students (i.e., non-athlete). student athletes were found to be more stressed out than non-athletes because they generally had more responsibilities and were not able to get enough sleep. the authors highlighted the need for actions that could improve student athletes’ relationships with other students (wilson & pritchard, 2005). hoffman and miller (2009) explored the complex relationship between collegiate athletes’ sport-related identities and mental health. the authors found two different identities: jock identity and athlete identity. jock identity referred to ego-oriented athletes while student athlete identity referred to overachieving, and disciplined athletes. the jock identity student athletes had higher rates of suicide and depression (hoffman & miller, 2009). in the same vein, denny (2009) investigated how various internal and external factors affect student athletes as they manage their collegiate career full of stress, strains, and exceptional demands. internal factors are a person’s experiences and personality (mindfulness and self-esteem). external factors relate to the environment in which personality and experience are applied (playing time and scholarship). findings revealed that internal factors contributed to student-athletes’ happiness more than external factors. later, lu & hsu (2013) examined how hope and social support is linked to predicting postinjury rehabilitation beliefs, behaviors, and wellbeing among injured taiwanese collegiate student athletes. the authors concluded that many injured athletes either suspend their participation in the sport or permanently leave the sport, hence, taking action to prevent athletic injuries was necessary. particularly, hope and social support were found to be beneficial to sport injury rehabilitation and athlete wellbeing (lu & hsu, 2013). similarly, the impact of injury on athletes’ wellbeing was evident in kerr, defreese, and marshall’s (2014) study of former collegiate athletes’ current physical and mental health. interestingly, former collegiate athletes physical and mental health was found to be similar to the general us population, with the exception of those who previously sustained injures, concussions and/or career ending injuries. using ncaa memorial resolutions list and ncaa demographic data, rao, drezner, toresdahl, and harmon (2015) examined the rate of suicide within the ncaa over a 9-year period. they found that the suicide rate was lower in ncaa athletes compared to the general and collegiate population of similar age group. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ palmer, l. c. & mirehie, m. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 52-57. 55 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 52-57, doi: 10.18060/26915 copyright © 2022 lauren c. palmer and mona mirehie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. furthermore, the suicide rate was found to be higher among male athletes compared to female athletes, with football players being at the greatest risk. more recently, jeon, lee, kwon (2016) investigated the relationship between self-compassion, social support, and well-being among south korean student athletes. athletes with more self-compassion experienced more positive emotions every day, felt more fellowship with others, and in general were more satisfied with life. also, student-athletes with higher perceived social support had fewer symptoms of depression. the results showed a positive relationship between self-compassion, social support, and student athletes’ wellbeing (jeon et al., 2016). to sum up briefly, previous studies provided valuable contributions to identifying mental issues among collegiate athletes and recommending potential coping strategies. nevertheless, a focus on positive psychology and athletes’ subjective assessment of their own well-being has received little attention so far. research methodology given the scarcity of research on this topic, a qualitative approach was adopted. in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with collegiate athletes (n = 5) via phone or video calls. interviewees were recruited using purposive and convenient sampling in a mid-western public university in the u.s. interviewees were asked to reflect on their emotional state throughout the competition season, their competition trip experiences, positive and negative emotions that they experience throughout the competition season, and their overall assessment of their wellbeing. an interview guide was used to direct the conversations, interviews were recorded and transcribed for the analysis. thematic content analysis was used to analyze the data. participants’ narratives were coded inductively, however, a positive psychology lens was applied to guide the analysis. codes were categorized into themes and subthemes based on the frequency (i.e., the number of times something was said). findings interviewees reported that they experience a range of positive and negative emotions during the competition season and particularly while they are traveling for competition. stress, anxiety, and exhaustion were the most frequently mentioned negative emotions. such negative emotions appeared to be closely linked to, a) within group conflict/drama, b) feelings of not having a voice in team’s travel plan/activities. nevertheless, it appeared that support from teammates, as well as communication and conflict resolution by the team leaders can decrease or even eliminate the negative emotions. on the other hand, interviewees explained that they experienced a range of positive emotions during the season and while on a competition trip. fun, happiness, and excitement were the most commonly reported positive emotions. it appeared that positive emotions were highly related to positive relationships with teammates who “often help with stress management.” furthermore, the athletes noted that including some tourist activities in team’s travel itineraries, particularly the longer trips, can enhance their experiences and overall wellbeing during the season. they further mentioned that they would like to have a voice in decisions about the team’s tourist activities. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ palmer, l. c. & mirehie, m. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 52-57. 56 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 52-57, doi: 10.18060/26915 copyright © 2022 lauren c. palmer and mona mirehie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. discussion and conclusion this study examined collegiate athletes’ sense of wellbeing during the travel season. findings supported previous research findings regarding high level of stress, anxiety, and exhaustion during the season (e.g., kimball & freysinger, 2003; pinkerton et al., 1989) that negatively impact athletes’ wellbeing. this research contributed to the body of knowledge by revealing athletes’ experiences of positive emotions that are mostly generated through positive relationships with teammates and coaches. additionally, athletes’ wish for having a voice in decisions about team’s travel itineraries was a novel finding of this study. findings provide some guidelines for enhancing collegiate athletes’ wellbeing during the travel season. incorporating touristic activities into teams’ travel itineraries to get the athletes outside of the stressful high-pressure environment and creating opportunities for recovery, enhancing positive emotions, and positive relationships could be a viable strategy. given that exhaustion during the season has been noted by athletes numerous times across different studies, athletes will likely benefit the most from activities that require minimal mental and physical effort from them. although this study was focused on enhancing wellbeing of collegiate athletes, findings apply to all parties involved in team’s travel such as coaches and medical staff. replicating the study at different higher education institutions and/or with professional athletes as well as using quantitative methods to test the findings at a large scale can be possible directions for future research. references alexopoulos, p. (2003). commentary: the freshman experience: high stress–low grades. athletic insight: the online journal of sport psychology. denny, k. g., & steiner, h. (2009). external and internal factors influencing happiness in elite collegiate athletes. child psychiatry and human development, 40(1), 55. diener, e., & emmons, r. a. (1984). the independence of positive and negative affect. journal of personality and social psychology, 47(5), 1105. humphrey, j. h., yow, d. a., & bowden, w. w. (2000). stress in college athletics: causes. a comparative study of player and non-player students in relation to mental health– gahlawat & gahlawatl. jeon, h., lee, k., & kwon, s. (2016). investigation of the structural relationships between social support, self-compassion, and subjective well-being in korean elite student athletes. psychological reports, 119(1), 39-54. kerr, z. y., defreese, j. d., & marshall, s. w. (2014). current physical and mental health of former collegiate athletes. orthopaedic journal of sports medicine, 2(8), 2325967114544107. kimball, a., & freysinger, v. j. (2003). leisure, stress, and coping: the sport participation of collegiate student-athletes. leisure sciences, 25(2-3), 115-141. lu, f. j., & hsu, y. (2013). injured athletes' rehabilitation beliefs and subjective well-being: the contribution of hope and social support. journal of athletic training, 48(1), 92-98. miller, k. e., & hoffman, j. h. (2009). mental well-being and sport-related identities in college students. sociology of sport journal, 26(2), 335-356.papanikolaou, z., nikolaidis, d., patsiaouras, a., & pinkerton, r. s., hinz, l. d., & barrow, j. c. (1989). the college student-athlete: psychological https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ palmer, l. c. & mirehie, m. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 52-57. 57 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 52-57, doi: 10.18060/26915 copyright © 2022 lauren c. palmer and mona mirehie this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. considerations and interventions. journal of american college health, 37(5), 218-226. pritchard, m. (2005). comparing sources of stress in college student athletes and nonathletes. athletic insight: the online journal of sports psychology, 5(1), 1-8. rao, a. l., asif, i. m., drezner, j. a., toresdahl, b. g., & harmon, k. g. (2015). suicide in national collegiate athletic association (ncaa) athletes: a 9-year analysis of the ncaa resolutions database. sports health, 7(5), 452-457. seligman, m. e. (2002). positive psychology, positive prevention, and positive therapy. handbook of positive psychology, 2(2002), 3-12. seligman, m. e., & csikszentmihalyi, m. (2000). positive psychology: an introduction (vol. 55, no. 1, p. 5). american psychological association. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ abstract events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 45-56, doi: 10.18060/28481 copyright © 2024 lincoln i. davie, godwin-charles ogbeide and kiyan shafieizadeh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2024 volume 7 no. 1 leveraging nature-based tourism for sustainable community development and destination marketing: a social capital theory perspective lincoln i. davie godwin-charles ogbeide kiyan shafieizadeh metropolitan state university of denver correspondence: gogbeide@msudenver.edu (g-c. ogbeide) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation davie, l. i., ogbeide, g-c. & shafieizadeh, k. (2024). leveraging nature-based tourism for sustainable community development and destination marketing: a social capital theory perspective. events and tourism review, 7(1), 45-56. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr davie, l. i., ogbeide, g-c. & shafieizadeh, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 45-56. 46 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 45-56, doi: 10.18060/28481 copyright © 2024 lincoln i. davie, godwin-charles ogbeide and kiyan shafieizadeh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract the adverse impacts of mass tourism have led to the rise of alternative forms of tourism, such as nature-based tourism, which prioritize sustainable interactions with natural environments and local communities. this paper explores the potential of nature-based tourism for destination marketing and community empowerment. using social capital theory, the study examines how strong social networks and community involvement enhance the benefits of nature-based tourism, leading to sustainable economic and social outcomes. the research addresses how communities can leverage nature-based tourism for destination marketing and its impacts on community development. the findings provide practical applications for policymakers and stakeholders, highlighting strategies for optimizing destination management and fostering equitable development. this study contributes to the broader discourse on sustainable tourism by demonstrating the interconnectedness of destination marketing, nature-based tourism, and community-based development, emphasizing a holistic and inclusive approach. keywords: destination management; nature-based tourism; local community; sustainable development; social capital theory introduction the growing recognition among tourists, local residents, and other stakeholders of the adverse impacts associated with mass tourism has spurred the development of novel forms of tourism, commonly referred to as "alternative tourism" or "special interest tourism” (jovicic, 2016). alternative tourism encompasses various formats, all aimed at mitigating the adverse environmental, social, and economic effects of conventional tourism (weaver, 2014). nature-based tourism, for instance, stands out as a viable alternative to mass tourism, prioritizing sustainable interactions with natural environments and local communities. the continual growth of nature-based tourism has significantly influenced destinations, leading to a robust market for economic development. the latest statistics demonstrate that outdoor recreation contributes $1.1 trillion to economic output (equivalent to 2.2% of gdp), sustains 4.98 million jobs, and represents 3.2% of the u.s. workforce (outdoor recreation roundtable, 2023). as the focus shifts from mass tourism to nature-based experiences, the role of tourist destinations becomes more pronounced, necessitating a balanced approach to destination management and marketing (buhalis, 2000; pike, 2004; solelhac, 2022). moreover, the nature-based tourism sector offers a promising avenue for generating both social and economic value within destinations, thereby empowering local communities and highlighting the importance of fostering equitable development (mitchell & ashley, 2010). while nature-based tourism, destination management, and community-based development are intertwined elements within the broader context of sustainable tourism, there remains a notable gap in research regarding the impact of nature-based tourism on local communities and its potential utilization in destination marketing and management strategies. the convergence of these elements is crucial for fostering environmentally responsible and socially inclusive tourism practices. this literature review explores key concepts and trends in these areas, highlighting their https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ davie, l. i., ogbeide, g-c. & shafieizadeh, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 45-56. 47 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 45-56, doi: 10.18060/28481 copyright © 2024 lincoln i. davie, godwin-charles ogbeide and kiyan shafieizadeh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. interconnectedness and the importance of a holistic approach to tourism development. reflecting on the social capital theory, this study aims to provide practical applications for leveraging naturebased tourism to benefit local communities and enhance destination management strategies. specifically, this study aims to answer the following questions: a) how can communities leverage nature-based tourism for destination marketing? b) what are the impacts of nature-based tourism on community development? the study contributes to the existing literature by adopting a sustainable approach to examine the effects of nature-based tourism on destination marketing and management strategies, thereby facilitating local community empowerment. furthermore, the findings will assist policymakers in identifying optimal strategies for efficient planning and leveraging nature-based tourism as a viable alternative to foster the development and promotion of destinations. literature review social capital theory this study is based on social capital theory. social capital theory provides a framework for understanding the value embedded within social relationships, networks, and community norms (bourdieu, 1986; coleman, 1988). it emphasizes the resources, trust, and cooperation that emerge from these social connections, contributing to individuals' and societies' overall well-being and functioning (claridge, 2018; porte, 1998). social capital theory identifies three main dimensions of social capital: bonding, bridging, and linking capitals (claridge, 2018). bonding social capital refers to solid ties within homogeneous groups, such as family, close friends, or ethnic communities (claridge, 2018). bridging social capital encompasses connections between diverse individuals or groups, fostering cooperation and collaboration across different social boundaries (claridge, 2018). linking social capital extends beyond immediate networks to interactions with formal institutions and authorities, facilitating access to resources and opportunities (claridge, 2018). in community development, social capital theory informs strategies to strengthen local networks, enhance social cohesion, and empower marginalized groups (claridge, 2018; porte, 1998; woolcock & narayan, 2000). social capital theory has been widely applied in the context of ecotourism in numerous studies. pongponrat and chantradoan (2012) suggest that social capital serves as a key mechanism for understanding local community participation in tourism development within a destination. social capital plays a pivotal role in the success of community-based ecotourism initiatives (liu et al., 2014; musavengane & matikiti). liu et al. (2014) also found that social capital influences proenvironmental behaviors among local residents, contributing to the sustainable management of natural resources in community-based ecotourism. additionally, it can foster a positive image of ecotourism destinations, ultimately driving the success of community-based ecotourism (kencana & mertha, 2014). thus, social capital theory provides a valuable framework for understanding the complex dynamics between communities, destination marketing, and nature-based tourism. by fostering social cohesion, trust, and collaboration, social capital contributes to tourism destinations' sustainability, competitiveness, and resilience, and ultimately enhancing both visitor satisfaction and community well-being. reflecting on the social capital theory, this study aims to explore the interconnection between destination management/marketing, nature-based tourism, and communitybased development. the research objectives are as follows: 1. to explore how communities can leverage nature-based tourism for destination marketing. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ davie, l. i., ogbeide, g-c. & shafieizadeh, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 45-56. 48 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 45-56, doi: 10.18060/28481 copyright © 2024 lincoln i. davie, godwin-charles ogbeide and kiyan shafieizadeh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 2. to determine the importance of nature-based tourism for community development. destination marketing and management effective destination marketing and management is essential for optimizing the benefits of tourism by providing a helpful tool for guiding the development of the destination's brand and promoting tourism opportunities within the location (slocum & curtis, 2017). social capital theory highlights the importance of strong community networks in achieving these goals. local businesses and destination marketing organizations (dmos) can collaborate more effectively by leveraging bonding social capital, ensuring that marketing efforts align with community values and enhance social cohesion (bourdieu, 1986; coleman, 1988). bonding social capital, characterized by solid ties within homogeneous groups, can facilitate trust and cooperation among local stakeholders, thus improving the efficiency of marketing strategies and destination management (claridge, 2018). destination marketing and management organizations (dmos) are instrumental in guiding destination brand development and promoting tourism opportunities, ensuring tourists' awareness of local businesses, events, attractions, and available amenities (slocum & curtis, 2017). as the focus shifts from mass tourism to nature-based experiences, the role of tourist destinations becomes more pronounced, necessitating a balanced approach to destination management and marketing (solelhac, 2022; buhalis, 2000; pike, 2004). social capital theory underscores the significance of bridging social capital in this context, where connections between diverse groups enhance cooperative efforts in destination branding and promotion, leading to more innovative and inclusive marketing strategies (claridge, 2018). while marketing efforts in the tourism sector typically focus on boosting visibility and economic outcomes, it is imperative also to prioritize environmental and socio-cultural sustainability concerns when developing destination marketing strategies (buhalis, 2000). in today's dynamic tourism market, which discerning travelers mark, there is an increasing demand for responsible tourism practices that directly benefit local communities (slocum et al., 2020). sustainable destination management considers the carrying capacity of natural ecosystems, local culture, and community aspirations. additionally, scholars like bramwell and lane (2011) emphasize the need for community involvement and stakeholder collaboration in destination planning and management to achieve long-term sustainability. ritchie and crouch (2000) argue that destination management involves a coordinated approach to planning, marketing, and infrastructure development. in light of the growing commodification of outdoor experiences and culture, the significance of implementing best practices in destination marketing is more pronounced than ever. nature-based tourism, as an alternative form of tourism, plays a pivotal role in destination management, contributing to a destination's overall sustainability, economic prosperity, and cultural preservation (honey, 1999). empowering local communities sustainable tourism encompasses various principles, including community empowerment (solelhac, 2022). as tourism continues to burgeon, numerous scholars acknowledge its pivotal role in fostering economic growth within local communities. nonetheless, it is crucial to recognize that community empowerment transcends mere economic factors. according to scheyvens (1999), it also encompasses social, political, and psychological dimensions. empowering local communities in nature-based tourism is a matter of ethical importance and a strategic necessity for sustainable and equitable development (mitchell & ashley, 2010; buckley, 2012). social capital theory highlights the importance of strong social networks in achieving these https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ davie, l. i., ogbeide, g-c. & shafieizadeh, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 45-56. 49 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 45-56, doi: 10.18060/28481 copyright © 2024 lincoln i. davie, godwin-charles ogbeide and kiyan shafieizadeh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. goals. by leveraging bonding and bridging social capital, communities can enhance trust, cooperation, and collaboration with external stakeholders (bourdieu, 1986; coleman, 1988; claridge, 2018). collaboration between nature-based tourism initiatives and community stakeholders is pivotal in fostering sustainable community development. nature-based tourism often involves local communities using a mechanism to enhance authentic tourist experiences (brown, 1999). it is critical to ensure that local populations are primary beneficiaries of the growth in naturebased tourism (britton, 1982; gibson, 2009). the future of this sector lies in its ability to be inclusively developed, ensuring that the allure of natural destinations is matched by tangible benefits for those who call these places home (koscak & o'rourke, 2021). empowering communities through tourism can lead to economic benefits, cultural preservation, and social well-being (ashley & haysom, 2006; ashley & roe, 1998; ashley & roe, 2002; scheyvens, 2007). engaging local communities in decision-making processes is crucial for ensuring that tourism development aligns with their values and aspirations (fennell, 2008). nature-based tourism nature-based tourism plays a pivotal role in destination management, contributing to a destination's overall sustainability, economic prosperity, and cultural preservation (honey, 1999). nature-based tourism, one of the fastest growing sectors (wttc, 2019; world bank, 2021), revolves around interactions and experiences within natural settings (coghlan & buckley, 2013). this broad category encompasses a variety of tourism practices where the natural environment is the central element, particularly those in untouched or pristine conditions (newsome et al., 2002; buckley, 2003; buckley, 2009). consequently, nature-based tourism spans a range of activities, from the serene enjoyment of landscapes, geological features, and biodiversity to more dynamic pursuits such as adventure, ecotourism (neat – nature, eco, adventure tourism), and outdoor recreation. additionally, it can include activities with consumptive elements like hunting and fishing, alongside altruistic endeavors supporting conservation and research efforts (benson, 2005; coghlan, 2006, 2007). quite simple, nature-based tourism is tourism that takes place in natural settings (coghlan & buckley, 2013). effective destination marketing and management is essential for optimizing the benefits of tourism by providing a helpful tool for guiding the development of the destination's brand and promoting tourism opportunities within the location (slocum & curtis, 2017). marketing within the tourism sector aims to increase visibility and enhance economic output, but a more significant consideration of environmental and socio-cultural sustainability is also needed (buhalis, 2000). ritchie and crouch (2000) argue that destination management involves a coordinated approach to planning, marketing, and infrastructure development. sustainable destination management considers the carrying capacity of natural ecosystems, local culture, and community aspirations. scholars like bramwell and lane (2011) emphasize the need for community involvement and stakeholder collaboration in destination planning and management to achieve long-term sustainability. social capital theory underscores the importance of community involvement and stakeholder collaboration in this context, highlighting the role of strong social networks in achieving these goals (bourdieu, 1986; coleman, 1988; claridge, 2018). the transformative potential of nature-based tourism extends beyond environmental appreciation, impacting social and economic domains, particularly in protected areas and underdeveloped regions. this form of tourism is increasingly recognized for its role in enhancing conservation efforts and improving the quality of life in rural communities, often acting as a https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ davie, l. i., ogbeide, g-c. & shafieizadeh, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 45-56. 50 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 45-56, doi: 10.18060/28481 copyright © 2024 lincoln i. davie, godwin-charles ogbeide and kiyan shafieizadeh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. strategic pro-poor intervention (bushell et al., 2002; hill et al., 2006). the emotional connection tourists develop with natural environments, known as place attachment, moderates their experiences, enriching the interaction between visitors and nature (kil et al., 2012). social capital theory highlights how these emotional connections and strong social networks can enhance community well-being and collaboration in conservation efforts (bourdieu, 1986; coleman, 1988). furthermore, destinations suffering from the adverse effects of over-tourism are increasingly turning towards nature-based tourism as a sustainable alternative, recognizing its potential to balance ecological integrity with visitor satisfaction (fennell, 2003). this shift not only aids in preserving natural environments but also in revitalizing local communities affected by the downsides of conventional tourism practices. methodology this study was based on the hospitality and tourism literature review syntheses about destination management, nature-based tourism, and community-based development. the literature review explores the interconnection between destination management, nature-based tourism, social capital theory, and community-based development. the authors reviewed several papers on the importance of nature-based tourism for community development and destination marketing. the study explored how communities can utilize social capital theory to leverage nature-based tourism for destination marketing and the importance of nature-based tourism for community development. fifty journal articles, ranging from 1982 to 2024, were reviewed. some main research journals cited include annals of tourism research, development southern africa, journal of ecotourism, journal of sustainable tourism, sustainability, and tourism management. this literature review was based on ebsco academic search premier, google scholar databases, proquest central, and psychinfo. the terms used to search within the databases included destination management, nature-based tourism, economic opportunities, sustainable development, and environmental conservation. these terms were chosen to find articles on how communities can leverage nature-based tourism for destination marketing and the importance of nature-based tourism for community development. peer-reviewed journal articles on any of the above terms about empowering communities through nature-based tourism were reviewed, and the critical themes discovered were used to offer insights into how communities can be empowered through nature-based tourism and leverage nature-based tourism for destination marketing. the findings from the literature review constitute the result of the study. results the first objective of this study was to explore how communities can leverage nature-based tourism for destination marketing. the investigation identified several advantages of nature-based tourism for destination marketing (see table 1). table 1. advantage of nature-based tourism for destination marketing importance summarized description market sensing capability identifies and responds to changing tourist demands through market insights, ensuring destinations remain competitive and relevant. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ davie, l. i., ogbeide, g-c. & shafieizadeh, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 45-56. 51 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 45-56, doi: 10.18060/28481 copyright © 2024 lincoln i. davie, godwin-charles ogbeide and kiyan shafieizadeh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. reflects a strategic approach to understanding and meeting visitor expectations based on market trends (buhalis, 2000; jiang et al., 2017; pike, 2004; slocum et al., 2020). community engagement enhances destination image and visitor satisfaction by involving local communities in tourism planning and management. this aligns with tourists' increasing desire for authentic and sustainable travel experiences (ashley & roe, 2002; bramwell & lane, 2011; mitchell & ashley, 2010; scheyvens, 1999). environmental sustainability positions the destination as responsible and conservation-minded, appealing to eco-conscious tourists. it fosters a positive destination image that supports long-term tourism development (bramwell & lane, 2011; fennell, 2003; honey, 1999; slocum et al., 2020). economic development stimulates local economies through job creation and business opportunities related to nature-based activities. encourages sustainable economic growth by balancing environmental preservation with tourism revenue (ashley & haysom, 2006; mitchell & ashley, 2010; ritchie & crouch, 2003). destination differentiation provides unique, nature-based experiences that differentiate the destination from competitors. offers activities and attractions that cannot be replicated, enhancing the destination's market position (fennell, 2003; fyall & garrod, 2018; jiang et al., 2017; ritchie & crouch, 2000). authentic experience and brand development aligning brand development with authenticity enhances the marketing process, focusing on diversifying product offerings and providing personal experiences, crucial for brand loyalty and repeat visitation (jiang et al., 2017; pine & gilmore, 1999; slocum & curtis, 2017; wu & liang, 2011). stakeholder engagement and education engaging stakeholders and providing educational tools for community members are vital for accurate messaging and collaborative marketing efforts, enhancing destination management and competitiveness (ashley & roe, 2002; byrd, 2007; jamal & stronza, 2009; scheyvens, 2007). the result shows that the advantages of nature-based tourism for destination marketing align with social capital theory. these advantages indicate that by fostering social capital within a community, destination marketers can help ensure that tourism development aligns with residents' needs and values, thereby minimizing negative impacts on social cohesion and cultural integrity. the second objective of this study was to determine the importance of nature-based tourism for community development. the investigation identified several important aspects of nature-based tourism for community development. some of the importance include economic opportunities, cultural preservation, empowerment of local communities, infrastructure development, conservation awareness, skill development, capacity building, improved quality of life, social integration and cultural exchange, and sustainable development planning (see table 2). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ davie, l. i., ogbeide, g-c. & shafieizadeh, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 45-56. 52 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 45-56, doi: 10.18060/28481 copyright © 2024 lincoln i. davie, godwin-charles ogbeide and kiyan shafieizadeh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. table 2. the importance of nature-based tourism for community development importance summarized description economic opportunities nature-based tourism creates employment opportunities for residents, ranging from tour guides and hospitality staff to artisans and entrepreneurs (ashley & haysom, 2006; ashley & roe, 2002; britton, 1982; gibson, 2009; honey, 1999; rocca & zielinski, 2022; scheyvens, 2007; weaver, 2006). cultural preservation nature-based tourism often revolves around a community's unique cultural and natural assets (ashley & roe, 1998; guerrero-moreno & oliveira-junior, 2024; koscak & o’rourke, 2021; wiratno et al., 2022). empowerment of local communities involving community stakeholders in nature-based tourism decisionmaking processes empowers them to have a say in developing and managing tourism activities (buckley, 2012; buhalis, 2000; fennell, 2008; mitchell & ashley, 2010; pike, 2004; solelhac, 2022). infrastructure development the growth of nature-based tourism can stimulate community infrastructure development, including improved transportation, communication, and public facilities (ritchie & crouch, 2000). conservation awareness nature-based tourism serves as a platform for raising awareness about the importance of environmental conservation (benson, 2005; coghlan, 2006, 2007; guerrero-moreno & oliveira-junior, 2024; honey, 1999; weaver, 2006). skill development and capacity building nature-based tourism allows community members to develop new skills and capacities, from guiding and hospitality to marketing and business management (ashley & haysom, 2006; slocum et al., 2020). improved quality of life economic benefits derived from nature-based tourism can contribute to an improved quality of life for community members through increased income, better infrastructure, and enhanced access to education and healthcare (ashley & haysom, 2006; ashley & roe, 1998; ashley & roe, 2002; giampiccoli et al., 2022; scheyvens, 2007). social integration and cultural exchange nature-based tourism fosters social integration by providing opportunities for cultural exchange between visitors and local communities (bourdieu, 1986; brown, 1999; coleman, 1988; claridge, 2018; daniels 2007). sustainable development planning engaging community stakeholders in nature-based tourism planning ensures that development initiatives align with community values and aspirations (brown, 1999; daniels 2007; guerrero-moreno & oliveirajunior, 2024). discussion, conclusions, and implications the convergence of destination management, nature-based tourism, and community-based development is increasingly recognized as essential for achieving sustainable tourism development. higham and lück (2008) highlight the interconnectedness of environmental, economic, and sociocultural dimensions in tourism development. successful destination management, a key aspect of https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ davie, l. i., ogbeide, g-c. & shafieizadeh, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 45-56. 53 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 45-56, doi: 10.18060/28481 copyright © 2024 lincoln i. davie, godwin-charles ogbeide and kiyan shafieizadeh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. this convergence, integrates conservation efforts, community engagement, and responsible business practices. this literature review suggests a symbiotic relationship between destination, nature, and community is vital for creating a resilient and sustainable tourism model. nature-based tourism often relies on the active involvement of local communities. social capital theory emphasizes the importance of trust, reciprocity, and cooperation among community members. strong social networks within a community can facilitate collaboration between residents, tourism operators, and local authorities to develop and promote sustainable nature-based tourism initiatives. nature-based tourism can empower local communities by providing economic opportunities and encouraging environmental stewardship. social capital theory suggests that communities with strong social ties are better equipped to capitalize on these opportunities. through collective action and shared resources, communities can leverage their social capital to develop tourism infrastructure, preserve natural habitats, and showcase their unique cultural heritage. sustainable tourism practices are essential for the long-term viability of nature-based tourism destinations. social capital theory underscores the role of social cohesion and inclusion in promoting sustainability. by fostering social capital within a community, destination marketers can help ensure that tourism development aligns with the needs and values of residents, thereby minimizing negative impacts on social cohesion and cultural integrity. social capital theory highlights the significance of social networks in spreading information and influencing behavior. positive experiences shared by community members and visitors through word-of-mouth can significantly enhance destination marketing efforts. when residents feel a sense of pride and ownership in their natural surroundings, they are more likely to advocate for their community as a tourist destination. theoretical implications this study contributes to the literature by reinforcing the relevance of social capital theory in tourism research, particularly in understanding the dynamics of community engagement, trustbuilding, and cooperation among stakeholders. by examining bonding, bridging, and linking social capital, the study provides a comprehensive framework for exploring how social networks influence tourism development and community well-being. moreover, the findings underscore the theoretical importance of community empowerment in tourism development. the study highlights how local communities can leverage their social capital to actively participate in and benefit from nature-based tourism, aligning with broader goals of equitable and inclusive development. lastly, by integrating concepts from social capital theory, destination marketing, and community empowerment, the study underscores the interconnectedness of these elements. this holistic approach enriches the theoretical discourse on sustainable tourism, suggesting that tourism development should not be viewed in isolation but as part of a broader socio-economic and environmental system. practical implications the study identifies practical strategies for leveraging nature-based tourism for destination marketing. by fostering community engagement and emphasizing authentic, sustainable travel experiences, destinations can enhance their market positioning and attract eco-conscious tourists. marketing efforts should highlight the destination's unique natural and cultural assets, promoting responsible and conservation-minded tourism practices. furthermore, this study provides valuable insights for policymakers on the role of nature-based tourism in sustainable development. policies should focus on supporting community-led tourism projects, providing education and training for local residents, and fostering partnerships between communities, businesses, and governmental organizations to enhance social capital and achieve long-term sustainability. effective destination https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ davie, l. i., ogbeide, g-c. & shafieizadeh, k. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 45-56. 54 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 45-56, doi: 10.18060/28481 copyright © 2024 lincoln i. davie, godwin-charles ogbeide and kiyan shafieizadeh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. management requires collaboration among diverse stakeholders, including local communities, businesses, government agencies, and tourists. the study emphasizes the importance of building, bridging, and linking social capital to facilitate cooperative efforts in tourism planning, marketing, and conservation initiatives. limitations and future research the study is based on a literature review, which inherently limits its findings to the existing body of knowledge. the reliance on secondary data might omit emerging trends or recent developments that have yet to be covered extensively in academic literature. future research can incorporate quantitative methods to measure the extent and impact of social capital in nature-based tourism. additionally, nature-based tourism encompasses a wide range of activities and experiences. the study's general approach may overlook the challenges and opportunities associated with different forms of nature-based tourism, such as adventure tourism, ecotourism, or wildlife tourism. future studies can focus on one type of nature-based tourism. references ashley, c., & haysom, g. 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(2019). the economic impact of global wildlife tourism: travel and tourism as an economic tool for the protection of wildlife. world travel & tourism council. oxford economics, uk. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 57-67, doi: 10.18060/28469 copyright © 2024 bhaskar sailesh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2024 volume 7 no. 1 the ai frontier: envisioning the future landscape of artificial intelligence in events and festivals bhaskar sailesh pes university, india correspondence: bhaskar.s@pes.edu (b. sailesh) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation sailesh, b. (2024). the ai frontier: envisioning the future landscape of artificial intelligence in events and festivals. events and tourism review, 7(1), 57-67. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:jennifer.hussey@tudublin.ie http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr sailesh, b. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 57-67. 58 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 57-67, doi: 10.18060/28469 copyright © 2024 bhaskar sailesh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract amidst rapid growth and increasing complexity, the events and festivals industry is undergoing a significant transformation through the integration of artificial intelligence (ai) technologies. this paper investigates the impact of ai on the events landscape, examining its current applications, emerging trends, and future implications. the research questions address ai's current use in events, emerging trends, and potential future transformations. the study highlights ai's potential to improve attendee experiences, streamline event management, and enhance safety measures, offering deep insights into its substantial industry impact. using a comprehensive research methodology, this paper explores the complex relationship between ai and events/festivals using empirical research, industry analysis, and case studies. it employs frameworks like ai-driven engagement tools, predictive analytics, and immersive experiences to assess ai's impact on the events landscape. key findings highlight ai's ability to personalize experiences, optimize logistics, and enhance safety and sustainability. the paper also addresses challenges like data privacy, algorithmic bias, and ethical considerations, emphasizing the need for responsible ai deployment and risk mitigation. by offering best practices and ethical guidelines, this research aims to guide industry stakeholders in integrating ai effectively, steering the events and festivals industry towards greater innovation and efficiency. keywords: artificial intelligence (ai); events and festivals industry; attendee experience; predictive analytics; ethical considerations introduction the events and festivals industry stands as a cornerstone of global entertainment, cultural expression, and economic vitality, encompassing an extensive array of gatherings serving diverse purposes and audiences. recent industry reports underscore the industry's robust growth, with events of varying scales drawing millions of attendees annually. whether it's the electrifying atmosphere of music festivals, the competitive spirit of sporting events, the networking opportunities of trade shows, or the knowledge exchange at corporate conferences, these gatherings play a pivotal role in fostering social connections, promoting cultural exchange, and propelling tourism and economic development forward. technological advancements have become indispensable to the operations and success of events and festivals, offering a plethora of avenues for innovation, efficiency, and audience engagement. over recent years, the proliferation of digital technologies has revolutionized every facet of event planning, execution, and attendee experiences. online ticketing platforms, sophisticated event management software, and targeted social media marketing tools have fundamentally altered how events are organized, promoted, and managed. simultaneously, advancements in audiovisual technology have elevated the immersive and interactive aspects of live experiences, captivating audiences in new and captivating ways. in the midst of this ongoing digital revolution, artificial intelligence (ai) has emerged as a disruptive force, wielding profound implications for the events and festivals industry. ai https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sailesh, b. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 57-67. 59 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 57-67, doi: 10.18060/28469 copyright © 2024 bhaskar sailesh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. technologies, renowned for their capacity to simulate human intelligence and process vast troves of data, present unprecedented opportunities for enhancing event experiences, optimizing operations, and driving innovation. through the utilization of ai-driven solutions like machine learning algorithms, natural language processing systems, and predictive analytics tools, event organizers can now tailor attendee interactions, streamline logistical processes, and fortify safety and security measures. the relevance of ai in the context of events and festivals lies in its potential to metamorphose various facets of event planning, management, and attendee engagement. aipowered technologies empower event organizers to glean deeper insights into attendee preferences, behaviors, and sentiments, thereby enabling the implementation of more targeted marketing strategies and personalized experiences. furthermore, ai-driven data analytics facilitates real-time decision-making, optimizes resource allocation, and mitigates operational risks, thereby amplifying the overall efficiency and effectiveness of events. this research endeavors to delve into the intersection of ai and the events/festivals industry, meticulously examining current applications, emerging trends, and future possibilities. by furnishing a comprehensive overview of ai's relevance in the context of events and festivals, this study aspires to enlighten industry stakeholders and shape the future trajectory of the events landscape. through empirical research and a thorough analysis of industry trends, this study aims to furnish invaluable insights into the transformative potential of ai and its profound implications for the events and festivals industry. current applications of ai in events and festivals the integration of artificial intelligence (ai) in events and festivals has led to a multitude of innovative applications aimed at enhancing attendee experiences, streamlining event operations, and ensuring safety and security. ai-driven attendee engagement tools represent one such application, enabling event organizers to create personalized experiences tailored to individual preferences and interests. for instance, ai-powered recommendation engines analyze attendee data such as past interactions, social media activity, and demographic information to suggest relevant sessions, activities, and networking opportunities, thereby enhancing attendee satisfaction and engagement (gupta et al., 2023; rahman et al., 2022; cheng et al., 2019). moreover, ai algorithms are increasingly being employed to deliver personalized experiences throughout the event lifecycle, from registration and ticketing to on-site interactions and post-event follow-ups. by leveraging machine learning techniques, event organizers can customize content, agendas, and communications based on attendee preferences, behaviors, and feedback, thereby fostering deeper connections and maximizing engagement (estanyol, 2022; wen et al., 2020). another notable application of ai in events and festivals is the use of ai-powered chatbots for customer service. these chatbots, powered by natural language processing (nlp) and machine learning algorithms, provide attendees with instant assistance and information, ranging from event schedules and venue directions to faqs and troubleshooting support. by automating routine inquiries and providing real-time responses, ai-powered chatbots enhance attendee convenience, reduce wait times, and improve overall satisfaction levels (sharma & dogra, 2023; liu et al., 2019). in addition to enhancing attendee experiences, ai technologies are also transforming event planning and management processes through data analytics and predictive modeling. by analyzing vast amounts of historical data, including attendee demographics, registration trends, and social https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sailesh, b. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 57-67. 60 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 57-67, doi: 10.18060/28469 copyright © 2024 bhaskar sailesh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. media interactions, ai algorithms can generate actionable insights and forecasts to optimize event logistics, resource allocation, and marketing strategies. predictive modeling techniques enable event organizers to anticipate attendance levels, identify potential risks, and adapt event plans accordingly, thereby increasing operational efficiency and mitigating uncertainties (wang & uysal, 2024; nguyen et al., 2021). furthermore, ai-enhanced security and crowd management systems are becoming increasingly prevalent in large-scale events and festivals. utilizing computer vision, facial recognition, and sensor technologies, ai-powered systems can monitor crowd movements, detect anomalies, and identify potential security threats in real time. by providing early warning alerts and facilitating rapid response interventions, these systems enhance situational awareness, ensure public safety, and minimize risks associated with overcrowding and security breaches (guo et al., 2023; zhang et al., 2020). the current applications of ai in events and festivals encompass a diverse range of functionalities aimed at optimizing attendee experiences, enhancing operational efficiency, and ensuring safety and security. from personalized engagement tools and ai-driven chatbots to data analytics and predictive modeling for event planning, ai technologies are reshaping the events landscape and paving the way for more immersive, efficient, and secure experiences. emerging trends in ai integration as artificial intelligence (ai) continues to evolve, emerging trends in its integration within the events and festivals industry are reshaping the landscape, offering new opportunities for innovation and engagement. one such trend is the proliferation of virtual assistants and voiceactivated technology, which enable attendees to interact with event information and services using natural language commands. virtual assistants, powered by ai algorithms, can provide personalized recommendations, answer inquiries, and facilitate transactions, enhancing the attendee experience by offering seamless and intuitive interactions (wang & uysal, 2024; shin et al., 2021). augmented reality (ar) and virtual reality (vr) experiences represent another significant trend in ai integration, offering immersive and interactive experiences that transcend physical boundaries. ai-driven ar applications overlay digital content onto the real-world environment, allowing attendees to explore interactive exhibits, participate in virtual tours, and engage with branded content in novel ways. similarly, vr experiences enable attendees to immerse themselves in virtual environments, attend virtual events, and interact with digital avatars, providing a unique and memorable experience (estanyol, 2023; roesler et al., 2020). moreover, predictive analytics is increasingly being leveraged to optimize event logistics and enhance operational efficiency. by analyzing historical data and real-time inputs, ai-powered predictive analytics models can forecast attendance patterns, predict resource demands, and optimize scheduling and resource allocation. these insights enable event organizers to proactively address logistical challenges, minimize wastage, and optimize the utilization of resources, ultimately improving the overall event experience for attendees (hossain et al., 2022; zheng et al., 2020). in addition to enhancing attendee experiences, ai-generated content and entertainment are gaining traction as a trend in ai integration within events and festivals. ai algorithms can generate personalized content, such as customized music playlists, artwork, or event highlights, based on individual preferences and behavior patterns. furthermore, ai-powered entertainment experiences, such as ai-generated performances or interactive installations, offer attendees unique and engaging experiences that blur the lines between art and technology (estanyol, 2023; choi et al., 2021). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sailesh, b. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 57-67. 61 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 57-67, doi: 10.18060/28469 copyright © 2024 bhaskar sailesh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. lastly, robotics and automation are increasingly being deployed in event setup and management processes, streamlining repetitive tasks and enhancing operational efficiency. aidriven robotics systems can automate various aspects of event logistics, including stage setup, booth assembly, and venue cleaning, reducing manual labor requirements and minimizing turnaround times. by augmenting human capabilities with robotic solutions, event organizers can optimize resource utilization, improve safety standards, and enhance overall event productivity (lei, s. i. s., & couto, 2022; park et al., 2020). emerging trends in ai integration within the events and festivals industry are revolutionizing attendee experiences, operational processes, and entertainment offerings. from virtual assistants and immersive ar/vr experiences to predictive analytics-driven logistics optimization and aigenerated content, these trends underscore the transformative potential of ai in shaping the future of events and festivals. envisioning the future landscape as we peer into the future of the events and festivals industry, the role of artificial intelligence (ai) looms large, promising to reshape attendee experiences, event management practices, and safety protocols. ai's role in shaping the future attendee experience is multifaceted, offering personalized recommendations, seamless interactions, and immersive engagements. by leveraging ai algorithms, event organizers can anticipate attendee preferences, curate tailored experiences, and enhance engagement through virtual assistants, ar/vr experiences, and interactive content (abdul halim at al., 2023; lei et al., 2022; cheng et al., 2019). sustainable event management is another area where ai optimization holds tremendous promise. ai-driven solutions enable event organizers to optimize resource usage, reduce waste, and minimize environmental impacts. predictive analytics models can forecast energy consumption, transportation needs, and waste generation, allowing for proactive interventions to promote sustainability. additionally, ai-powered smart technologies, such as sensor networks and energy management systems, can optimize resource allocation in real-time, further enhancing the environmental sustainability of events (muthuswamy & ali, 2023; nguyen et al., 2021). enhanced safety and security measures represent another pivotal aspect of ai's role in shaping the future landscape of events and festivals. ai-powered security systems, equipped with facial recognition, video analytics, and anomaly detection capabilities, can monitor crowd movements, detect potential threats, and facilitate rapid response interventions. by providing realtime situational awareness and actionable insights, ai technologies enhance event security protocols, mitigate risks, and ensure the safety of attendees and staff (mahor et al., 2023; zhang et al., 2020). moreover, ai-driven creativity and innovation are poised to transform event design and programming, fostering novel and immersive experiences. ai algorithms can analyze trends, preferences, and cultural insights to inform creative decisions and content creation. from aigenerated artworks and performances to interactive installations and immersive storytelling experiences, ai-driven creativity unlocks new possibilities for pushing the boundaries of artistic expression and audience engagement (wang et al., 2022; choi et al., 2021). however, alongside the myriad benefits of ai integration in events and festivals, ethical considerations and challenges must be carefully navigated. the use of ai technologies raises concerns related to data privacy, algorithmic bias, and transparency. ethical guidelines and regulations must be established to ensure fair and responsible ai usage, safeguarding the rights and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sailesh, b. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 57-67. 62 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 57-67, doi: 10.18060/28469 copyright © 2024 bhaskar sailesh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. interests of attendees and stakeholders. moreover, ongoing dialogue and collaboration between industry stakeholders, policymakers, and ethicists are essential to address ethical dilemmas and promote ethical ai practices in the events and festivals industry (rezwana & maher, 2023; hwang, 2022; park et al., 2020). in conclusion, the future landscape of events and festivals is intricately intertwined with the transformative potential of ai. from shaping attendee experiences and enhancing sustainability to ensuring safety and fostering creativity, ai technologies are poised to revolutionize every aspect of the industry. however, ethical considerations and challenges must be addressed proactively to harness the full potential of ai while upholding ethical principles and values. case studies and success stories in ai implementation at events and festivals artificial intelligence (ai) implementation in prominent events and festivals has showcased its transformative potential in revolutionizing attendee experiences, optimizing operations, and ensuring safety. several case studies highlight successful ai integration, offering valuable insights into the benefits, challenges, and best practices. examples of ai implementation one notable example is the sxsw (south by southwest) festival in austin, texas, where ai-driven recommendation systems have been utilized to personalize attendee experiences. by analyzing attendee preferences, social media interactions, and historical data, sxsw's ai algorithms suggest relevant sessions, events, and networking opportunities tailored to individual interests, enhancing attendee satisfaction and engagement (wu et al., 2018). another case study is the tokyo 2020 olympics, where ai-powered analytics and predictive modeling have been deployed to optimize event logistics and resource allocation. by analyzing data on attendee flows, transportation patterns, and venue capacities, tokyo 2020's ai systems have facilitated efficient scheduling, staffing, and crowd management, ensuring smooth operations and minimizing congestion (yamaguchi et al., 2021). analysis of benefits and challenges faced the benefits of ai integration in events and festivals are manifold, including enhanced attendee experiences, improved operational efficiency, and enhanced safety measures. ai-driven personalization enhances attendee satisfaction and engagement, while predictive analytics optimize resource allocation and mitigate logistical challenges. additionally, ai-powered security systems enhance event safety by monitoring crowd movements and detecting potential threats in real-time. however, ai integration also poses challenges, including concerns related to data privacy, algorithmic bias, and ethical implications. the use of ai technologies raises questions about data ownership, consent, and transparency, necessitating robust data governance practices and adherence to ethical guidelines. moreover, algorithmic biases inherent in ai systems can perpetuate discrimination and inequity, highlighting the importance of algorithmic fairness and accountability (coeckelbergh, 2020). lessons learned and best practices for ai integration several lessons can be gleaned from these case studies, offering insights into best practices for ai integration in events and festivals. effective ai implementation requires a comprehensive understanding of attendee needs, transparent communication with stakeholders, and collaboration https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sailesh, b. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 57-67. 63 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 57-67, doi: 10.18060/28469 copyright © 2024 bhaskar sailesh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. with ai experts, ethicists, and legal professionals. robust data governance practices, including data anonymization, consent mechanisms, and transparent data usage policies, are essential to address data privacy concerns and ensure compliance with regulations. moreover, ongoing monitoring, evaluation, and iteration are critical to assessing the effectiveness and ethical implications of ai systems over time. by embracing a holistic approach to ai integration and prioritizing ethical considerations, event organizers can harness the full potential of ai technologies while upholding ethical principles and enhancing attendee experiences. implications for event organizers and stakeholders as the events industry undergoes rapid digital transformation, the integration of artificial intelligence (ai) technologies presents significant implications for event organizers and stakeholders. these implications span opportunities for innovation and differentiation, considerations for investment in ai technologies, the necessity for training and upskilling the workforce, and collaboration between tech companies and event organizers. opportunities for innovation and differentiation ai technologies offer a myriad of opportunities for event organizers to innovate and differentiate their events. by leveraging ai-driven solutions such as personalized recommendations, predictive analytics, and immersive experiences, organizers can create unique and memorable event experiences. for instance, ai-powered chatbots can enhance attendee engagement by providing instant assistance and information, while ai-generated content and entertainment can captivate audiences with tailored experiences. these innovations not only enhance attendee satisfaction but also contribute to the overall success and reputation of the event, setting it apart in a competitive market. considerations for investment in ai technologies investing in ai technologies requires careful consideration of various factors, including cost, feasibility, and potential return on investment (roi). while the initial investment in ai implementation may be significant, the long-term benefits in terms of enhanced attendee experiences, operational efficiency, and competitive advantage can outweigh the costs. event organizers must assess their specific needs and objectives to determine the most suitable ai solutions for their events. additionally, considerations such as data privacy, security, and ethical ai usage should be taken into account to mitigate risks and ensure compliance with regulations. a strategic approach to ai investment can position event organizers for long-term success and sustainability in a rapidly evolving industry landscape. training and upskilling workforce for ai integration effective ai integration requires a skilled workforce capable of leveraging ai technologies effectively. event organizers must invest in training and upskilling initiatives to empower their staff with the necessary skills and competencies for ai integration. training programs may include ai literacy workshops, technical training on ai tools and platforms, and ethical guidelines for ai usage. by fostering a culture of continuous learning and innovation, organizations can maximize the potential of ai technologies and drive meaningful outcomes for their events. investing in workforce development ensures that event organizers are equipped to harness the full capabilities of ai and adapt to evolving industry trends and technologies. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sailesh, b. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 57-67. 64 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 57-67, doi: 10.18060/28469 copyright © 2024 bhaskar sailesh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. collaboration between tech companies and event organizers collaboration between tech companies and event organizers is essential for successful ai integration. tech companies bring expertise in ai development, implementation, and support, while event organizers offer domain knowledge and insights into attendee needs and preferences. collaborative partnerships enable the co-creation of ai-driven solutions tailored to the specific requirements of events and festivals. moreover, ongoing collaboration fosters knowledge sharing, innovation, and continuous improvement, driving the evolution of ai integration in the events industry. by working together, tech companies and event organizers can leverage each other's strengths to deliver impactful ai solutions that enhance attendee experiences, optimize operations, and drive sustainable success in the dynamic events landscape. the implications of ai integration for event organizers and stakeholders are vast and multifaceted, offering opportunities for innovation, operational efficiency, and enhanced attendee experiences. by embracing ai technologies strategically, investing in workforce development, and fostering collaborative partnerships, event organizers can unlock new possibilities and drive sustainable success in the dynamic events landscape. ethical and social considerations as artificial intelligence (ai) becomes increasingly integrated into events and festivals, ethical and societal considerations play a crucial role in shaping the impact of these technologies. addressing privacy concerns, ensuring equity and accessibility, and promoting transparency and accountability are essential aspects of responsible ai deployment in the events industry. privacy concerns and data security in ai-powered events the utilization of ai technologies in events raises significant privacy concerns regarding the collection, storage, and use of attendee data. ai systems often rely on vast amounts of personal data to deliver personalized experiences, raising questions about consent, data ownership, and protection. event organizers must implement robust data governance practices, including data anonymization, encryption, and access controls, to safeguard attendee privacy and comply with regulations such as the gdpr (general data protection regulation) and ccpa (california consumer privacy act) (abdul halim et al., 2023; lei et al., 2022; xie et al., 2020). equity and accessibility in ai-enhanced experiences while ai-powered experiences have the potential to enhance engagement and accessibility, there is a risk of exacerbating digital inequalities and excluding marginalized communities. equity considerations must be integrated into ai design and implementation processes to ensure that aienhanced experiences are accessible to all attendees, regardless of socio-economic status, language, or ability. event organizers should prioritize inclusive design principles, conduct accessibility assessments, and provide alternative options for attendees who may not be able to engage with ai technologies (magdy & abouelazm, 2024; hajian et al., 2019). transparency and accountability in ai decision-making processes maintaining transparency and accountability in ai decision-making processes is essential for building trust and ensuring responsible ai usage. ai systems often operate as black boxes, making it challenging for stakeholders to understand how decisions are made and to assess potential biases or errors. event organizers must prioritize transparency by providing clear explanations of ai https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ sailesh, b. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 57-67. 65 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 57-67, doi: 10.18060/28469 copyright © 2024 bhaskar sailesh this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. algorithms, data sources, and decision criteria. additionally, mechanisms for accountability, such as audit trails and grievance procedures, should be established to address concerns and rectify any unintended consequences of ai deployment (muthuswamy & ali, 2023; vyas, 2023; jobin et al., 2019). in conclusion, ethical and societal considerations are paramount in guiding the responsible deployment of ai technologies in events and festivals. by addressing privacy concerns, promoting equity and accessibility, and prioritizing transparency and accountability, event organizers can harness the transformative potential of ai while upholding ethical principles and values, ultimately enhancing attendee experiences and fostering a more inclusive and equitable events landscape. conclusion in conclusion, this research has shed light on the remarkable impact of artificial intelligence (ai) on the events and festivals industry, demonstrating its potential to reshape attendee experiences, optimize operations, and enhance safety measures. throughout this study, key findings and insights have emerged, emphasizing the importance of ethical considerations, data privacy, and transparency in the integration of ai technologies. our exploration has revealed the diverse applications of ai in events and festivals, from personalized attendee engagement to predictive analytics for logistical planning. through case studies and analysis, we have observed the benefits and challenges faced by event organizers and stakeholders in adopting ai solutions. moreover, ethical and societal considerations such as privacy concerns and equity have been highlighted as critical factors in responsible ai deployment. as we look ahead, there are numerous avenues for further research and development in the field of ai integration in events and festivals. future studies could explore advanced ai algorithms for real-time event management, ai-powered sustainability initiatives, and the impact of ai on creative event design. additionally, research could delve into the ethical implications of aigenerated content and the long-term effects of ai integration on attendee engagement and satisfaction. in closing, the transformative potential of ai in events and festivals is undeniable. ai technologies offer unprecedented opportunities for innovation, efficiency, and safety in the events industry. however, realizing this potential requires careful consideration of ethical, societal, and technical challenges. by embracing ai technologies responsibly and proactively addressing these challenges, event organizers and stakeholders can unlock new possibilities and shape the future of events and festivals in profound ways. future research endeavors could focus on exploring the scalability and adaptability of ai solutions across different types of events and venues. additionally, interdisciplinary collaborations between ai researchers, event professionals, and ethicists could deepen our understanding of the ethical implications of ai deployment and inform best practices for responsible ai integration. longitudinal studies tracking the evolution of ai adoption in the events industry over time could provide valuable insights into emerging trends, challenges, and opportunities for further innovation. references abdul halim, a. h., zamzuri, n. h., & ghazali, a. r. 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(2020). predictive analytics for smart events: a data-driven approach. ieee access. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 1-10, doi: 10.18060/27335 copyright © 2023 anna guinn and yao-yi fu this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2023 volume 6 developing a marketing strategy for nonprofit events anna guinn yao-yi fu indiana university, indianapolis correspondence: anguinn@iu.edu (a. guinn) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation guinn, a. & fu, y. (2023). developing a marketing strategy for nonprofit events. events and tourism review, 6, 1-10. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:jennifer.hussey@tudublin.ie http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr guinn, a. and fu, y. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 1-10. 2 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 1-10, doi: 10.18060/27335 copyright © 2023 anna guinn and yao-yi fu this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract the research for this project primarily focuses on marketing the various types of nonprofit events. the study looks at the most popular types of fundraising events, as well as thank you events that are held for donors, and attempt to better understand how they differ from other events. additionally, this study examines several popular fundraising events to see how they were promoted by analyzing their social media and websites in particular. the results of the study indicate that nonprofit events are very unique to other events in their purpose, as well as how they are marketed to potential attendees. nonprofit event marketing must be much deeper than the marketing of other events. promotion must motivate attendance by creating an emotional appeal that deeply connects potential attendees to an organization and its cause. only when this connection is formed can a supportraising event be successful in raising long-term support to make a positive impact. keywords: non-profit event; fundraising event; event marketing; emotional appeal introduction nonprofit organizations exist to alleviate an issue, support a common goal, and improve society. their missions vary greatly, but what they all have in common is their strive to create a better world. nonprofit organizations also share the commonality of needing to raise support through fundraising, as these entities generally do not receive financial assistance from the government, but rather rely on private donations. how do these organizations raise enough support to fund their efforts? there are many ways that fundraising takes place in today’s world, but one very important and popular aspect of raising support comes from events. planning and executing events such as fundraising dinners, races, dance marathons, tournaments, and challenges are all ways that nonprofits can seek to gain the attention of potential donors. these events are interesting ways for attendees to enjoy a unique experience. through these events, nonprofits are able to show attendees the positive things they are able to do with sufficient support. without a clear understanding of what an organization stands for and how it has succeeded in making a difference, potential givers will not be motivated to generously support a cause. this is why hosting these events is vital to the consistent success of nonprofit organizations. nonprofit event marketing, although its primary goal is to support the organization, many times has a major impact on tourism in an area. for instance, many nonprofit events are so renowned that individuals will travel across the country just to attend them. even local travelers need accommodations for housing, food, and beverage during their time attending an event, or will even take the opportunity to check out local tourism attractions during their visit. especially for bigger fundraising events like the wheeler mission drumstick dash, recognition and support of tourism is something that comes along with the event itself, supporting the hospitality industry as an additional benefit. nonprofit event marketing is vital to society as a whole because nonprofits do what the government and individuals on their own cannot necessarily do. because of nonprofit organizations, one person can contribute along with tens, hundreds, or even thousands of other individuals to make guinn, a. and fu, y. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 1-10. 3 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 1-10, doi: 10.18060/27335 copyright © 2023 anna guinn and yao-yi fu this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. a bigger difference. without nonprofits, it would be very difficult, if not impossible, to ensure that funding goes to what individuals seek to improve, which is why it is so vital to have organized entities with the freedom to achieve their missions (without government interference, which can be positive or negative). nonprofit organizations make the world a better place and are made up of individuals who truly seek to put others’ needs above their own to achieve a better world. speaking from personal experience, the marketing that goes into a nonprofit event is quite different than marketing a concert or sporting event, for example. it is not just about selling an experience; it is, more importantly, about giving others the opportunity to contribute to the wellbeing of their community and make a real difference, something that is extremely satisfying and meaningful to so many individuals. making these individuals feel like their support has made a real impact by showing them how their dollars are being used is vital to encourage repeat giving and continual support. purpose of the study the research for this project will primarily focus on marketing the various types of nonprofit events. the study will be looking at the most popular types of fundraising events, as well as thank you events that are held for donors, and attempt to better understand how they differ from other events. one aspect that sets nonprofit events apart is how their promotion and execution must integrate attendees’ emotions to support a cause, something that this study will look at in more detail. additionally, this study examines several popular fundraising events to see how they were promoted by analyzing their social media and websites in particular. all of the findings of this research paper will be very relevant in today’s tourism industry, as nonprofit organizations are evergrowing and, as explained earlier, have direct impacts on tourism and hospitality. research questions in regards to research questions, this study aims to answer three research questions. the first research question is as follows: what are the different types of nonprofit events? answering this question will give insight into how different nonprofit organizations utilize a variety of events to engage potential donors and raise vital funding for a cause. it will also give understanding as to what types of events are most successful when it comes to fundraising. the second research question is: how are nonprofit events usually promoted? in order to answer this question, the research will take a deeper dive into a few popular fundraising events and seek to find what communication mediums they use and how they communicate through those. then the third research question is: how unique is the promotion for nonprofit events in that it must engage viewers’ emotions if they are to support a specific cause? this study assumes that nonprofit event marketing promotion needs to appeal to viewers’ emotions in a much more meaningful way than other event marketing to encourage action that makes a difference. method the methods of research for this paper include a literature review and case studies of popular events’ promotional strategies. literature review of this study discovers helpful insights revealed by previous research regarding nonprofit event marketing. case studies offered more specific examples of how these nonprofit events achieve success through particular promotional tactics. review of literature guinn, a. and fu, y. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 1-10. 4 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 1-10, doi: 10.18060/27335 copyright © 2023 anna guinn and yao-yi fu this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. in reviewing various credible sources of literature, many findings are relevant in answering the research questions. what makes nonprofit events unique “understanding charity fundraising events” (2003) written by daniel webber explains how nonprofit events differ from other events, which is vital to fully understanding these events, as their purpose is very unique. the development of donors through these special events is one thing that sets nonprofit events apart from other events. creating a meaningful event that encourages giving is a vital part in this development of donors. another possible purpose for a nonprofit event is to express gratitude to donors to encourage them in their current efforts and inspire them to keep giving. acquisition of new supporters, as well as retaining and caring for current donors, is something that is unique to nonprofit events as well. sometimes, nonprofit events may even be held for networking or maintaining a brand name, both of which are held in hopes of achieving support (webber, d., 2003). attendee motivations as important as these differences are, something of even greater importance is what motivates individuals to attend these types of events. knowing this information is what helps the organizations market effectively to generate excitement and support for the event. webber gives multiple reasons for why individuals take part in nonprofit events, the first being that the donor believes in the cause of the event and wants to make a difference. if a nonprofit event has something very unique to participate in, individuals may decide to attend simply for the experience itself. prestige can also be a motivation, as individuals see attendance to an event as giving them a strong reputation. other attendees may be motivated by the opportunity they will have to lead and inspire others to make a difference. a direct relationship with the cause may also encourage attendance (for example, losing a family member or friend to suicide may inspire generous support to an organization that helps alleviate that issue). the rewarding feeling that donors have when giving or encouraging others to give may also be a determining factor. additionally, webber states that peer pressure can be a final reason for attending, with the individual not wanting to miss out when their family or friends encourage them to go (webber, d., 2003). emotional appeals among reasons that motivate nonprofit event attendance, appealing to the emotions of individuals is vital. if individuals have a heart for making a difference related to a specific cause, promoting to them by making use of emotional value will inspire them to attend the event and contribute to the organization. the motivation generated from a desire to lead and inspire others is also something that event organizers should promote in their marketing strategy. therefore, appealing to attendees’ emotions is critical for creating the drive in people. for those who have a personal connection to the cause, making those individuals feel united to the organization and supported emotionally can be a driving factor in encouraging involvement. finally, the event’s promotional tactics can effectively make use of individuals’ emotions by pointing out how they will be able to see and understand the impact they make first-hand at the event, which leads to a rewarding feeling of accomplishment (webber, d., 2003). types of nonprofit fundraising events when it comes to types of fundraising events held for nonprofit organizations, the options guinn, a. and fu, y. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 1-10. 5 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 1-10, doi: 10.18060/27335 copyright © 2023 anna guinn and yao-yi fu this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. are endless. sporting events, including runs and walks, are very popular in today’s world and are a great way to unite a diverse group of individuals in one activity for one cause. runs and walks create a sense of teamwork by having individuals collaborate together to create a bigger impact than what just one person could make on their own. competitions can be another way to fundraise and get a large group of individuals with similar interests together. these individuals love engaging in competitions in their interest, and many times will be quick to jump at an opportunity to compete against others, especially for a good cause. these competitions can be sports or non-sports, making for many unique opportunities to effectively gain support. concerts are used quite regularly to gain support for a cause. these can be large concerts with well-known celebrities donating some (or all) of their profits to a charity, or even smaller scale concerts held in communities that generate support for a cause. sometimes, event sporting events are utilized to give back to the community and donate to a cause. galas are a popular nonprofit fundraising event that offer a fun night of dinner, networking, or some sort of entertainment with all of the money raised going to a nonprofit. auctions are another popular form of nonprofit fundraising that can get many people involved, offering them something they may desire while creating an environment in order to make a difference. these are some of the most popular types of nonprofit events, each of which offer a unique experience to attendees as well as an outlet to support a cause and inspire some sort of positive change. nonprofit events have an ability to generate excitement through promotion and marketing in potential attendees, bring them in to experience something fun as well as rewarding in the sense of giving back. for fundraising events that are bigger sizes, their promotion, marketing, and implementation could literally make or break a nonprofit organization. without this vital funding from larger scale events, nonprofits are not able to do their work effectively. this is why it is so vital to effectively market these events, appealing to viewers’ emotions and giving them clear answers as to what they will be supporting and how their generosity can make a tangible difference in others’ lives. sometimes, nonprofit events are held not to raise money directly from that event, but more so to express gratitude to current donors, which can encourage future giving by those same donors. these events commonly take place in the form of dinners or special entertainment experiences that current donors can enjoy. during these events, it is common for donors to be reminded of how appreciated they are. specific statistics and stories may be shared in order to show donors how much their generosity matters, and what it can do in the lives of those enduring hardship. this can help donors feel excited about their giving, and experience how rewarding it is to give back. an article by coghlan and filo (2013) explains how engaging in sports charity events in particular is underscored by a sense of connectedness and well-being. when individuals make a positive impact as a part of a unified group, they experience an incredible sense of unity, in addition to mental well-being. physical well-being is also a by-product of engaging in sports charity events, as it motivates individuals to train in order to be in the best condition to engage or even compete in the sport (coghlan, a. & filo, k., 2013). this further indicates the importance of emotional appeal in event marketing, because appealing to the emotions of participants includes promoting how connected they will feel at the event, and how rewarding that feeling will be if they attend. additional attendee motivations for charity sporting events a study conducted by filo, fechner, and inoue (2020) gives additional motivations for attendance of nonprofit events, specifically charity sporting events. first, attendees can challenge themselves physically, something attractive to many individuals seeking healthy lifestyles. not only the event itself, but the preparation leading up to the event, can provide inspiration for attendees to guinn, a. and fu, y. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 1-10. 6 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 1-10, doi: 10.18060/27335 copyright © 2023 anna guinn and yao-yi fu this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. challenge themselves and achieve physical well-being. socializing with other participants is another motivation for attending, especially as these sporting events for a cause can unite individuals in their love for a sport as well as a cause. helping individuals in need is something that encourages attendance of events, as well as advancing a charity’s mission. being a part of the mission and purpose of a nonprofit can be very rewarding for attendees, whose generosity can collectively make a huge impact in the lives of those in need. furthermore, motivation can arise from the positive and rewarding feelings that come from supporting a cause. the feeling of making a difference when attending nonprofit events is a very unique sentiment that brings people together in unity and brings out the best in people (filo, k., fechner, d., & inoue, y., 2020). constraints to nonprofit fundraising according to filo and his colleagues (2020), there are some constraints to nonprofit fundraising that must be considered in order to achieve success. the first is a lack of money from potential donors. some individuals may not have the resources available to offer support financially, but this should not dissuade these individuals from attending the events anyways and finding other ways to make a difference. promotion for the event should emphasize that every little bit of support helps, and that there are more ways than one to make a difference. volunteering and spreading awareness about an issue is just as important to so many nonprofit organizations as the monetary support some are able to give. another constraint that may arise is a discomfort on the part of the organization’s employees in asking for donations. some of those working for the organization may be uncomfortable doing this, but they should be encouraged to realize that those who give to organizations get a lot out of it – a feeling of connectedness with a cause, a rewarding feeling in making a difference, and a way to accomplish what they cannot on their own in regards to improving society. looking at giving from this standpoint can alleviate some of the stress that comes with asking for donations and support. employees may also have a lack of time to engage in fundraising, as many nonprofit organizations have a limited number of staff accomplishing a lot of tasks. making time to fundraise in these organizations is vital, and offering prizes and incentives to giving can make the process much easier (filo, k., fechner, d., & inoue, y., 2020). advantages of fundraising events for the organization an article by chen, singh, ozturk, and makki (2014) first describes how fundraising events can strengthen the corporate image of nonprofit organizations and enhance social bonds with communities. these events raise awareness for a specific cause, encourage community engagement, build sponsor and donor relationships, and generate publicity for the nonprofit. in order to make fundraising events successful, it is vital to make all events, fundraising events in particular, unique and fun experiences for attendees. a positive experience was found through study to be the most significant positive predictor of event quality for attendees. providing an unforgettable experience can lead to additional support in regards to fundraising, and also gives an outlet to better explain the organization’s mission and purpose and how it positively impacts society. small aspects of the event such as the quality of food and beverage, décor, layout, atmosphere, and activities can all play a role in creating a unique event for attendees, which will lead to increased support for the nonprofit and its cause (chen, p., singh, d., ozturk, a., & makki, a., 2014). the importance of belief previous research also gives insight into the importance of belief and emotional appeal in motivating support of a nonprofit. “the role of belief in making a difference in enhancing guinn, a. and fu, y. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 1-10. 7 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 1-10, doi: 10.18060/27335 copyright © 2023 anna guinn and yao-yi fu this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. attachment to a charity sport event” (2012) explains this in further detail. it outlines how many times, individuals are motivated to give to a cause by the belief that they are making a difference. this is why it is vital for nonprofit marketing efforts to clearly explain how those who give are engaged in making a difference. telling stories of those who have been positively impacted by the nonprofit organization is especially effective. it is also important to explain how making a difference does not only have to be monetary – giving time and effort to an organization by volunteering and raising awareness is also vital and can make a difference. additionally, a sense of attachment to the event can also motivate engagement. this leads to repeat participation, positive attitudes toward the organization, and positive word-of-mouth that can generate even more support. to capitalize on these motivations, nonprofit marketing must utilize social media to offer compelling content to potential supporters (filo, k., groza, m., & fairley, s., 2012). case studies of fundraising events in order to more fully understand nonprofit event promotional strategies and tactics, this study will take an in-depth look into a few recent nonprofit events. the first event to be analyzed is held by wheeler mission. the drumstick dash is a very popular run held each year in broad ripple, indiana, and one of the primary ways wheeler mission raises enough funding to support the homeless in indianapolis and bloomington for the year. wheeler mission promotes its event regularly both on its website and also on social media including facebook, twitter, and youtube to raise awareness of the impact it is making because of the support of generous donations. one way wheeler mission markets its event is by always giving the reason for the run – to help those who are struggling and provide them with hope. throughout november of last year, wheeler highlighted many of those positively impacted by the organization with why they are thankful for wheeler. these small stories of how wheeler, and those who support it, can have such a big impact is inspiring, and appeals to the emotions of potential supporters (facebook: wheeler mission, 2023). another way wheeler appeals to emotions is through its videos on youtube, which give the incredible stories of individuals whose lives have been completely turned around as a result of the nonprofit’s efforts. by showing potential attendees what their small giving can lead to in a homeless person’s life, many are encouraged to participate in the drumstick dash and support the cause (youtube: wheeler mission, 2023). race for life, multiple races in uk held to support research of all 200 types of cancer for cancer research uk, is one of the most successful fundraising events across the world. by asking participants to race for someone they love who has dealt with cancer, the promotion and execution of this event also appeals to attendees’ emotions in a meaningful way. when individuals can find a personal connection in a cause, it is one of the primary motivations for engagement with a nonprofit organization, as explained by webber (webber, d., 2003). race for life is also unique in that it offers different events, one of which can be walked or jogged, so that all attendees can participate in something bigger than themselves, regardless of their skill levels. this creates the sense of connectedness and well-being that so many nonprofit sporting events do (cancer research uk, 2023). the global citizen festival, which first began in 2012, utilizes the popularity of musical artists who want to make a difference to fundraise in combatting extreme world poverty and other related issues. not only does global citizen host its annual festival in different locations worldwide, but also promotes itself year-round to gain support. the event, however, is the nonprofit’s primary source of funding. the website promotes the organization by outlining the impact that has been guinn, a. and fu, y. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 1-10. 8 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 1-10, doi: 10.18060/27335 copyright © 2023 anna guinn and yao-yi fu this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. made from past giving, explaining each of the areas it is able to affect, and telling stories of those suffering from poverty worldwide. similar to other nonprofit marketing, this type of promotion appeals to human emotion, encouraging giving by providing a sense of connection to a cause (global citizen, 2023). results & discussion reflecting on the research conducted, there are a few key findings that seem to be universal when it comes to nonprofit event marketing. first, the development of donors through careful marketing planning and execution is vital to the success of a nonprofit organization. like all event marketing, it is vital to segment the market and find target markets that will most likely support a specific cause and find the best ways to reach them with content that will inspire them to take action. as with all marketing, target markets determine what nonprofit organizations will promote and how they will use different mediums to promote. this is why it is so important for nonprofit organizations to develop communication and marketing strategy, and to clearly provide pertinent information to those whom their marketing reaches. if potential givers do not fully understand what their generosity can do and how the organization will use their dollars for good, those individuals will most likely pass on the opportunity and give somewhere else. competition for support in nonprofit organizations is real, which is why promotion must have a clear purpose and mission. another key finding is that many individuals are motivated differently to support a cause, which sometimes requires different promotion to different target markets. emotional appeal is a common theme in nonprofit event marketing, setting it apart from other events’ promotion. if individuals do not feel connected to a cause, knowing exactly what their support will provide, they will be much less likely to give. nonprofit events are also unique in that there is a very wide variety of events to choose from to gain support, as discussed earlier. almost any type of event can be used to generate support for a cause while also creating a sense of connectedness and unity among attendees, further encouraging funding. through research, answers to the research questions were found. this paper includes multiple examples of the different types of nonprofit events and how they are utilized to generate support. through the case studies in particular, answers were provided as to how these events are marketed, i.e., nonprofit event marketing promotion needs to appeal to viewers’ emotions in a much more meaningful way than other event marketing to encourage action that makes a difference. this conclusion has been substantiated with the review of literature as well as the three case studies, all of which utilized this important component of promotion in marketing their important events. conclusion statistics show that the nonprofit sector is the third largest workforce in the united states behind retail and manufacturing. this proves how vital these organizations are to not only solving problems and supporting worthy causes, but also contributing to the well-being of the u.s. economy as a whole by providing employment opportunities. in his article, ariella (2022) states that 5.7% of the united states’ gdp comes from the nonprofit sector, further proving its importance. in 2021, overall giving increased by 4.1%, with online giving reaching an increase of 12.1%. the number of nonprofit organizations is increasing, but the revenue created is increasing at an even higher rate (ariella, s. 2022). more and more individuals are giving to nonprofit organizations, which is why it is so vital for these organizations to effectively promote to potential givers in a highly competitive guinn, a. and fu, y. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 1-10. 9 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 1-10, doi: 10.18060/27335 copyright © 2023 anna guinn and yao-yi fu this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. and actively growing market. the use of social media and websites for marketing purposes is also vital, as the statistic regarding growth in online giving shows. all of this information supports the vitality of utilizing good research to make strong decisions regarding a nonprofit’s marketing and promotional strategies. the points made in this paper are very relevant in today’s world, where there has been tremendous growth in the nonprofit industry as more and more individuals are made aware of issues and how they can be alleviated through giving and support. in terms of managerial implications, nonprofits need to focus some of their promotional tactics on engaging the younger generation. these younger individuals have proven themselves to be concerned with many issues in today’s world, and are the next generation that will be able to impact society in either a positive or negative way. utilizing social media marketing on mediums such as youtube and tiktok are great ways of generating awareness on how to get involved and make a difference. encouraging younger individuals who are yet unable to give financially to engage in volunteer experiences with a nonprofit organization is a wonderful way to show them what the nonprofit stands for and how it is making an impact in lives. this can lead to individuals having strong connections with an organization and be inspired to eventually support the nonprofit financially and share solutions with others as well. as mentioned earlier, utilizing social media effectively is what will give many nonprofit organizations an edge competitively. in a day and age where technology is continually growing and evolving, these organizations must be sure to stay up to date with trends that are here to stay and use technology to the fullest to generate awareness, and, in turn, support. utilizing a diverse group of social media platforms is also vital. facebook has been proven to cater to an older group of individuals, who can be encouraged to make an impact through careful messages from nonprofits. younger individuals can be inspired through platforms more catered to their needs, like youtube, instagram, and tiktok. additionally, wording these social media messages in a way that appeals to each group’s demographics and psychographics is something that must be carefully considered and adapted as necessary. another implication is for nonprofits to continue to appeal to the emotions of those who engage with their promotion. understanding target markets’ psychographics can help by showing nonprofit organizations what motivates giving in others, and what will be most effective in gaining their support. by creating meaningful human connection, giving individuals strong ways to relate to a cause, giving is much more likely, especially consistent, long-term giving. encouraging a one-time gift is relatively easy, but retaining donors over long periods of time can be much more difficult. it is worth it, however, to invest in marketing tactics to appeal to the emotions of individuals and create long-term connections, as those types of giving in particular are very rewarding for nonprofits. those who are passionate about a cause and have found great satisfaction in giving to a nonprofit will undoubtedly spread awareness to their closest friends and family, further contributing to the support of the charitable organization. in order to do this, the marketing team for a nonprofit entity must clearly outline the mission and purpose of the organization, which will reach the right people and encourage them to give support. in order to create an emotional, psychological connection with these individuals, it is important to tell stories and share statistics of how many people have been helped and how supporters helped create that positive change. through this type of marketing, individuals will be able to see themselves engaging in a mission to create a better world, and the emotional connection they connect to the nonprofit organization will be a long-term reminder of how their support can make a positive impact. there are many issues that are very apparent in today’s world, and nonprofits have a very special part to play in making a positive difference. many want to be a part of that movement by guinn, a. and fu, y. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 1-10. 10 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 1-10, doi: 10.18060/27335 copyright © 2023 anna guinn and yao-yi fu this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. planning and executing fun, unifying events that spur individuals to action, specifically, generous giving to a worthy cause. these events and their marketing can literally make or break a nonprofit, as annual events are many times the most vital way to gain support for an entire year. by motivating individuals to find a connection with an organization and its purpose, marketing in a way that generates curiosity and awareness, and holding events that effectively unite individuals together for one cause and one mission, nonprofits can fund their initiatives and continue to do what they do best – make the world a better place. references ariella, s. 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(n.d.). home [youtube page]. youtube. retrieved april 24, 2023 from https://www.youtube.com/c/wheelermission. https://www.zippia.com/advice/nonprofit-statistics/#:~:text=nonprofits'%20revenue%20in%20the%20united,number%20of%20total%20nonprofit%20organizations https://www.zippia.com/advice/nonprofit-statistics/#:~:text=nonprofits'%20revenue%20in%20the%20united,number%20of%20total%20nonprofit%20organizations https://www.zippia.com/advice/nonprofit-statistics/#:~:text=nonprofits'%20revenue%20in%20the%20united,number%20of%20total%20nonprofit%20organizations https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/get-involved/find-an-event/charity-runs-0/race-for-life#:~:text=cancer%20research%20uk's%20race%20for,the%20charity's%20life%2dsaving%20work https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/get-involved/find-an-event/charity-runs-0/race-for-life#:~:text=cancer%20research%20uk's%20race%20for,the%20charity's%20life%2dsaving%20work https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/get-involved/find-an-event/charity-runs-0/race-for-life#:~:text=cancer%20research%20uk's%20race%20for,the%20charity's%20life%2dsaving%20work https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/get-involved/find-an-event/charity-runs-0/race-for-life#:~:text=cancer%20research%20uk's%20race%20for,the%20charity's%20life%2dsaving%20work https://www.facebook.com/wheelermission/ https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/ https://www.youtube.com/c/wheelermission events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 34-44, doi: 10.18060/27980 copyright © 2024 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2024 volume 7 no. 1 small business ownership in black-majority indianapolis neighborhoods sotiris hji-avgoustis ball state university suosheng wang indiana university, indianapolis correspondence: shjiavgousti@bsu.edu (s. hji-avgoustis) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s. (2024). small business ownership in black-majority indianapolis neighborhoods. events and tourism review, 7(1), 34-44. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:jennifer.hussey@tudublin.ie http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 34-44. 35 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 34-44, doi: 10.18060/27980 copyright © 2024 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract the study explores the demographic characteristics of small business entrepreneurs, including their motivation to become entrepreneurs in black-majority neighborhoods and the characteristics of their businesses. the study also attempts to address barriers that may inhibit their success. the research setting is fourteen black-majority neighborhoods in indianapolis whose demographic indicators, such as median household income and poverty rates, trail other neighborhoods in the city. keywords: black-majority neighborhoods; small business; business motivation; business characteristics; barriers introduction business ownership in the united states is often associated with individual and family wealth. a federal reserve bulletin (2020) points out that in 2019, black households, which comprised nearly 16% of the us population, held just under 3% of overall wealth. unsurprisingly, the same study notes that out of the 5,771,292 employer firms in the country, only 2.3% were owned by black business owners. the us census bureau (2022) estimates that in 2019, there were just under 135,000 black-owned businesses with more than one employee. a report (perry et al., 2022) attempted to measure entrepreneurial activity by black-owned businesses in 68 metropolitan areas using revenue and payroll data from the 2018 census bureau’s annual business survey (annual business survey, 2018) that covers the reference year 2017. one of the regions reported was the indianapolis carmel anderson metropolitan area. the region has a black population of 17.1%, with 915 black-owned businesses representing only 3% of total businesses. the same report notes that these businesses pay employees an average salary of $30,795. this is not uncommon across the country. no metropolitan area matches or exceeds the percentage of its black population in terms of its number of black-owned businesses. these businesses create an average of 14 jobs each compared to 27 jobs for all businesses. regarding payroll, black-owned businesses pay their employees 60% of what all businesses pay theirs ($51,013). stegman et al. (2002) argued that passing the community reinvestment act (cra), revised in 2020, remains one of the more promising strategies for helping underserved populations and communities accumulate savings and access credit. cra pressured commercial banks and thrifts to consider the credit needs of all borrowers, including those in low-income neighborhoods (immergluck, 2004). the pressure applied to banks resulted in a net increase in minority owners seeking financing to start or expand businesses in these neighborhoods (bates & robb, 2015). black business owners are often wealthier than their peers and create business wealth faster than individuals involved in other types of employment (gorman, 2017). gorman also points out that small businesses hire from within their communities. this becomes even more important in black-majority neighborhoods struggling with poverty and high unemployment rates. several efforts to grow the black business ecosystem are underway. path to 15|55 argues https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 34-44. 36 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 34-44, doi: 10.18060/27980 copyright © 2024 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. that if 15% of black-owned businesses hire one more employee, the country’s economy will grow by $55 billion (path to 1555, 2022). operation hope aims to create 1 million new black-owned businesses by 2030 (operation hope, 2022). corporations also use their financial resources and business networks to generate business opportunities for black-owned businesses. target corporation committed at least $2 billion to grow back-owned businesses by 2025 (corporate target, 2022). jp morgan chase’s advancing black pathways initiative aims to invest $30 billion by the end of 2025 to “help the black community chart stronger paths toward economic success and empowerment” (jpmorgan et al., 2022,5). there are also encouraging signs that the 2020 pandemic and the civic and corporate efforts discussed above have led to a rise in the number of black business owners nationwide. revised estimates from the university of california, santa cruz (2022), reported initially by fairlie (2020), point to an increase of 38% in black-owned businesses between february 2020 and august 2021. in indianapolis, the indy black chamber of commerce reported a 33% increase in membership, adding eighty-two new small businesses to their organization in 2021 (drenon, 2022; january 6). more research is needed about the characteristics of businesses in low-income areas, especially in black-majority neighborhoods (kugler et al., 2017). kugler and his team examined the characteristics of businesses operating in low-income areas. they concluded that fewer businesses were operating in these areas relative to other areas and that these businesses had fewer employees and lower average payrolls than their peers. furthermore, they point out that existing literature focuses mainly on rural low-income regions. from this context, the study explores the demographic characteristics of business entrepreneurs, including their motivation to become entrepreneurs in black-majority neighborhoods and the characteristics of their businesses. lastly, the study attempts to address some barriers that may inhibit success. literature review the discrimination experienced by black entrepreneurs in this country has deprived them of access to capital while impoverishing their customer base (unger et al., 2011; waldinger et al.,1990) and is strongly related to closures and low levels of profitability (bates & robb, 2014). a recent forbes article addresses the barriers to black entrepreneurship. these barriers result from systemic racism that remains unrecognized by society and a persistent lack of adequate support and funding that prevents black entrepreneurs from accessing the financial, social, and intellectual capital available to their non-black peers (snobar, 2021). racial disparities in business ownership have been troubling for many years, especially when comparing the profitability of minority-owned businesses versus non-minority-owned businesses. auster (1998) used logit analyses to compare black-owned and white-owned businesses in three u.s. metropolitan areas. the study’s findings show that race, education, business size, and the residents' average income significantly affected business profitability but not business survival. bates (1989) points to weak internal markets, commercial bank redlining, and loss of entrepreneurial talent as the main culprits of suppressed business activity by black business owners in black neighborhoods. bates (1993) highlights the importance of access to credit to the viability of small businesses and advocates for targeting assistance toward black-owned small businesses to halt the drain of financial and human capital often seen in minority neighborhoods. fairlie et al. (2020) explored racial disparities in access to capital for new business ventures using data from the kauffman firm survey. their findings point to issues surrounding racial https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 34-44. 37 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 34-44, doi: 10.18060/27980 copyright © 2024 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. inequality in startup financing for black-owned startups. they often start smaller and remain small because of difficulties in raising external capital. disparities in creditworthiness also constrain black entrepreneurs. black entrepreneurs apply for loans less often than white entrepreneurs primarily because they expect to be denied credit, even when they have a good credit history, and the banks are eager to support new business development. taylor (2018) reviewed three essays to address the gap in the literature surrounding the role of black and ethnic businesses in unlocking the potential for economic growth in minority neighborhoods. perry et al. (2018) point to the devaluation of assets in black neighborhoods, resulting in black homeowners accumulating lower wealth accumulation, making it more challenging to start and invest in businesses. aldrich (2019) called for increased black ownership of businesses in black neighborhoods. he contemplated the impact of transferring white businesses to black owners or the creation of new black-owned businesses to address black underemployment. bates (2014) examined immigrants' challenges when establishing businesses in minority neighborhoods. even though reduced discrimination and low capital requirements make it easier for entry, they face higher closure rates and lower profit margins as compared to doing business in white neighborhoods. williams (2017) studied atlanta’s 101 neighborhood statistical areas to identify the economic and social characteristics that encourage black business ownership. the findings point to a relationship between neighborhood characteristics, such as more available jobs, higher median household incomes, and lower crime statistics, resulting in more black businesses in proportion to the black population. alperovitz et al. (2010) also highlighted the relationship between increased neighborhood economic activity and neighborhood prosperity. earlier research suggests that black population density and retail scarcity are positively correlated (delgado et al., 2010; henderson & welier, 2010). morlan et al. (2002) examined food deserts in low-income black-majority areas in mississippi, north carolina, maryland, and minnesota. their findings point to a systemic problem that contributes to the creation of food deserts. one example is that supermarkets in poorer neighborhoods represented only a quarter of what is available in white neighborhoods. access to alcohol, on the other hand, was three times higher than in white neighborhoods. unfortunately, these issues continue to persist. gartner and bhat (2020) point out that urban low-income areas face the same challenges as low-income rural areas. the low concentration of businesses contributes to poverty and social ills, including increased crime rates, poor infrastructure, employees with lower workforce skills, and difficulties accessing capital. the availability of essential services, including access to food, is also negatively impacted by location. residents of black-majority urban neighborhoods struggle to access essential services that others in more affluent neighborhoods take for granted. ramanadhan et al. (2023) used a team-based, thematic analysis approach to examine the role of small businesses as promoters of community health and well-being in a predominately black neighborhood in roxbury, massachusetts. hji-avgoustis and wang (2023) point to the daily struggles many small businesses operating in indianapolis’ black-majority neighborhoods face as they struggle to survive, including access to financial and human capital, generating low revenue, and operating with few employees. methodology according to the center for research on inclusion and social policy (2020), 48% of black marion county residents live in a black-majority neighborhood where 88% of the homes are valued https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 34-44. 38 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 34-44, doi: 10.18060/27980 copyright © 2024 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. less than the county's median home value. our research setting is indianapolis, the state of indiana's capital, and marion county's seat. indianapolis has a population of almost 900,000; 29% of the population is black or african american (us census bureau, 2021). the fourteen black-majority neighborhoods that comprise the study's population are identified using indy vitals (2022). this online community information system relies on population data from the us census bureau's 2020 decennial census. we identified fourteen black-majority neighborhoods whose demographic indicators, such as median household income and poverty rates, trail other neighborhoods in the city. we adopted a mixed methods research design consisting of online structured questionnaires and informal observations from the study's participants. this approach is considered suitable for studying business owner-operator goals and the performances of their firms (newby et al., 2014). study participants were selected using purposive samplings, a non-probability sampling in which researchers rely on their judgments when choosing population members to participate in a study (etikan, 2016). the selection of participants was based on three criteria: a) geographic sampling (14 black-majority neighborhoods), b) institutional context (small business owners of diverse racial backgrounds), and c) small businesses with assets not to exceed $1 million. in collaboration with twenty-two community gatekeepers operating within the geographic boundaries of the fourteen neighborhoods, the lead author recruited the study participants and offered instructions on how to take the self-administered qualtrics questionnaire online. these community gatekeepers represent organizations that have already earned the trust of their respective communities (kay, 2019), and their involvement in promoting the study allowed the researchers to gain confidence, establish rapport, and form empathetic, non-hierarchical relationships with neighborhood business owners. since some small business owners spoke spanish, the questionnaires were available in spanish and english. a total of 94 completed and valid surveys were collected. the data were exported from qualtrics to spss for quantitative data analyses, including descriptive statistics, independent samples t-tests, and chi-square tests. specifically, respondents' demographic profiles and business backgrounds were explored with frequency analysis, including chi-square tests and ttests. findings the study’s authors attempted to address how business entrepreneurs in these neighborhoods promote social entrepreneurship by overcoming existing barriers to contribute to revitalizing their neighborhoods. this paper discusses the individual characteristics of these entrepreneurs, including the motivating factors behind their willingness to start a business in these low-income neighborhoods. it also summarizes the business characteristics of these firms and the challenges they face daily. a) respondent demographic characteristics out of a total of 94 respondents, 88 shared their racial backgrounds. among them, 58% identified as african american, 27.3% as white, 11.4% as asian, and 1.1% as native hawaiian or other pacific islanders. by comparing the demographic profiles of the non-black and black respondents, the most frequent age range for non-black (73%) and black respondents (70%) falls between 50 and 59 years old. within the black respondents, the gender distribution is relatively even (45.1% male to 54.9% female), while for non-black respondents, the distribution is more https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 34-44. 39 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 34-44, doi: 10.18060/27980 copyright © 2024 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. pronounced (67.6% male, 32.4% female). regarding education attainment levels, non-black and black respondents commonly cite high school as their most frequent level of education (40.5% and 49%, respectively). notably, more black respondents hold postgraduate degrees (11.8%) than non-black respondents (5.4%). the relationship status for both groups predominantly leans towards being 'married or in a cohabiting relationship' (43.2% non-black, 39.2% black), followed by 'single' (21.6% non-black, 25.5% black). regarding business experience, a higher percentage of non-black entrepreneurs (41.7%) possess over 15 years of experience than black entrepreneurs (24%). regarding sources of finance, 'personal savings' is a significant source for both groups (81.1% non-black, 94.1% black). however, non-black businesses rely more on commercial banks (56.8%) compared to black businesses (21.6%), while the latter tend to depend more on 'family and friends' (45.9% non-black, 64.7% black). only a few from both groups seek 'government assistance programs' (8.1% nonblack, 5.9% black), and very few individuals seek funding from 'venture capitalists' or engage in 'joint ventures.' b) business characteristics most businesses in both groups have been established for over five years (83.8% non-black, 60.6% black). however, a more significant percentage of newer businesses (less than five years old) are found among black respondents (29.4%) compared to non-black respondents (16.2%). regarding business size, both groups commonly fall into the 'more than $100,000 but less than or equivalent to $500,000' category (34.3% non-black, 43.1% black). however, a significant difference arises in larger business sizes ('more than $500,000 but less than or equivalent to $1 million'), with 34.3% for non-black and only 15.7% for black respondents. the stage of business differs slightly between the two groups, with the 'maturity stage' being the mode for non-black (44.4%) and the 'growth stage' for black entrepreneurs. notably, more black businesses (14%) are at the 'survival stage' compared to non-black businesses (5.6%). regarding regular employment, black-owned businesses employ 2-5 people (including the entrepreneur), while for non-black entrepreneurs, it is 6-10 people (40.5%). c) motivation to be in business both non-black and black entrepreneurs primarily aim 'to be entrepreneurs' (over 80% for both groups). however, for 'financial rewards,' 83.8% of non-black but less than 63% of black respondents prioritize this objective. interestingly, there is a higher emphasis on 'career progression' among black entrepreneurs (27.5%) than non-black entrepreneurs (8.1%). in contrast, a more significant percentage of non-black entrepreneurs are influenced by 'family or friends' (55%) than black entrepreneurs (23.5%). d) barriers to success chi-square tests examined the associations between two pairs of categorical variables. one test is between race (recoded, non-black versus black) and gender (males versus females). the second test is between race (recoded, non-black versus black) and number of people employed (recoded, ≤ 5 people versus ≥ 6 people). according to table 1, the chi-square test is significant (p-value <0.05): more females among entrepreneurs versus males among non-blacks. this is opposite to national data, where men own most businesses. according to pew research (2023), 55% of black-owned businesses have male https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 34-44. 40 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 34-44, doi: 10.18060/27980 copyright © 2024 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. owners, and 37% are owned by women. another 8% have equal male-female ownership. table 1: race versus gender 1=nonblack 2=black pearson chi-sq. df asymptotic sig. (2-sided) what gender do you identify as male 25 23 4.367 1 .037 female 12 28 in table 2, the chi-square test is significant (p-value <0.05): most black businesses hire fewer employees, whereas most non-black businesses hire more employees. this supports findings reported by pew research (2023), where 66% of black-owned businesses had fewer than ten employees in 2020, 14% had 10 to 49 employees, and under 3% had 50 or more employees. table 2: employment by race 1=nonblack 2=black pearson chi-sq. df asymptotic sig. (2-sided) # of people employed ≤ 5 people 16 36 7.313 1 .007 ≥ 6 people 21 14 t-tests were conducted to detect the perceptual differences between non-black and black business people in terms of the factors motivating them to start a business, major barriers to the success of the business, the factors contributing to the success of your business, and how successful their business has been with community development. the following results are found to be significant at the significance level of 0.5: 1. non-black entrepreneurs feel more competition than black entrepreneurs; both mean values are mild, while black entrepreneurs are almost neutral (3.51 versus 3.02). this contradicts national data that shows white businesses are unlikely to view minority-owned businesses as competition (hutchings et al., 2011). 2. black entrepreneurs feel ‘racial discrimination’ more than non-black entrepreneurs; the mean value is above 4 (4.18 versus 3.69). according to the us census bureau’s annual business survey (2021), 94% of the respondents noted that they are highly motivated to succeed in disproving persistent racial stereotypes. 3. black entrepreneurs tend to agree more with the statement ‘minority business owners encounter greater difficulties than others in creating a new business’ than non-black entrepreneurs (mean values 4.64 versus 3.97). this challenge persists, according to the most recent us census https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 34-44. 41 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 34-44, doi: 10.18060/27980 copyright © 2024 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. bureau’s annual business survey (2021). 4. black entrepreneurs agree more than non-black entrepreneurs with the statement ‘minority business owners find less support in society to create a new business than the majority group” (mean values 4.60 versus 4.03). this also supports the findings of the recent us census bureau’s annual business survey (2021). 5. regarding the general question, ‘overall, how successful has your business been with community development?’, non-black entrepreneurs feel more successful than black entrepreneurs (mean values 4.23 versus 3.76). boston (2006) argues that black-owned businesses are often dismissed as significant contributors to community revitalization because they are only a tiny part of the business ecosystem. the following results are found to be significant at the significance level of 0.10: 1. black entrepreneurs consider ‘to improve the neighborhood's quality of life’ more essential to motivate them than non-black (mean value 4.29 versus 4.0). 2. black entrepreneurs consider ‘to have my own business so that my children will inherit it’ more critical than non-black entrepreneurs (mean value is 3.58 versus 3.17). 3. non-black entrepreneurs consider ‘lack of qualified employees’ a more substantial barrier than black entrepreneurs, though both mean values are mild (mean value 3.71 versus 3.27). 4. non-black entrepreneurs consider the ‘ability to develop new products and services’ more critical than black entrepreneurs in contributing to business success (mean values 4.09 versus 3.82). 5. black entrepreneurs consider the ‘ability to manage the business successfully’ more critical than non-black entrepreneurs in contributing to business success (4.27 versus 4.03). note that both mean values are above 4.0. conclusions not unlike in most other minority neighborhoods, small businesses in indianapolis black majority neighborhoods are the lifeline to growing local economies, revitalizing their surroundings, and contributing to the creation of jobs that subsequently result in the creation of wealth for the residents. an icic (2016) study concludes that small businesses in distressed minority neighborhoods rival, and often exceed, larger businesses in job creation potential. unfortunately, businesses in these areas face several obstacles that prevent them from realizing their full potential. past discrimination practices continue to negatively impact the economy and prospects of poorer, black-majority neighborhoods (cashin, 2004). their weak economies dissuade residents from other parts of the city from moving in and encourage those who can afford to move out of these neighborhoods to do so. a study by bates and robb (2008) compared the performance of businesses serving minority neighborhoods versus businesses serving non-minority whites. they concluded that businesses in minority neighborhoods were disadvantaged due to reduced business visibility. strengthening the business ecosystem in black-majority neighborhoods is essential, and public policy must support it. improving the quality of life in these neighborhoods by ensuring essential services and amenities match those available to residents in other parts of the city should be a given. finally, expanding employment opportunities for these residents by supporting and growing the existing business ecosystem is also vital. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 34-44. 42 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 34-44, doi: 10.18060/27980 copyright © 2024 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. references aldrich, h. e. 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(2017). a descriptive exploratory study: neighborhood factors related to black business density. clemson university proquest dissertations publishing, 10684722. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 47-57, doi: 10.18060/27653 copyright © 2023 chin ho ip, seungmo kim, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2023 volume 6 the effects of sports gambling on young fans’ attitudes and behaviors in hong kong chin ho ip seungmo kim hong kong baptist university, hong kong soonhwan lee suosheng wang indiana university, indianapolis correspondence: lee291@iupui.edu (s. lee) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation chin, h. i., kim, s., lee, s. & wang, s. (2023). the effects of sports gambling on young fans’ attitudes and behaviors in hong kong. events and tourism review, 6, 47-57. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:lee291@iupui.edu http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr ip, c. h., kim, s., lee, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 47-57. 48 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 47-57, doi: 10.18060/27653 copyright © 2023 chin ho ip, seungmo kim, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract sports gambling has become closely intertwined with sports. however, the effect of sports gambling on young adults have not been extensively investigated, even if it is expected that participating in sports gambling could influence young adults' attitudes and behaviors. therefore, the purposes of the current study were a) to investigate the effects of sports gambling on young adults’ attitudes and behaviors and b) to evaluate the quality of life of young adults in hong kong. a total of 160 young adults (80 sports gamblers and 80 non-gamblers) in hong kong participated in the survey. the results of t-tests revealed the differences between sports gamblers and nongamblers. specifically, non-gamblers showed higher levels of sports fan identification, quality of life, birging behaviors, prosocial behaviors, performance tolerance, and purchasing intention than sports gamblers, whereas sports gamblers had higher level of positive affect on sports spectating. furthermore, the results of the multiple regressions indicated that sports fan identification and positive affect influenced non-gamblers’ purchasing intention, while only sports fan identification had an impact on sports gamblers’ purchasing intention. these results provided an empirical conformation of the effect of sports gambling on sports fan attitudes and behaviors, which contribute to our understanding of the destructive impact of sports gambling on sports fan experience. keywords: food sports gambling; young adults; fan attitudes; fan behaviors; quality of life introduction sports gambling entails placing a wager on the predicted outcome of a sport competition. if the prediction is correct, the sports gambler will win a larger amount of money than their initial bet; however, they will lose their bet if the prediction is incorrect. sports gambling began to spread across the world in the 1950s and remained steady until the beginning of the 21st century. however, in the last 15 years, the sports gambling industry has undergone significant changes and has become comparable to the traditional sports industry in terms of revenue generation (turcu, burcea, diaconescu, barbu, popescu, & apostu, 2020). the sports gambling industry has become one of the fastest-growing industries in the united states since the passage of the indian gaming regulatory act of 1988 (delaney, 2007). the advancement of online technology also has allowed bookmakers to offer people to place bets from anywhere with an internet connection. this has provided greater flexibility and variety in the types and locations of bets that can be placed, reduced the time required to place a bet, and facilitated gambling on a wide range of sports related events and competitions (turcu et al., 2020). the financial impacts of the gambling industry in the sports industry are significantly important to the sports industry. the gambling industry has become a significant financial supporter for many sport leagues and clubs as sports gambling provides a new source of income to the sports industry through sports sponsorship agreements (turcu et al., 2020). for instance, fulham became the first england premier league (epl) club to have a gambling company sponsor in the 2002-2003 season. in the 2019-2020 season. in the 2019/20 season, logos of gambling companies were featured https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ip, c. h., kim, s., lee, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 47-57. 49 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 47-57, doi: 10.18060/27653 copyright © 2023 chin ho ip, seungmo kim, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. on the jerseys of half of the pl clubs. without sponsorship and a financial relationship with the gambling industry, the sports clubs may be affected, the financial black hole may be resulted and affect the balance of the competitions (sharman, 2022). it is expected that the sports industry would be further integrated with the gambling industry, resulting in both positive and negative effects of sports gambling on our society. the current study was conducted in hong kong, where the hong kong jockey club (hkjc) is the sole legal avenue for sports gambling. in 2003, the government legalized sports betting for hong kong residents, recognizing their inclination to bet on international football matches to enhance their enjoyment of watching sporting competitions. currently, the hkjc offers sports gambling platforms exclusively for two sports: football and horseracing. according to reports from the home and youth affairs bureau in 2016 and 2021, the average monthly spending on gambling activities with the hkjc has significantly increased. horserace gambling has increased by 985%, from hk$517 (us$66) per gambler in 2001 to hk$5,611 (us$717) per gambler in 2016. meanwhile, football gambling has increased by 129%, from hk$700 (us$89) per gambler in 2008 to hk$1,599 (us$204) per gambler in 2016. football gambling contributes the most, with hk$114 billion (usd14.56 billion) in 2018-2019. the lack of variety in sports gambling options provided by the hkjc has resulted in the emergence of illegal gambling in hong kong, as global online gambling platforms offer a wider range of sports and better odds. according to tessler et al. (2017), the estimated revenue from illegal gambling in 2015-16 was hk$12 billion (us$1.53 billion), accounting for 25% of the total gambling revenue in hong kong, encompassing both legal and illegal gambling. among the illegal gamblers, 21% started gambling before reaching adulthood, and 5% were between the ages of 18 and 29. of these illegal gamblers, 84% had placed illegal bets on football matches, indicating a strong connection between illegal gambling and sports betting. sports gambling has become inseparable from sports in modern times. young adults, who have recently reached the legal age for sports gambling, are the generation most familiar with the use of the internet and most active on social media platforms. however, despite their high level of attraction to sports gambling, the effects of sports gambling on young adults have not been extensively investigated. it is expected that participating in sports gambling could influence young adults' attitudes and behaviors. therefore, the purposes of the current study are a) to investigate the effects of sports gambling on young adults in terms of sports spectating, and b) to evaluate the quality of life of young adults in hong kong. sports fans and sport gambling sports fan engagement sport fans can be defined as “individuals who are interested in and follow a sport, team and/or athlete” (wann, melnick, russell, & pease, 2001, p.2). while sports spectators simply watch sports events, sports fans are more likely to actively follow the team and the sport, establishing a strong mental association with the team (dietz-uhler & lanter, 2008). therefore, the passionate fans demonstrate loyalty not only to their teams, but also to the players and the sport itself (dietzuhler & lanter, 2008). those fans should experience more excitement when the team wins an important match and more disappointment when the team loses the critical match (dietz-uhler & lanter, 2008) because they identify themselves as part of the team and share in both the triumphs and setbacks. there are two levels of sports identity with a team: interpersonal and symbolic (jacobson, 2003). sport fans at the interpersonal level are often influenced by their friends, family, or local https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ip, c. h., kim, s., lee, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 47-57. 50 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 47-57, doi: 10.18060/27653 copyright © 2023 chin ho ip, seungmo kim, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. teams that are tied to a particular area. they become fans in order to feel a sense of belonging to a group and to engage in interaction with the members. on the other hand, fans at the symbolic level become sports fans due to specific factors like team name, logo, and colors. sports fans’ engagement includes attending sporting events, watching games on television, purchasing team merchandizes, reading sports magazines and newspapers, and discussing the sport with others (yoshida, et al., 2014). sports fans' engagement can also be a regular, scheduled, and predictable group of people who frequently participate in and support the sports or teams (mann, 1989). three good indicators can be used to measure sports fan identity: affective, cognitive, and behavioral (dietz-uhler & lanter, 2008). for instance, strongly identified sports fans tend to exhibit higher blood pressure, experience more intense emotions, and derive greater enjoyment from watching sports (affective). they also demonstrate a deeper knowledge of the teams and the sport itself (cognitive). in terms of behavior, sports fans are more inclined to wear team apparel and use collective pronouns to refer to their favorite team after a victory compared to a loss (behavioral). sports gambling and sports fan engagement people enjoy sports for various reasons, as it can offer them with self-esteem, an escape from everyday life, and entertainment (jacobson, 2003). additionally, other factors like economic benefits, aesthetics, and affiliation with family and groups can also contribute to why people love sports. sports gambling has the potential to attract new enthusiasts and spectators to various sports. furthermore, it can enhance the image of sports teams, improve their publicity, and foster the growth of the sports industry by attracting more sponsorships and providing financial support for sports clubs, as well as attracting fans (turcu et al., 2020). sports gamblers can become sports fans because of sports gambling. for instance, sports gambling could transform individuals into avid sports fans. sports gamblers closely monitor various factors such as point spreads, weather conditions, and injury reports during weekly football or other sporting events, much like dedicated sports fans (delaney, 2007). however, the sport fain identity for sports gamblers is doubted. as stated by delaney (2007), unlike genuine sports fan, who typically show high levels of loyalty, commitment, and identity, sports gamblers may not have a strong loyalty toward any particular team or sport due to the risk of financial loss associated with their betting. in other words, sports gamblers show their enthusiasm based on the spread of scores, the number of scores, and the results that they bet on. considering the distinctions between genuine sports fans and sports gamblers, it is anticipated that sports gambling could negatively influence sports fans' attitudes and behaviors. sports gambling and quality of life sports gambling has the potential to have both positive and negative psychological effects on individuals. young people often have positive attitudes toward sports gambling as it provides entertainment, relaxation, and financial benefits (ahaibwe, lakuma, katunze, & mawejje, 2016; goldstein, vilhena-churchill, stewart, hoaken, & flett, 2016). social relationship through sport gambling could have positive impacts on individual’s mental health. peer-based gambling is common, and it encourages individuals to participate in sports gambling (ayandele et al., 2020). according to ahaibwe et al. (2016) and hanss et al. (2014), the peer pressure can contribute to a positive attitude toward sport gambling. sports gamblers participate in sports gambling as their peers implant a positive attitude toward it. (hardoon & derevensky, 2001; jacobs, 2000; situ & mo, 2016). the approval and encouragement of sports gambling by peer serve as a major motivator. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ip, c. h., kim, s., lee, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 47-57. 51 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 47-57, doi: 10.18060/27653 copyright © 2023 chin ho ip, seungmo kim, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. however, it is also important to notice sports gambling could bring the negative feelings like boredom, fatigue, and upset to sports, making it a double-sided sword. sports gambling can also have negative consequences, such as the development of gambling disorders. individuals who participated in football gambling in hong kong had a 2.7 times higher probability of developing gambling disorder (hkpu, 2017). gambling disorder often raised as a result of using gambling as a means to manage or alleviate stress. experiencing significant financial losses in sports gambling can drive individuals to chase after more gambling opportunities. as a result, these gamblers may borrow larger sums of money to make up for their losses, eventually leading to the development of a gambling disorder (hkpu, 2017). this can have a severe impact on all four aspects of quality of life. considering the potential effects of sports gambling on the attitudes and behaviors of sports fans, the following hypotheses were formulated: hypothesis 1a. there would be significant difference between sports gamblers and non-gamblers in sports fans attitude. hypothesis 1b. there would be significant difference between sports gamblers and non-gamblers in quality of life. hypothesis 1c. there would be significant difference between sports gamblers and non-gamblers in sports fans behaviors. hypothesis 2. there would be significant relationships between sports fans attitudes and purchase intention for both sports gamblers and non-gamblers. methodology participants and procedure the population of interest of this study consisted of young adults in hong kong, specifically those between the ages of 18 and 26. a convenience sampling method was used. an online questionnaire method was employed to collect data. approval from the research ethics committee was obtained prior to the data collection. the link and qr code containing a link to the questionnaire survey was distributed on various online forums dedicated to sports gambling as well as different social media platforms. as shown in table 1, the survey was completed by a total of 160 young adults, comparing 80 sports gamblers and 80 non-gamblers. out of the 160 completed questionnaires, 105 (65.6%) were male and 55 (34.4%) were female. 106 (66.3%) engaged in sports during their free time, while 54 (33.8) did not. regarding the amount of exercise, 56 (35%) exercised for 0 to 2 hours per week, 60 (37.5%) exercised for 3 to 5 hours per week, 35 (21.9%) exercised for 6 to 9 hours per week and 9 (5.6%) exercised for 10 to 15 hours per week. among the 80 sports gamblers, 47 played sports in their free time, while 33 did not participate in any physical activities. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ip, c. h., kim, s., lee, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 47-57. 52 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 47-57, doi: 10.18060/27653 copyright © 2023 chin ho ip, seungmo kim, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. table 1. demographic information frequency percentage gender male 105 65.6% female 55 34.4% type of fan sport gambler 80 50% non-gambler 80 50% age 18-20 55 34.4% 21-23 66 41.% 24-26 39 24.4% total 160 instrumentation the survey for the current study consisted of 58 items, including demographics (e.g., gender, age), sports gambling habit, and seven constructs: (a) sports fans identification, (b) positive affect, (c) birging (basking in reflected glory), (d) prosocial behavior, (e) performance tolerance, (f) purchasing intention, and (g) quality of life. the constructs were measured using existing scales in the field of sport management with some modification for the current study. first, sport fan identification was assessed using three items from the scale developed by trail and james (2001). sample items included “i consider myself to be a real fan of sports” and “being a fan of sports is very important to me.” three items from mazodier and merunka’s (2011) positive affect scale was modified to measure positive affect for sports. a sample item was “watching sports games makes me happy.” for of birging behaviors of fans, three items, developed by trail et al. (2012), were used. sample items included “i would like to let others know about my association with my favorite sports team when the team wins,” and “i would like to publicize my connection with my favorite sports team when the team plays really well.” prosocial behavior was measured using three items from dholakia et al.’s (2009) scale to reflect fan engagement behavior. sample items were “i often interact with other fans to talk about issues related to my favorite sports/teams,” and “i often advise other fans on how to support my favorite sports/teams.” performance tolerance measured using de ruyter and wetzels’s (2000) scale. sample items included “i wear apparel which represents the fans of my favorite team even if the team has an unsuccessful season,” and “i display the logo of my favorite team on my clothing even if my favorite team do not perform well.” for purchase intention, three items were adapted from behavioral intentions scale from yoshida et al (2013). sample item was “the probability that i will attend an event of my favorite sports/teams is very high.” finally, overall quality of life was assessed using a single item “how would you rate your quality of life?” while quality of life was assessed by using a 5-point likert scale, all the other items were assessed by using a 7-point likert scale ranging from 1 (strongly disagree) to 7 (strongly agree). the results https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ip, c. h., kim, s., lee, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 47-57. 53 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 47-57, doi: 10.18060/27653 copyright © 2023 chin ho ip, seungmo kim, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. of reliability tests (cronbach alpha) in this study ranged from .901 (purchasing intention) to .978 (birging behaviors), which exceeded the recommended benchmark of .70 (nunnally & bernstein, 1994) data analysis first, descriptive statistics were calculated to assess overall demographics, fan team identification, positive attitude toward sport, quality of work, birging, prosocial behavior, performance tolerance, and purchasing intention. next, a series of t-tests were conducted to examine the differences between non-gamblers and sports gamblers to test hypotheses 1a, 1b, and 1c. following the t-tests, multiple regression analyses were performed separately for non-gamblers and sports gamblers to investigate the relationship between fan attitudes and fan’s purchasing intention. results differences of fan attitudes and quality of the life as shown in table 2, the results of t-tests found that there were significant means difference between sports gamblers and non-gamblers for sport fan identification and positive affect (p<0.01), which supported hypothesis 1a. non-gamblers (mean = 4.59) had higher level of sport fan identification than sports gamblers (mean = 3.04), while sports gamblers (mean = 6.06) had higher level of positive affect on sport spectating than non-gamblers (mean = 5.11). in terms of overall quality of the life, the results also found that there was a significant means difference between sports gamblers and non-gamblers in general quality of life (p=<0.01), which supported hypothesis 1b. non-gamblers (mean = 4.08) had higher level of sport fan identification than sports gamblers (mean = 2.42). table 2. differences of quality of life and fan attitude variable group mean sd t p quality of life sports gamblers 2.42 0.84 -14.75 <0.01 non-gamblers 4.08 0.55 sports fans identification sports gamblers 3.04 1.93 -4.86 <0.01 non-gamblers 4.59 2.09 positive affect sports gamblers 6.06 0.77 3.98 <0.01 non-gamblers 5.11 1.98 differences of sport fan behaviors the results of t-tests found that there were significant means difference between sports gamblers and non-gamblers for sport fans’ behaviors (e.g., birging behaviors, prosocial behaviors, performance tolerance, and purchasing intention) as shown in table3, which supported hypothesis 1c. non-gamblers (mean = 4.65) had higher level of birging behaviors than sports gamblers (mean = 2.81). non-gamblers (mean = 4.27) had higher level of prosocial behaviors than sports gamblers (mean = 2.74). non-gamblers (mean = 4.29) had higher level of performance tolerance than sports gamblers (mean = 2.03). non-gamblers (mean = 4.43) had higher level of purchasing intention than sports gamblers (mean = 2.14). in fact, all behavioral constructs indicated that non-gamblers showed higher levels of the constructs than sports gamblers. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ip, c. h., kim, s., lee, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 47-57. 54 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 47-57, doi: 10.18060/27653 copyright © 2023 chin ho ip, seungmo kim, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. table 3. differences of fan behaviors variable group mean sd t p birging. sports gamblers 2.81 1.98 -5.74 <0.01 non-gamblers 4.65 2.07 prosocial behavior sports gamblers 2.74 1.92 -4.79 <0.01 non-gamblers 4.27 2.13 performance tolerance sports gamblers 2.03 1.71 -7.28 <0.01 non-gamblers 4.29 2.19 purchasing intention sports gamblers 2.88 2.00 -4.73 <0.001 non-gamblers 4.43 2.14 relationships between fan attitudes and purchasing intention separate equations regressing fans’ team identification and positive affect on purchasing intentions were calculated for sports gamblers and non-sport gamblers (table 4). first, the overall model for the sport gamblers group was significant, [f (2, 77) = 74.861, p <. 001, adjusted r2 = .65], indicating that 65% of the variance in purchase intention was explained by team identification and positive affect. the standardized coefficient (β) indicated that team identification (β = .530, p< 0.001) had contributed to purchasing intentional, while positive affect (β = -.216, p=0.26) did not. second, the overall model for the non-sport gamblers group was significant, [f (2, 77) = 246.71, p <. 001, adjusted r2 = .86], indicating that 86% of the variance in purchase intention was explained by team identification and positive affect. the standardized coefficient (β) indicated that team identification (β = .642, p< 0.01) had a higher contribution than positive affect (β = .367, p< 0.01) to purchasing intention. the results of two regression analyses found significant relationships between sports fans attitudes and purchase intention for both groups, which supported hypothesis 2. table 4. effect of fan attitudes on purchasing intention variable b adjust r2 t p sport gamblers team identification 0.87 0.65 11.63 <0.01 positive affect -0.22 -1.14 0.26 non-gamblers team identification 0.64 0.86 8.28 <0.01 positive affect 0.37 4.48 <0.01 discussion the purpose of this study was to obtain a deeper understanding of the effects of sports gambling on young adults by examining its effects on their level of sport engagement and overall quality of life. given the growing integration of sports and gambling, it is critical to understand the effect of sports gambling on young adults. therefore, this study utilized a conceptualized model of fan engagement to assess and compare the effects of sports gamblers on various aspects of fan engagements including sports fans identification, positive affect, birging, prosocial behavior, performance tolerance and purchase intention between sports gamblers and non-gamblers. effects of sports gambling on sports fans’ attitudes the findings of the current study indicated that sports gamblers showed a lower level of https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ip, c. h., kim, s., lee, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 47-57. 55 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 47-57, doi: 10.18060/27653 copyright © 2023 chin ho ip, seungmo kim, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. sports fans' identification, suggesting that sports gambling might reduce the sense of sport identification among young adults. these findings were consistent with delaney’s (2007) research, which also found that sports gamblers had low loyalty, identification, and commitment to consistently favorite sports and teams due to the experience and possibility of financial loss by wagering on their favorite sports and teams. in other words, sports gamblers prioritize winning bets over their genuine passion for the games, indicating a diminished sense of being true sports fans. the results revealed that sports gamblers had a higher positive effect on spectating sports games than non-gamblers. the findings suggested that sports gambling might enhance young adults’ positive affect since they become more excited and more pleasurable while watching sports games. according to killick and griffiths' (2020) research, sports gambling could increase sports gamblers' interest and excitement of sports spectating. it is because it could increase gamblers' engagement with the games and provide a feeling of excitement. for example, a sports gambler who has wagered on a particular team would closely follow the game, collect more information regarding the game, analyze relevant statistics, and pay more attention to the teams, which leads to an increased interest and excitement level while spectating. effects of sports gambling on sports fans behaviors in terms of sports fans' behaviors, the results revealed that sports gamblers exhibited lower levels of birg behaviors, prosocial behavior, performance tolerance, and purchasing intention than non-gamblers, suggesting that sports gamblers can be regarded as spurious sports fans as their main interest lies on the outcomes their bets rather than the wins of their favorite teams (delaney, 2007). for example, they may not experience the same level of happiness and excitement, even if their team performed well or won, if they lost their bets. in this study, sports gambling had a detrimental effect on all the behaviors of young adult sports fans and their identification, except for positive affect, which may lead to the decline of true sports fans and spectators as the outcomes of sports gambling. considering the significance of young fans and spectators in supporting the sports industry and generating revenue for sports clubs (da silva & las casas, 2017), the findings indicate that sports gambling may have a negative impact on the long-term growth and future of the sports industry. relationships between sports fans attitudes and purchase intention first, the results showed that sports fan identification significantly contributed to purchase intention for both groups, while positive affect had a significant association with purchasing intention for non-gamblers. although sports fans' identification could increase purchase intention, the results of t-test revealed sports gamblers had significantly lower sports fan identification than non-gamblers. second, although the results of t-test revealed that sports gamblers exhibited higher level of positive affect, the results of multiple regression showed that the high level of positive affect did not contribute to purchasing intention. this suggests that the high enjoyment derived from sports spectating is not primarily driven by a genuine interest and commitment to the sport or team, but rather by the bets that young adults place. therefore, for sports gamblers, sports gambling may not foster loyalty and long-term commitment, although the increasing excitement may provide them with temporary pleasure in the sports and teams. limitations and future studies whereas the current study provides valuable insights into the impact of sports gambling on young sports fans’ attitudes and behaviors in hong kong, there are several areas that future research https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ip, c. h., kim, s., lee, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 47-57. 56 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 47-57, doi: 10.18060/27653 copyright © 2023 chin ho ip, seungmo kim, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. should consider for more comprehensive understandings. first, future studies should examine the effect of sports gambling on different levels of sport fans, distinguishing between high sports gamblers and low sports gamblers, which can allow for a more nuanced analysis of the variations in attitudes and behaviors within the sports gambler groups. second, the future research should enlarge its sample size to provide more reliable results on sports gambling since this study had a relatively small sample size of 160 participants, which may have limited the utilization of more advanced statistical analyses. the enlarged sample size could increase the reliability and generalizability of the findings. in addition, qualitative approaches such as individual or focus group interviews could be utilized to provide a more in-depth and realistic findings of sports gambling on young adults. references ahaibwe, g., lakuma, c. p., katunze, m., & mawejje, j. 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(2013). sport event innovativeness: conceptualization, measurement, and its impact on consumer behavior. sport management review, 16, 68–84. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 14-27, doi: 10.18060/25839 copyright © 2021 kennedy weaver and becky liu-lastres this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review ________________ december 2021 volume 4 no. 2 applying crowd risk mitigation technologies in urban sport events: a case analysis of the collegiate football event in indianapolis, in kennedy weaver becky liu-lastres indiana university purdue university indianapolis correspondence: kenweaveiu@gmail.com (k. weaver) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation weaver, k. & liu-lastres, b. (2021). applying crowd risk mitigation technologies in urban sport events: a case analysis of the collegiate football event in indianapolis, in., events and tourism review, 4(2), 14-27. http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr weaver, k & liu-lastres, b. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 14-27, doi: 10.18060/25839 copyright © 2021 kennedy weaver and becky liu-lastres this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 15 abstract in recent years, the need for advanced precautions for mitigating the risks imposed by events, which involve high volumes of people in shared spaces, has multiplied. the occurrence of covid-19 pandemic has further altered event practices, spaces, and event attendees’ mindsets in large-scale events. proper crowd management not only seeks to prevent acts of violence and injury, but in today’s event environments; efforts should be consciously applied to reduce the spread of respiratory infections such as covid-19. as the events industry continues to evolve and face new limitations, ways in which event organizers respond must evolve as well. smartphone technologies are opening new ways for event organizers to communicate with and monitor attendees. this case study explores current crowd management strategies, analyzes the gaps in widely used models, and finally proposes event management technologies trending in the field. keywords: risk management; event smart-phone applications; crowd management; mobile sensing; sport events introduction crowd management has been a key challenge for event planners – they try to attract as many attendees as possible while ensuring the safety and quality of the event experiences (mowen et al., 2003). the onset of the pandemic has placed even more concentration on crowd management in events, given the essence of social distancing in preventing the spread of the infections. therefore, effective crowd management practices directly impact the safety and satisfaction of event attendees, the credibility and trustworthiness of event organizers, and the overall health of the host destination. the importance of crowd management efforts must not be understated. in some cases, proper crowd management efforts in the pre-planning stage can be a matter of life or death for some attendees (green, 2016). some event organizers even event brands, their major stakeholders, and entire host cities have been shamed and tainted with ideas of death, irresponsibility, and incompetence because of failed crowd management efforts. in extreme cases, event operation plans erroneously fail to mention any sort of contingency for surging crowds (macaya, 2021; patel & kasakove, 2021). finally, situations of continual crowding such as overtourism, exacerbates environmental damage of the host destination from high levels of pollution (johansson et al., 2012). responses to failed crowd management practices expand beyond simply increasing security staffing at events. there is a list of technologies that have already been deployed in managing crowds: surveillance cameras, heat maps, drones, prediction modeling software; yet these technologies only offer pre-event insights, provide limited coverage and information, or have further risked attendee safety (brown et al. 2013; hirth et al., 2021; martella, 2017; mowen et al., 2003; solmaz et al., 2014). advancements in crowd management practices are absolutely necessary to prevent additional event tragedies from occurring. accordingly, this study analyzes the case of the 2021 collegiate football event in indianapolis. in, discusses the options, and develops an action plan for applying crowd risk mitigation technologies in urban sport events. in doing so, the findings of this study provide new weaver, k & liu-lastres, b. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 14-27, doi: 10.18060/25839 copyright © 2021 kennedy weaver and becky liu-lastres this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 16 insights into crowd management during the pandemic times and offer practical implications for event planners and other practitioners. study context on january 7, 2022, over 110,000 fans, 2,000 volunteers, football teams, training crews, media crews, venue staff, and event operations staff will flock to the center of circle city to mingle with indianapolis’s 857,642 residents (nearly 30,000 residents in the city’s mile square alone) to kick off the national college football playoffs (kollar, 2021). although fans will have activities spread throughout the city at iconic spaces like bankers life fieldhouse, georgia street, pan-am plaza, lucas oil stadium, monument circle,and the white river state park; they will be met with the winds and temperatures of indiana’s winter, pushing the majority indoors. while events such as the college football playoffs are necessary to the economic and tourism development goals of cities like indianapolis, the crowds they bring pose a long list of risks to everyone involved. attendee safety, event and venue owner liability, resident quality of life, and the destination’s environment must be accounted for when planning the event’s crowd risk mitigation plan. conceptual background crowd management in events riskful crowding can occur when the volume of people is too high, or movement of people is too slow for the adequate flow through the physical space. this type of crowding poses safety risks. inconvenient crowding occurs when queue lines for vendors, services, or attractions exceed the expected wait time of visitors. waiting times longer than 8 minutes pose negative impacts to event experience, attendee satisfaction, and income maximization (alvarado-valencia et al., 2017; martella et al., 2017). behaviors of individuals within crowds can further escalate crowd volumes or dangerous movement patterns. besides the norms, a wide variety of elements need to be considered when developing crowd management strategies for major urban sport events such as the college football playoffs. these elements include both external factors such as the sporting environment, urban population growth, and the mega-event trend, as well as logistical factors like the different crowd management techniques. external factors sporting environment each type of sporting event draws its own crowds. in the case of college football, fans are known to gather and party in large numbers. team pride, alcohol, and social media play a role in advancing violence or unruliness at the games (iboshi, 2017). in the 2016 season for college football alone, records show 3,778 fans were ejected and 1,102 fans were arrested. these numbers only account for 60 football bowl subdivisions out of 128 that sent numbers into kgw for the investigation. records further show that some games’ extent of crowd management was deploying 1 state trooper for each 1,000 fans and the use of surveillance cameras in the control room. a quote from sport psychologist brian baxter captures the environment’s effect on fans well: “you just lose yourself to the group… morals kind of erode, your individual responsibility erodes, and you are more likely to do something you would never do” (iboshi, 2017). weaver, k & liu-lastres, b. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 14-27, doi: 10.18060/25839 copyright © 2021 kennedy weaver and becky liu-lastres this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 17 urban population growth according to the united nations, nearly 55% of humanity (4.3 billion people) lives in cities today. by 2030, about 60% of the world’s population will live in urban areas, and 70% by 2050 (united nations, 2021). when the density of people becomes too high; crime, incidence of injury and illness, severe traffic delays, and pollution also increase often more than proportionately through the interaction of populations (johansson et al., 2012). as urban populations grow, density of the event locations is already at high risk levels prior to the addition of tourists. resident and visitor interactions grow negative as each competes for the space through crowding and traffic experience. the mega-event trend as if urban cores are not overwhelmingly dense as is, the industry’s trend and push for mega events further exacerbates the issue. maximizing event impacts through ancillary events brings more people for longer amounts of time. additionally, city-wide events can bring large volumes of tourists who are unfamiliar with the host destination. maneuvering around a small venue with adequate signage is feasible, but once the venues begin to grow in scale and the displays of signage become more difficult, tourists get lost or circulate in fewer areas. logistical factors traditional crowd management technologies the traditional crowd management strategies normally take place during an event and rely heavily on communication technologies that are pre-determined in the event planning process. for example, turnstiles count the numbers of people entering and exiting an event, but they have no control over in-event crowding behaviors. barriers are used to mold crowds or block off access to unauthorized areas. barriers sometimes are disregarded or become dangerous blockades in mass evacuations and unexpected crowd volumes (martella et al., 2017). once crowding occurs; megaphones, audio systems, and static screen displays are used to send communications to attendees. noticeably, each of these technologies have some crowd dispersing power, but are not fully effective especially for city-wide events. audio strategies only reach so far and can be drowned out by the nature of the event. large screens, while at first thought seem like an effective way to communicate through changeable signage, actually draw crowds. additionally, sharma et al. (2016) recommend that a comprehensive crowd management system should include (1) planning and infrastructure support at the planning stage, (2) crowd monitoring and control during an event, and (3) data analysis for key decision-making. new layer to crowds: covid events are now held to a new level of responsibility for crowd risk mitigation due to the covid-19 pandemic. events have been linked to the rise in cases for host destinations. a case in the netherlands saw a drastic spike where there were 13,836 influenza-related hospitalizations in the 2017/2018 influenza epidemic, and carnival fell about 1 week before the peak of these hospitalizations (lumc-covid-19 research group, 2020). for the well-being of the host destination and all visitors involved, new crowd risk mitigation technologies (crmt) instead of “management” strategies may be the key to in-person event continuation by supplementing travel confidence. in many cases, crmt could be the difference between life or death for at-risk populations. event organizers are constantly forced to redesign current risk management procedures to ensure the safety of attendees, and ultimately, the longevity of events and host destinations. as host weaver, k & liu-lastres, b. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 14-27, doi: 10.18060/25839 copyright © 2021 kennedy weaver and becky liu-lastres this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 18 cities evolve, new types of risks emerge, and technology advances; the types of crowd management strategies deployed must change accordingly. to achieve this, the root causes behind current ineffective crowd management practices must be identified. these findings will then shed light on the key features new technologies will need to have to perform more efficiently. applying crowd risk mitigation technologies (crmt) not all types of crowding are bad. studies find that crowds in event settings often indicates the popularity of the event and can be perceived positively (mowen et al., 2003). well managed crowds in meticulously planned events are acceptable. in fact, in the right environments, stable crowds are integral parts of the sense of community for event goers. therefore, crowds are not the problem; how well their behavior and potential negative impacts are planned for is. pre-event planning is the key to maximizing the economic and social benefits of crowds where appropriate. pre-event planning is also the first to be blamed when damage or inconvenience actualizes during events. in fact, a qualitative study with 55 crowd management experts found that effective crowd management takes place 90% pre-event and 10% during an event. figure 1 illustrates the makeup of an effective crowd management plan (martella et al., 2017). figure 1: on current crowd management practices and the need for increased situation awareness, prediction, and intervention (martella et al., 2017) event design and communication are critical elements that can determine the success of a crowd management plan in events (martella et al., 2017; van winkle & bueddefeld, 2020). failures in event design can include inadequate amounts of signage, poor traffic flow, under-planned vendor mapping, and dangerous structure placement. additionally, event design can be challenged by complex host environments like outdoor urban cores for unexpected high volumes of people, tall buildings/structures blocking routes and views, vehicular traffic, and weather. for communication, failures in current crowd management strategies can be traced back to absence of reliable communication methods between event staff and attendees, poorly designed signage, and the nature of interventions for violence and riskful crowding. these two critical components of crowd management strategies are echoed in industry studies on crowd management professionals’ samples and event attendee samples. risk mitigation technologies is a term to refer to electronical resources used to prevent, weaver, k & liu-lastres, b. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 14-27, doi: 10.18060/25839 copyright © 2021 kennedy weaver and becky liu-lastres this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 19 rather than manage, unfavorable outcomes from the nature of the labor and working environments in fields like healthcare, energy sourcing, and the construction industry (wilson, 2004). for example, health and safety risk mitigation technologies such as visualization cameras augmented with artificial intelligence pattern recognition software to detect inanimate objects and people obstructing the safe movement of machinery at construction sites (edwards et al. 2021). by applying this concept to event design and crowd management, the term crowd risk mitigation technologies (crmt) is uniquely specified. adapting advanced crowd risk mitigation technologies to align with the needs of all parties involved is the only way to ensure the safety of attendees and the longevity of events and host destinations. based on the root causes of crowding identified from the two main actors (event staff and attendees), the most effective crowd risk mitigation strategy would be one that dives down to the root causes of riskful crowding by improving organizer-attendee communications, advancing real-time crowd monitoring, and assisting the timing and nature of current intervention methods. examples of crmt while risk management has been an integral part of event design; 2021 has added new layers to the challenge, as well as new technologies to event designers’ tool belts. below are options for crmt and a comparison of their ability to execute crucial tasks for advancing crowd management practices. 1. develop a location-based app (mobile crowdsensing) a. develop an event brand specific smartphone application with mobile sensing through location-based software development kits (sdks) for real-time crowd risk mitigation from attendee and event management sides (ewen, 2021). access realtime maps illustrating movement and crowd densities, prioritize personnel dispersion based on most dense areas, coordinate live wait times for activations based on the location’s density, send real-time updates to attendees in specific areas for less crowded service alternatives. b. cons of this option include time and funds needed for its development. development could last anywhere from 4-9 months and developers charge 20 to 30 an hour (duong, 2021). 2. last years’ lessons + pre-developed event app purchase a. continue the use of traditional crowd risk management strategies. deploy security personnel to address violence and place physical structures to ease traffic flow based on observations of the prior year’s event. purchase plans from pre-developed apps like whova, crowdcompass, or eventmobi to mitigate some areas of crowdimposed risks. the app could ease entering and exiting crowd volumes by timed entry notifications and updates, provide manual updates on parking availability, feature a static map for vendor and activity locating. b. cons for this option include lack of real-time, location-based services, and lack of personalization and control. 3. heat mapping (static crowdsensing) a. invest in static sensing like heat mapping from companies such as ges. the smart phone tracking system is made up of floor sensors throughout the exhibit hall to detect mac addresses from attendees' smartphone devices. the video tracking system is a series of temporary overhead cameras in exhibit hall ceilings, or on poles weaver, k & liu-lastres, b. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 14-27, doi: 10.18060/25839 copyright © 2021 kennedy weaver and becky liu-lastres this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 20 in lobby areas. this could yield 2d models at less expensive price points and 3d models at higher price points (ges, 2021). b. cons: i. static sensing suffers from several problems, such as insufficient node coverage, high installation/ maintenance cost, and lack of scalability. physical equipment is subject to becoming outdated (solmaz, 2014). ii. must be reinstalled if the event moves to a new location next year. iii. cameras only provide limited view (martella, 2017). 4. simulation software a. simulators such as flexsim and simwalk use computer-based modeling of any realworld environment and its interactions or processes. simulations allow organizations in the industry to analyze and experiment with their processes or schedules in a virtual setting for fine-tuning real-world environments (flexsim, 2021; simwalk, 2021). b. simulations have been used in a broad range of environments from airports to sport event stadiums for their ability to illustrate possible scenarios pre-event for event teams to consider. they have been used to plan stadium evacuation plans, as well as help designers weigh logistical decisions for wait times, safety, and customer satisfaction. unlike spreadsheet-based analysis and forecasting, simulation offers a quick and efficient way to adjust parameters and re-simulate, saving valuable time with quicker results. however, cons of this option include lack of real-time monitoring for mid-event crowd interventions. investments in this technology would be solely utilized pre and post events. developing an action plan for the collegiate kickoff event in the case of the college football playoffs, investments in crowd risk mitigation technologies are necessary and timely. hosting this specific city-wide sporting event for the first time in harsh weather conditions amidst a pandemic and tense social atmosphere at a time when sustainability is at the forefront of competitive edge conversations for events; emphasizes the need for streamlined organizer-attendee communications, fast event information access, and effective, holistic crowd monitoring technologies. therefore, the development of a location-based app is the primary suggestion for organizers and destinations to invest in advanced crowd risk mitigation technologies. referring to the suggestions from crowd experts and event attendees for developing the ideal crowd risk mitigation technologies, a location-based app sufficiently meets all desirable features and much more. brown et al. (2013) found that crmts such as geo-tracked mobile devices mitigate the crowding problem, and even increase visitor satisfaction and intent to visit and revisit. dane et al. (2020) found that geo-location data revealed intra-event participation was limited by temporal restraints by tracking the flow and visitation levels of attendees; allowing event organizers to redesign event spaces for maximized profits while enhancing the attendees’ event experience. bustard et al. (2019) found that attendees demonstrate an increasing demand for real-time event integrative information, with more immersive and augmented experiences. backend management of a location-based app will increase awareness and reliable real-time crowd monitoring, improve communication channels between event organizers and attendee populations, collect advanced and real-time crowd behavior data, and assist in preventing accidents and enabling intervention without force. the front-end features of the app itself can be seen as weaver, k & liu-lastres, b. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 14-27, doi: 10.18060/25839 copyright © 2021 kennedy weaver and becky liu-lastres this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 21 mobile, interactive, and personalizable form of signage. it’s adaptable, versatile, innovative, and attractive. continued use will lead to a wealth of knowledge for improving event facilities, attendee experiences, and crowd flow design. aside from the support from research, the idea of developing a location-based app may seem unattainable for some event organizers and cities due to current funding structures and education gaps in leading technology. a location-based smartphone application not only will advance the event planners’ crowd management strategies to crowd risk mitigation strategies; but it speaks to the desirable themes such as health, convenience, connection, innovation, and sustainability. because of this, investments in the app can be funded through grants relating to public health, regional development, sustainable tourism development, technology for humanities, and innovation. additionally, research and actual implementation for mobile sensing in tourism is rapidly expanding. applications of mobile sensing can be seen in theme parks, festivals, and sports events for advancement in crowd mitigation and attendee experience (brown et al., 2013; bustard et al., 2019; dane et al., 2020). through these studies, a list of features and suggestions for app implementation is featured below. app features, integrations, and implementation strategy recommendations deep dive: i. app features a. privacy notice page: what is used and what is not b. share location feature: “find my friend” c. live vendor queues and wait times for attendees (similar to google business live) d. itinerary planner with gps guidance e. live queue updates through notifications to attendees for internal ticketed events f. crisis report feature/hotline g. worker chat feature: log-in secured, backend feature for solutions and crowd control communications h. location-based notifications for incidents reported in attendees’ nearby area i. live parking map j. what’s happening page: public feed for photo sharing k. front end display of highly populated areas (crowdmapping feature) 1. for attendees concerned about covid and wanting to avoid crowds 2. for those looking to find large gatherings and increase sociability ii. implementation strategies a. feature in registration email for convenient tick access, early event map access, vendor deals, or share for early ticketed event registration access if downloaded to promote app use b. host team and city merchandise on commerce page of app to promote use and ease of sales c. market to destination residents as tool for wayfinding daily life around events to increase crowd density accuracy d. send location-based recommendations to attendees in large queues for alternative attraction or vendor options with location provided to encourage event traffic flow and sales the following implementation plan is a sample of time-organized tasks that the event organization committee will execute to successfully develop and implement a location-based event app. weaver, k & liu-lastres, b. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 14-27, doi: 10.18060/25839 copyright © 2021 kennedy weaver and becky liu-lastres this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 22 time to event task duration task notes pre-event 2-3 years out secure event bid event organizing committee and dmo app developer rfq and quote committee outlines desired features for app on front and back ends (2-3 months) funding development committee finance locates grants. duration depends on the close dates of open grant cycles of interest. use quote and design plan from app developer in grant. 1 year out (4-9 months) location-based app development process committee works alongside developers during the multi-phased process. includes app prototyping, designing, coding, and testing. 8 months out ongoing up to event event announcement and marketing marketing dept. will begin communications of the event. app downloading is encouraged by early ticket access or experience discounts/packages. 2 months out (1-3 weeks) app training developers train event staff on usage and processes. training will cover front end (user side) of app (10%), and back-end monitoring of crowd management dashboard and dispatch methods (90%) day of event command center implementation command center (cc) monitors real-time dashboard of movement and densities at points of interest as identified density control cc identifies high volumes of people in high-risk areas. dispatches additional security team members and sends mobile communications to attendees in the form of attraction suggestions. as identified flow control cc identifies slow movement in queues for services or vendors. event team contacts vendors to assess needs and plan of action. as reported crisis response if risks fail to be mitigated, situations reported in the app will be identified and linked to report location for event security in the area to easily locate and address. ongoing satisfaction reporting attendees tag locations in event and leave reviews post event sentiment surveys committee will distribute post event communications with surveys on technology use weaver, k & liu-lastres, b. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 14-27, doi: 10.18060/25839 copyright © 2021 kennedy weaver and becky liu-lastres this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 23 (2-3 months) data configuration app developers will create a report based on location data and content analysis of attendee posts on app evaluation of the plan to ensure the benefits of implementing a location-based app is being maximized, event owners should set specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely goals. these goals will serve as metrics of success and prerequisites for further investments. goal yr 1 yr 2 yr 3 yr 4 yr 5 effectiveness analyses: numbers, locations, and environmental factors of all reported incidents of injury or violence will be documented post event on a yearly basis for comparison to succeeding years to track app’s crowd risk mitigation success. x x x x x attendee sentiment analyses: each year, post event, surveys will be distributed to attendees to evaluate each user-based feature of the event’s location-based app. results will be configured into scores, which will be used to assess the direct of app related investments and updates. x x x x x after impact is realized, benefits are maximized, and new investments in other interactions or technologies become optional; event owners and researchers will perform content analysis across social media and review sites for location-based app and projected technologies to contrast and compare investment options. (x) x event industry development: after impact is realized, every two years, event owners will provide researchers to mine location and attendee behavior specific data from the app to develop cases for additional event industry fields of research and innovations. x x other considerations privacy the concern for app user privacy is one that arises in every location-based app discussion. this area is under heavy research and debate. enabling location data can be temporary, and personal identifying information can be left untouched. with the correct privacy protection measures, brand trustworthiness and loyalty, and technical planning; privacy concerns of app users may rest assured (wang et al., 2020). due to privacy concerns and the educational gaps for technology use in older generations, event designers may be hesitant to invest in location-based apps. if large amounts of attendees do not utilize the event’s location-based app, numbers and data for crowd risk mitigation displays can be skewed or ineffective. this can be overcome through the event design process. user interface design, prototype design, app trial periods with populations that represent the target attendee audience are crucial to successful implementation. educational gaps for collegiate target populations may be of less concern because of their general acceptance of technology (talantis et weaver, k & liu-lastres, b. (2021) / events and tourism review, 4(2) events and tourism review vol. 4 no. 2 (2021), 14-27, doi: 10.18060/25839 copyright © 2021 kennedy weaver and becky liu-lastres this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 24 al., 2020). funding because of the large-scale investment needed for advanced apps, event organizers will need to develop project funding. grants for usa nonprofits, agencies, tribes, and ihes for digital projects in the humanities, and federal grants for risk mitigation, innovation, or sustainability should be considered in the funding model. conclusions through a review of the potential application of crmt and an analysis of the scenario, this conceptual paper develops an action plan for applying crmts in collegiate events. first and foremost, a location-based app would serve as an event’s multifunctional competitive advantage. a location-based event app would reduce the chances of risks actualizing at the event. this would build brand trustworthiness and brand loyalty as event owners demonstrate active measures for attendee wellbeing and safety. it would also reduce the possible out-of-pocket costs for legal settlements. direct organizer-attendee communications would increase attendance confidence, increasing sales and revenue. adopting modern technology into event practices engages and attracts audiences because of their conveniences, especially those of younger generations. extensive crmts demonstrate an event owner’s proactive commitment to attendee safety, increasing their chances for competitive venue securement. participating in the app development and large project funding processes are valuable additions to the cv’s and success metrics of event organizers. additionally, the implementation of a location-based app at college football playoffs will provide attendees with a large range of value. most importantly, their health and safety will be positively impacted with assistance from the app’s well-planned features. a live crowd map will enable attendees with compromised immunities to locate crowds and avoid them by accessing alternative routes when possible. attendees looking for more ways to engage at the event can locate happenings in the live event map. if riskful crowding or dangerous situations do occur, attendees will receive immediate information directly to their personal devices through notifications from the command center. aside from value in health and safety, attendees’ sense of convenience will increase with the implementation of a location-based app. the “find my friend” feature will allow attendees to locate their communities better in the challenging urban environment. while some smart devices (i.e., apple products) already enable this feature, locations based on temporary event structure and updates on closed roads will be accurately displayed. additionally, density configurations can be used to create displays for vendor wait times and locations so that attendees can plan their own unique itinerary based off of real-time data. furthermore, the role of event operations staff in an event can make or break the attendee experience. advancements in the quality and depth of organizer-staff communications would result in better directed efforts of the front-line staff. the power of radios was revolutionary. imagine the power of an app that includes direct communications alongside live environmental updates for improved mitigation efforts. experience in technology use is a hard skill that would supplement portfolios of event operation professionals. lastly, vendors reap the consequences of event crowding at direct levels through attendee frustration and revenue impacts. the power of an app to send notifications to attendees on current queue times will decrease the negative impacts of crowding on vendors, as well as promote more weaver, k & liu-lastres, b. 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(2004). emerging radiation health-risk mitigation technologies. aip conference proceedings, 699(1). https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1649656 https://doi.org/10.1080/15470148.2020.1719949 https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/cities/ https://doi-org.proxy.ulib.uits.iu.edu/10.1007/s11280-019-00745-2 https://doi-org.proxy.ulib.uits.iu.edu/10.1007/s11280-019-00745-2 https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1649656 events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 39-51, doi: 10.18060/26486 copyright © 2022 ana cecilia reyes uribe, eva angélica guerra ávalos, paula lourdes guerrero rodríguez and josé manuel quintero villa this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2022 volume 5 no. 2 challenges for older tourists on public transportation in mexico city ana cecilia reyes uribe eva angélica guerra ávalos paula lourdes guerrero rodríguez josé manuel quintero villa university of guadalajara, méxico correspondence: areyesu@cucea.udg.mx (a. c. reyes uribe) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation reyes uribe, a. c., guerra ávalos, e. a., guerrero rodríguez, p. l., & quintero villa, j. m. (2022). challenges for older tourists on public transportation in mexico city. events and tourism review, 5(2), 39-51. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:areyesu@cucea.udg.mx http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr reyes uribe, a. c. et al. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 39-51. 40 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 39-51, doi: 10.18060/26486 copyright © 2022 ana cecilia reyes uribe, eva angélica guerra ávalos, paula lourdes guerrero rodríguez and josé manuel quintero villa this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract this exploratory paper attempts to understand some challenges for older tourists regarding the physical accessibility of public transport. it focuses on mexico city and its global competitiveness as an accessible tourism destination. a review of recent literature and internet sources contributed to raising potential challenges involved to offer an accessible public transport service in mexico city. sources reviewed suggest that two modes of transportation -the subway and the bus rapid transit servicewere well-equipped with accessible elements, particularly for users with mobility limitations. yet, important challenges not strictly related to the supply of accessible infrastructure and services were found, such as a high level of insecurity, harassment, and discrimination. the model of public transport management in mexico city seems to focus on affordable mass transportation, based on the utilitarian aspect of public transportation exclusively. the degree of satisfaction of users, including tourists, is overlooked. appropriate development of accessible urban tourism, including the supply of public transport, would benefit mexico city to pursue its competitiveness as an accessible tourism destination for older tourists. keywords: public transport; older tourists; accessibility; mobility; mexico city introduction life expectancy has changed rapidly, as people are expected to live longer; for instance, in 2019, there were 703 million people over 65 years old in the world, and they are expected to live, on average, an additional 17 years longer (united nations, 2019). the increase in the aging population is evident among developed countries, and this tendency is followed closely by developing countries (ritchie & roser, 2020). parallel to this demographic change, increasing demand for older adults traveling is a trend (alén et al., 2012; balderas-cejudo et al., 2016; kim et al., 2015). thus, tourism destinations might consider a design of products and services to target this increasing market (alén et al., 2012; wto, 2016), as aging travelers show a more intensive tourism consumption than younger cohorts, they stay away longer, they have a higher frequency of travels and spend more money (balderas-cejudo et al., 2016). older adults seem to enjoy visiting large urban cities, and among their favorite choices are religious places and historical sites (musa & sim, 2010). traveling seems to be a beneficial behavior as it is likely to increase the participation of older adults in activities that may improve their quality of life (kim et al., 2015; vigolo, 2017). there is no consensus on what should define an older adult traveler (balderas cejudo et al., 2016; nella & christou, 2016; pesonen et al., 2015). nella and christou (2016) mention that one might consider an older adult using a range from a very low level of 50 to 55 years of age. similarly, otoo and kim (2018) mention that the minimum age established to consider an individual as an older adult is 50 years, since from this age symptoms of aging are more evident than in previous stages, such as graying hair, wrinkles, vision problems and the loss of certain functional abilities. however, from a gerontological perspective, an older adult has a chronological age above 65 years, which is usually the average age of retirement; thus, many times, a retiree is considered to be in the group of older adults (balderas cejudo et al., 2016; pesonen et al., 2015). so, it is difficult to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ reyes uribe, a. c. et al. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 39-51. 41 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 39-51, doi: 10.18060/26486 copyright © 2022 ana cecilia reyes uribe, eva angélica guerra ávalos, paula lourdes guerrero rodríguez and josé manuel quintero villa this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. establish a conceptualization of what an older adult traveler is because this segment is not homogeneous (nella & christou, 2016; pesonen et al., 2015), and that is why it is advisable to study older travelers through sub-segments that share similar characteristics (nella & christou, 2016). for this paper, an older tourist is 60 years of age or older. this age has been chosen to match the age established by the government/official secondary source of information used in this paper (e.g., escuela superior de turismo, 2017; secretaría de movilidad, 2019). older travelers using public transportation transportation elements are relevant to all population groups, as fatima and moridpour (2019) explain, transportation is linked to freedom of movement, regardless of rural or urban settings, age groups, and reasons for using different types of transportation. in 2007, the world health organization published an age-friendly guide, that included age-friendly transportation aspects to illustrate the specific transportation needs of older adults, such as public transport with good connections and well-marked routes and vehicles, transportation for disabled people, transport stops and stations conveniently located, well-lit with adequate seating and shelter, and vehicles not overcrowded, accessible, and with priority seating (who, 2007). the aspects mentioned in this guide do not explicitly address the needs of older adult travelers, but they coincide with studies done on the accessibility of tourist destinations, which include the needs of older travelers (see wto, 2016). older travelers, like other population groups, seek information about the destination to visit, including tours, events, weather information, prices, restaurants, places to shop, and the type of local transportation available (pesonen et al., 2015). there is evidence of different preferences in the use of transportation by age segment among older adult travelers. for example, batra (2009) conducted a study on the travel experience and behavior of 384 foreign senior travelers in thailand, including the preferred means of transportation. the results showed that participants aged 55 to 64 years enjoyed outdoor activities and favored walking, if possible, while those participants in the age group of 65 to74 years preferred to use buses as a mode of transportation, and this was like those respondents older than 75 years who would choose buses and a tourist guide to visit a tourist site (coach tour). also, it has been found that older travelers experience tourist destinations differently from younger cohorts –on the hedonic and risk variables– as they highly consider the risk of using transportation in the destination (garcía lirios, 2021). one important aspect when studying the preferences and needs of older travelers is the accessibility of the tourism destination, as this may help to guarantee “the use and enjoyment of tourism irrespective of the capabilities, status or condition of people.” (wto, 2016, p. 22). the accessibility of a place might be hampered by several barriers, including attitudinal, organizational, architectural, or physical barriers, as well as information/communication and technology barriers (council of ontario universities, 2013). the beneficiaries of accessible tourism include older adults, individuals with physical, sensory, and intellectual disabilities, as well as pregnant women, children, persons with obesity, and those with temporary disabilities. still, it is important to consider that many persons with physical disabilities, particularly those related to mobility, are older adults (rantakokko et al., 2013). mobility refers to the capacity of an individual to move alone and safely from one place to another; however, mobility limitations will increase with advancing age, and several physiological changes, such as a decrease in muscle strength and balance impairments, will eventually cause disability (rantakokko et al., 2013). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ reyes uribe, a. c. et al. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 39-51. 42 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 39-51, doi: 10.18060/26486 copyright © 2022 ana cecilia reyes uribe, eva angélica guerra ávalos, paula lourdes guerrero rodríguez and josé manuel quintero villa this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. this exploratory document attempts to understand the current status regarding the physical accessibility of public transport in mexico city. this document focuses on the global competitiveness of this city as an accessible tourism destination for older tourists. a review of recent literature and internet sources contributed to raising potential challenges involved to offer an accessible public transport service in mexico city. it should be noted, however, that this research effort presents an incomplete picture and constitutes only a preliminary stage on the issues concerned. this is an initial step to expand with further empirical research. transportation in the travel experience within the tourism activity, people move around from one place to another and physical barriers may affect the tourism experience, including transportation to a destination between countries or within a country (in transit transportation). for instance, an international survey published by the travelsat competitive index (2012, as cited in wto, 2016) showed that 43% of tourists with special needs complained regarding their tourism experiences; of those, the main complaint was transportation, as 15% of tourists with special needs criticized the offer of transportation at the destination and 7% of all tourists also complaint regarding the transportation offer. in urban areas, public transportation is likely to be used by tourists, particularly when the tourist destination is a big city with traffic congestion and large distances between tourist attractions (le-klähn et al., 2015; vigolo, 2017). however, not all public transportation is convenient and attractive to tourists. as vigolo (2017) pointed out, older adults may experience minor disabilities due to aging, and when traveling, the transport aspect is relevant for choosing a destination; this is particularly true regarding physical accessibility, as it can be a key barrier that may affect the tourist experience. public transport accessibility the term accessibility is linked to the ability to move (lättman, friman & olsson, 2016) and includes moving from one place to another through public transport services that are easy to use; these services may also incorporate other factors such as the quality of transit, their utility, and travel costs (verseckienė, meškauskas & batarlienė, 2016). people with mobility limitations might need walking aids and/or wheelchairs either electric or manual (sze & christensen, 2017) and physical accessibility is essential for the use of public transport. the literature shows different measures for public transport accessibility, and these measures are associated with the type of disability. physical and sensory disabilities are frequently mentioned in the literature, but others can also be considered such as those disabilities related to mental and intellectual health (verseckienė et al., 2016). among the variables that can be measured, sze and christensen (2017) provide a list of elements focusing on physical access to public transport services, such as elevated platforms for loading and unloading of buses, removal of level difference at curbside, and reduction of gap size between platforms and bus/trail transit vehicles. also, several elements may reduce difficulties in maneuvering for wheelchair users, such as the reduction of level differences and gradient or ramps and the provision of sufficient clear space at the landing of ramps and platforms. furthermore, geospatial information regarding accessible facilities for pre-trip planning should also be considered, as this can be useful for those individuals with impaired mobility. similarly, the ministry of tourism in mexico identifies five main elements to evaluate the accessibility of public transport in mexico city, including elements for individuals with sensory and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ reyes uribe, a. c. et al. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 39-51. 43 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 39-51, doi: 10.18060/26486 copyright © 2022 ana cecilia reyes uribe, eva angélica guerra ávalos, paula lourdes guerrero rodríguez and josé manuel quintero villa this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. mobility impairments, as illustrated in table 1. table 1. elements to evaluate the accessibility of public transport in mexico city elements description main aspects 1 the components towards the station (from the pedestrian crossings to the station) pedestrian crossing mark, ramp or crossing level, pedestrian-audible traffic light, bridge or lift tunnel, accessible route, public lighting 2 the station platform ramp, podo-touch route, touch signal, entrance door, support personnel, call button, visual and audible information, lighting inside the station, the gap between the vehicle floor and the platform 3 the service operation the service level at peak times and the service level in the vehicle 4 the interior of the vehicle seats, armrest covers, handrails, and handholds 5 modal transfer accessible route without many stops and with an information system and sensory orientation source: secretaría de turismo, 2019. transport modes in mexico city mexico city, the capital of mexico, is one of the busiest cities in the world and it is also an important tourism destination for domestic travelers. a city of more than 20 million inhabitants (agenda de competitividad turística de la ciudad de méxico, 2013), of which more than 6.3 million people commute each day using public and private transport supply (onu, 2014). this city has the most complete network of transport services in the country; it also has the fifth-longest underground railway network in the world. regarding the use of transportation by tourists in mexico city, there is little information available; however, there is evidence that shows that both, domestic and international tourists, share transport preferences when using local transportation in mexico city, as they choose the subway and individual taxis mainly; although their arrival transportation to the city is different as illustrated in table 2. three out of every four visitors of national origin arrive in mexico city by bus. the main mean of local transport is the subway, followed by individual taxis. international tourists come mostly from the american continent with 78% of the total number of visitors. nine out of ten tourists arrive in mexico city by plane and they usually travel by public transport: subway, individual taxis, and uber (90%) (escuela superior de turismo, 2017). table 2. use of public transport among visitors/tourists origin of visitors main arrival transport main local transport national visitors bus (73%) other (27%) subway (58%) taxis (17%) other (25%) international visitors plane (92%) subway, taxi, uber (90%) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ reyes uribe, a. c. et al. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 39-51. 44 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 39-51, doi: 10.18060/26486 copyright © 2022 ana cecilia reyes uribe, eva angélica guerra ávalos, paula lourdes guerrero rodríguez and josé manuel quintero villa this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. other (8%) other (10%) source: escuela superior de turismo, 2017. in mexico city, the use of public transport predominates over private (aguirre quezada, 2017; secretaría de movilidad, 2019). although cars represent most vehicles on the road, they mobilize only a small number of trips (secretaría de movilidad, 2019). that is, around half of the population travels every day using public transport, and the other half uses private transportation or walks as a mode of transportation (see figure 1) (secretaría de movilidad, 2019). the most common form of public transportation is the use of collective taxis known as microbuses with 67.8%, followed by the subway 16.8%, individual taxis 9.7%, and metrobus 5.7% (i.e., bus rapid transit service) (secretaría de movilidad, 2019). although the use of public transport predominates over private, the average time of a trip on public transport is higher than that of private transport. a trip in the subway implies 39% more time on average than a trip in a private car; this is also true when using collective taxis with 54%, and suburban buses with 33% (secretaría de movilidad, 2019). the main purpose of those traveling in public transportation is to go to work; in second place, people travel to go to school (islas rivera, et al., 2012). the average travel time is 49 minutes; around 54% of daily trips are over half an hour. equally important is the age range of travelers as most of them are adults between 25 and 59 years old. older adults and children represent a relatively small fraction of the total number of travelers (islas rivera, et al., 2012). figure 1. preference for the use of various forms of transport by local people source: secretaría de movilidad, 2019. the accessibility of public transport based on the literature review and internet sources, two modes of transportation –the subway and the metrobus (bus rapid transit service)– introduce several elements to improve the physical accessibility of users in mexico city. for instance, the metrobus stations have mobility equipment such as ramps on sidewalks to facilitate access to all stations. though not all, most stations are wheelchair accessible as they offer wheelchair lifts. regarding other disabilities, the stations provide large-print and tactile braille signs for the blind and visually impaired, an alert button for people with disabilities to request help, and audio information to hear the next bus arrival. in buses, there are exclusive spaces for wheelchairs, some buses carry wheelchair ramps for easy access from the platform to the bus; also, some buses are equipped with visual announcements on screens for station arrival and audio information systems to announce the approaching arrival. the type of transport public transport private transport other (walk, bycicle) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ reyes uribe, a. c. et al. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 39-51. 45 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 39-51, doi: 10.18060/26486 copyright © 2022 ana cecilia reyes uribe, eva angélica guerra ávalos, paula lourdes guerrero rodríguez and josé manuel quintero villa this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. web page also offers a download of maps of accessible stations on the metrobus service (metrobus cdmx, 2019). in the subway network, most stations are equipped with elevators or ramps. a detailed list of metro lines is provided on the web page to inform users of the name of each station and address, along with the location of the elevator (if any) and/or stairs and ramps available. most subway lines have an elevator but are not available at every station. stations are also equipped with handrails on ramps and stairs and platform-edge warning strips. also, platform gap modifications or bridge plates are installed to reduce or eliminate the gap between trains and platforms. accessible restrooms at stations are in operation. guide dogs are also allowed in all stations and trains of the subway network. all subway trains have four reserved seats for disabled people, pregnant women, and older people, making a total of 10,584 seats. also, free access cards are available for individuals with permanent disabilities, as well as for older adults with limited mobility (metro cdmx, 2019). although both modes of transformation –the subway and the metrobus– comply with the general standards and overall requirements to be considered accessible transports, older travelers – domestic and international– might decide not to use any of both, as they are overcrowded (secretaría de movilidad, 2019); thus, wheelchair users might need special assistance from the subway staff or otherwise would have very difficult to get on/off the train. also, the subway and the metrobus systems are well-equipped with accessible elements, particularly for users with mobility limitations, however, both types of transportation are not the most frequent forms of public transportation. as mentioned before, 67.8% of all users choose collective taxis and little is known about their level of accessibility, as there is no information available suggesting that collective taxis have equipment or facilities for those with mobility impairments. this may be explained by the type of vehicles used, as most of those collective taxis are combis (a van old model). on the other hand, individual taxis have 300 units fully equipped to transport people with limited mobility. some taxis have also installed loudspeaker taximeters, and most drivers have been trained for helping disabled people, including older adults and pregnant women. most of those taxis are in strategic places nearby hospitals focusing on the needs of residents with special needs (libre acceso, 2019). accessibility competitiveness of mexico city at a national level, mexico city has the largest public transportation system and it is one of the most visited tourist destinations among mexicans, on a par with that other well-known mexican destinations such as cancún and los cabos (agenda de competitividad turística de la ciudad de méxico, 2013). unfortunately, little is known regarding the accessibility of public transport services and the competitiveness of mexico city in comparison with other mexican cities. though some evidence, based on a national survey among 20 cities in mexico, illustrates the degree of satisfaction of mexicans regarding the use of public transportation, for instance, only 28% of users are satisfied with the information on timetables, stops, and routes available, and 62% of users believe that transport units have not enough space and this make transportation uncomfortable and difficult to access (instituto mexicano para la competitividad, 2018). also, some evidence shows that public transport in mexico city faces important challenges that are not strictly related to the supply of accessible infrastructure and services. for instance, some findings revealed that in mexico city the main challenge is safe transportation, as this city has the highest perception of insecurity in public transportation nationwide. it is also the third city in mexico with the highest percentage of users who stopped using public transport due to insecurity (instituto mexicano para la competitividad, 2018). women experience more problems of insecurity https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ reyes uribe, a. c. et al. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 39-51. 46 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 39-51, doi: 10.18060/26486 copyright © 2022 ana cecilia reyes uribe, eva angélica guerra ávalos, paula lourdes guerrero rodríguez and josé manuel quintero villa this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. and harassment in public transport than men (secretaría de movilidad, 2019); consequently, some measures have been taken, as the subway system provides trains exclusively for women and some buses have a pink line for women users as well (onu, 2014). moreover, a national report on urban mobility published in 2014 by the united nations, highlights that mobility in mexico is limited and inefficient, but it is women, children, and people with disabilities who are most affected because their specific needs are not considered. similarly, it was found that people with disabilities and older adults must overcome serious obstacles, either as passengers or as pedestrians, and this group of the population also suffers abuse and discrimination. thus, abuse and discrimination might be considered attitudinal barriers that may affect the experience of public transport users, including older tourists. as previously mentioned, the main mode of public transportation in mexico city —for national and international tourists of all ages — is the subway and individual taxis (escuela superior de turismo, 2017). domestic and international travelers share similar advantages when using the subway and individual taxis, as both modes of transportation are adequately equipped to be accessible. regarding their challenges, they are also shared by domestic and international users, such as insecurity, discrimination, and overloaded transportation (instituto mexicano para la competitividad, 2018; secretaría de movilidad, 2019). other challenges, such as public transportation signage —that is primarily in spanish, may be an additional challenge for tourists who do not speak spanish, but there are no studies on this subject. globally, mexico city is far from taking the front rank as one of the most visited cities by international travelers. in 2019, the mastercard annual report stated that three cities with high population densities reached the top ten of the most visited cities by international travelers: bangkok, paris, and london (see table 3). due to the outbreak of sars-cov-2 important changes have emerged in the number of international travelers and receiving destinations, as several travel restrictions appeared (to reduce contagion). though, 2019's favorite destinations can maintain their visitor numbers, so as travel becomes more regular and travel restrictions ease. table 3. top ten destination cities world wide rank city total international visitors (millions) 1 bangkok 22.78 2 paris 19.10 3 london 19.09 4 dubai 15.93 5 singapore 14.67 6 kuala lumpur 13.79 7 new york 13.60 8 istanbul 13.40 9 tokyo 12.93 10 antalya 12.41 source: global destination city index 2019. master card report. if mexico city wants to welcome the global growing market of older tourists, a significant https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ reyes uribe, a. c. et al. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 39-51. 47 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 39-51, doi: 10.18060/26486 copyright © 2022 ana cecilia reyes uribe, eva angélica guerra ávalos, paula lourdes guerrero rodríguez and josé manuel quintero villa this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. step should be the improvement of several aspects of accessibility, including the public transport service. however, in countries such as mexico, public transport seems to be driven by a governmental agenda far from targeting national and international tourists. the government seems to focus on affordable mass transportation; for instance, behind shanghai, mexico city is in second place for offering affordable transport for low-income users, followed in third place by buenos aires (mohr, pokotilo & woetzel, 2021). however, mexico city lags behind other major cities on several indicators of transport quality and efficiency. for example, cities such as hong kong, madrid, and moscow offer transport apps and fast internet connections for all users, while mexico city ranks low on this indicator along with buenos aires and sao paolo (mohr, pokotilo & woetzel, 2021). travel comfort has also been studied, and it includes aspects such as buses and underground stations accessible to disabled passengers, the leading cities worldwide (see table 4) are those that have been equipped almost 100% with elevators and ramps for wheelchairs users and have several facilities for disable people. unfortunately, mexico city is not on the list of the top 20 cities leading accessibility in public transport (mohr, pokotilo & woetzel, 2021). table 4. leading cities for travel confort rank city 1 istanbul 2 beijing 3 toronto source: mohr, pokotilo & woetzel, 2021. as gronau (2017) argues, some governmental strategies for increasing national and international tourism arrivals remain focusing on attractions and accommodations, as well as the implementation of marketing strategies for tourism products; while the role of transportation of tourism remains disregarded, and this includes public transportation in the destination place. thus, the affordability aspect dominates the public transportation agenda in mexico city (mohr, pokotilo & woetzel, 2021). although it was found that the subway and the metrobus system fulfill most physical accessibility requirements, both types of transportation are not the most frequent forms of public transportation as 67.8% of all users choose collective taxis. so far, the public transport offer in mexico city leaves aside the quality of transport, including accessibility, as the total experience of users seems irrelevant. new challenges for the future of transport supply due to the outbreak declared by the world health organization of the coronavirus pandemic covid-19 (sars-cov-2) on january 2020, and the recent multi-country outbreak of monkeypox disease in july 2022, new barriers related to public transport have appeared. the public transport service is of particular importance as it is considered a highly contagious place because it gathers many people (whitworth, 2020). for instance, a study among german people showed that participants were especially worried about being infected in places with high public traffic such as public transport, shops, and restaurants (gerhold, 2020). consequently, this pandemic threat has changed the use of public transport and the way people used to travel, but, for how long? dixon, bornstein, and pankratz (2020) consider that, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ reyes uribe, a. c. et al. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 39-51. 48 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 39-51, doi: 10.18060/26486 copyright © 2022 ana cecilia reyes uribe, eva angélica guerra ávalos, paula lourdes guerrero rodríguez and josé manuel quintero villa this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. it is difficult to predict with confidence which changes will be temporary responses and which will be permanent. it is possible that the trends over the past decade will be undone by the combined effects of the pandemic and the potential economic fallout. but these crises could act as a catalyst, propelling cities towards a future mobility that is cleaner, safer, faster, equitable, and accessible. the challenges will no doubt vary widely between cities (p. 8). conclusion in mexico city, the public transport supply has a long road that had yet to be traveled towards offering a good public transportation option for both residents and visitors. the review of the literature establishes that changes must be done focusing on solving safety issues, growing congestion problems, improvement in comfort, and the reduction of traveling time among others. so, the reduction of physical barriers will be insufficient, as other accessibility aspects should not be overlooked, including, discrimination, social exclusion (attitudinal barriers) (onu, 2014), and risk factors (garcía lirios, 2021). although this research work provides a small picture of the accessibility of public transport in mexico city, and its possible influence to compete with other international tourist destinations, an initial recommendation for more research may be offered. more information is needed on how tourists, including older tourists, use and perceive urban public transport in mexico city. thus, future empirical studies should consider the implementation of quantitative and qualitative methods to determine: • the type of public transport used more often by older visitors in mexico city and other major tourist destinations in mexico • the reasons why some types of public transportation are more popular than others • the potential influence of some socio-demographic and cultural characteristics of users when choosing a public transport service • the possible influence of the type of transportation used by old tourists in their countries of origin • the weight played by the public transport offer in the choice of a destination (push and pull aspects) as discussed by le-klähn et al. (2014), local users and tourists may have different expectations and perceptions of the public transport offered in mexico city, thus it would be appropriate to investigate them separately. as mentioned before, some types of public transport services in mexico city (e.g., the subway system) are under-used by older mexican residents, but they are frequently used by tourists of all ages, and little research has been done to know the reasons behind them. appropriate development of urban tourism is likely to benefit the urban communities, as tourists can be new target groups of public transportation supply (gronau, 2017). a good indicator of changes in the offer of accessible public transportation for older travelers will be an increase in older residents using several modes of transport in mexico city. references https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ reyes uribe, a. c. et al. 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(2020). covid-19: a fast evolving pandemic. transactions of the royal society of tropical medicine & hygiene,114, 227-228. https://doi.org/10.1093%2ftrstmh%2ftraa025 world health organization (2007). global age-friendly cities: a guide. world health organization. retrieved from: https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/43755 world health organization (2020). coronavirus disease (covid-19). weekly epidemiological update 1. available at: https://www.who.int/publications/m/item/weekly-epidemiologicalupdate---17-august-2020 world health organization (2022). multi-country outbreak of monkeypox. external situation report 1. available at: https://www.who.int/emergencies/situations/monkeypox-oubreak-2022 world tourism organization (2016). manual on accessible tourism for all: principles, tools and best practices. module i. accessible tourism – definition and context. world tourism organization. madrid, españa. world tourism organization (2019). international tourism highlights. world tourism organization. available at: https://www.e-unwto.org/doi/pdf/10.18111/9789284421152. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://semovi.cdmx.gob.mx/media/plan-estrategico-de-movilidad-2019 https://www.gob.mx/sectur/articulos/guia-de-recomendaciones-para-el-transporte-accesible-en-el-sector-turistico?idiom=es https://www.gob.mx/sectur/articulos/guia-de-recomendaciones-para-el-transporte-accesible-en-el-sector-turistico?idiom=es https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/our-world-is-growing-older.html https://www.un.org/development/desa/en/news/population/our-world-is-growing-older.html https://doi.org/10.1093%2ftrstmh%2ftraa025 https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/43755 https://www.e-unwto.org/doi/pdf/10.18111/9789284421152 abstract events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 18-33, doi: 10.18060/28150 copyright © 2024 hyungsuk choo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2024 volume 7 no. 1 segmentation of local agricultural festivals for collaborative marketing hyungsuk choo bowling green state university correspondence: hchoo@bgsu.edu (h. choo) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation choo, h. (2024). segmentation of local agricultural festivals for collaborative marketing. events and tourism review, 7(1), 18-33. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:hchoo@bgsu.edu http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr choo, h. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 18-33. 19 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 18-33, doi: 10.18060/28150 copyright © 2024 hyungsuk choo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract this study aims to explore the heterogeneity of local agricultural festival attendees by adopting a collaborative marketing approach which enables cross-retention of festival attendees among multiple local agricultural festivals. using the data collected from the on-site survey at three local agricultural festivals, this study conducted the cluster analysis. findings indicate the viability of variety seeking and festival loyalty as segmentation criteria involving multiple local agricultural festivals together and suggested four clusters, multi festival goers, one festival goers, other festival goers, and no returners. each cluster demonstrates discrete behavioral and geographic characteristics about their local agricultural festival experience. keywords: variety seeking, festival loyalty, local agricultural festival, segmentation, and collaboration introduction local festivals are recognized for their contribution to the social and economic benefits of local communities and destinations. scholars argue that local festivals can boost local tourism demand, improve the identity of a local community, and provide tourism opportunities during offpeak seasons (chang, w., 2011; park, reisinger, & kang, 2008). as local festivals are increasingly viewed as tourism attractions attracting both tourists and residents, their number and diversity have grown significantly. in an increasingly competitive environment, it is not enough local festivals concentrate on identifying and satisfying the need of their own attendees. to compete, survive and thrive, they must identify new opportunities and niche, often through collaborations with other local festivals, while still catering to the need of their own attendees. scholars suggest that local festivals within the same region can develop collaboration to jointly market their products, programs, brand images, or attendees for mutual benefit and local sustainability (bramwell & sharman, 1999; choo & park, 2018; clarke, 1999). similar to the co-branding or brand alliance in marketing, such collaborating festivals can leverage a series of joint marketing activities to create the marketing synergy (che, veeck, & veeck, 2005). rural tourism scholars also emphasize the role of a collaborative approach for each unit of rural tourism operations where their marketing resources are often scarce (clarke, 1999; helmig, huber, & leeflang, 2007; mccomb, boyd, & boluk, 2017) however, research on the collaborative approach in rural tourism and local festivals, particularly in the segmentation studies remains scarce. while segmentation techniques have been developed over the past 40 years to assist local festival agencies in classifying distinct groups of attendees, they have primarily focused on individual festivals. there is a lack of segmentation studies focusing on the collaborative approach among local festivals, which would enable to share, extend, and cross-retain their attendees. different from conventional segmentation approaches for single brands, services, or companies, segmentation for the collaborative approach among local festivals requires identifying markets not only from their own but also from their collaborative partners to expand their attendees https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ choo, h. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 18-33. 20 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 18-33, doi: 10.18060/28150 copyright © 2024 hyungsuk choo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. base and cross-retain attendees across festivals. this study therefore sets out to develop a segmentation framework to assist a group of local festivals in implementing collaborative marketing activities to attract, satisfy, and retain their respective targeted attendees, while also cross-attracting/retaining some of their attendees from collaborating festivals. specifically, the first part of the research explores the possibility of grouping local festival attendees into distinct sub-segments based on their similarities and differences in variety seeking and festival loyalty. the research then ascertains whether statistically significant differences exist between the resulting segments in terms of psychographic and demographic variables. to achieve this, the following section begins with a review of literature on market segmentation, followed by an outline of the research methodology and its findings. finally, the study discusses the marketing implications of its findings. literature review 1. local agricultural festivals local festivals have always held significant importance in human culture and history, prevalent across diverse local regions. they serve a crucial role in uniting people, promoting social cohesion, and commemorating shared traditions and values. typically centered around distinct aspects of a community, some festivals often trace their origins to agriculture, which sustains life by providing essential food resources. agriculture thus forms a vital component of the economic, social, and environmental fabric of local communities. while food is indispensable to all festivals, local agricultural festivals specifically highlight and celebrate the local food systems. they provide opportunities for farming communities to showcase their agricultural products, creating awareness that can translate into both onsite and future purchases (choo & park, 2017). attendees can sample and purchase fresh produce harvested from local farms, immerse themselves in culinary traditions and cultural heritage, and enjoy entertainment including you-pick and farming practice activities, cooking, petting zoos with various farm animals and displays of large farm machinery like tractors and plows (barbieri, cernusca, gold, & aguilar, 2009). given the intimate connection between agriculture and the natural environment, these festivals also contribute to raising awareness about food security and the conservation of natural resources. 2. market segmentation of local festivals: a collaborative approach a series of methods for segmenting markets in the tourism and festival research allow researchers and practitioners to identify groups of consumers and ultimately to formulate the marketing objectives and activities. these methods range from a priori segmentation to a datadriven posteriori technique based upon identifying consumers’ lifestyle and psychographics using the constructs, such as involvement, motivation, expenditure, satisfaction, lifestyle, trip purpose and etc. in the last few decades, scholars have conducted a series of segmentation studies for various types of festivals at different regions to help guide individual festivals to segment their attendees (formica & uysal, 1995; lee, choong-ki, lee, & wicks, 2004; li, huang, & cai, 2009; shi, ji, weaver, & huang, 2022). however, segmentation can also be done to help a group of local festivals to jointly identify their market, not only attract and retain their own attendees but also to crosshttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ choo, h. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 18-33. 21 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 18-33, doi: 10.18060/28150 copyright © 2024 hyungsuk choo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. attract and cross-retain their attendees, or cross-promote attending other local festivals. many local festival attendees are known to be interested in other local festivals as well as one they attend (choo & park, 2018). local festivals are held for a certain time frame periodically, seasonally, or annually. attendees do not necessarily choose to attend one over the other as long as festival dates don’t overlap. attendees who are loyal to one festival can also be interested in other festivals, especially when driven by their variety seeking. therefore, local festivals held in different dates and those offering different programs or theme can work together to promote attending each other’s festivals. regardless, most festival segmentation research focus on a single unit of an individual festival, implicitly assuming to compete each other to retain its own attendees. as many local regions have an increasing number of local festivals, it is common they implicitly and explicitly compete to attract their attendees, retaining them only for themselves for future (fyall & garrod, 2005). the fragmented nature of the multifaceted tourism industry creates a recognized need for collaborative marketing among different sectors as they carry out complementary activities for tourism (bramwell & lane, 2000). in recent years, collaboration opportunities have been also recognized within the same sectors, e.g., strategic alliance between airlines. similarly, local festivals can collaborate in many ways, including cross-retaining their attendees (can, ekinci, & pino, 2021). to facilitate this, it is important to segment the local festival market, which can involve multiple local festivals sharing their attendees together through a collaborative approach. 3. local festival segmentation the local festival employs four typical segmentation criteria: demographic, psychographic, behavioral, and geographic variables. initially, demographic and geographic variables were commonly used in festival and tourism segmentation research due to their direct observability and practicality. however, there is a growing trend among researchers to also incorporate psychographic and behavioral variables to predict decisions related to product and brand choices. this study focuses on two specific variables variety-seeking and festival loyalty to explore the segmentation potential across multiple local festivals and their attendees. varietyseeking reflects consumers' desire for excitement, uniqueness, novelty, and curiosity, influencing their propensity to switch products and brands (jung & yoon, 2012). traditionally, it has been viewed as potentially detrimental to individual product or brand loyalty. conversely, a collaborative marketing approach involving multiple products or brands acknowledges that variety-seeking can actually foster cross-retention among customers of those products or brands (choo & park, 2018). this approach harnesses variety-seeking behavior to positively impact customer retention across diverse festivals which are similar in their themes or located nearby. 3.1. variety-seeking variety-seeking behavior in consumption refers to consumers switching among products, categories, or brands to avoid the decreasing utility due to repeat purchases or consumption of the same products (ratner & kahn, 2002). consumers seek variety to manage satiation, to hedge https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ choo, h. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 18-33. 22 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 18-33, doi: 10.18060/28150 copyright © 2024 hyungsuk choo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. against uncertainty or to search for novelty (sevilla, lu, & kahn, 2019). consumers buy an array of diversified products even if they are satisfied with one particular product. for this reason, marketers have sought to find ways to reduce the amount of variety consumers incorporate to keep them loyal to their products and brands. on the contrary, some researchers have recently suggested that companies create variety, yet retaining the customers (sheorey, joshi, & kulkarni, 2014). in the product category marketing, which is designed to increase the demand of products and brands within their general category, variety seeking among customers can help them stay loyal by trying different products and brands available within the same product category (tuu & olsen, 2013). this means, variety seeking can play a positive role in the product category loyalty, different from its typical negative role in the one brand or one product loyalty. marketing of multiple products and brands with the same product category needs to allow customers to variety-seek and gain the utility derived from stimulation of something different, thus leading to loyalty toward the same category products and brands. for this, the importance of accessibility of products and brands in the same product category has been recognized. product category marketing is important in the local festival as promoting and publicizing a group of local festivals together or a general category of local festivals occurring/staging in the local region is needed. one certain festival attendees can attend other festivals as well or switch over to other festivals if they don’t want to re-visit the festival attended. local festivals are increasingly being used as instruments for promoting tourism and boosting the regional local economy. promoting a single unit of each local festival is not always effective, particularly for variety seekers. variety-seeking has been adopted to provide an effective market segmentation standard for enterprises (trivedi, 1999) but most of those adopt it for one brand or one type of product. by applying variety seeking in the market segmentation involving multiple local festivals which can collaborate together, this study will contribute to local festival segmentation research where a single unit of one festival approach is predominant. 3.2. festival loyalty most local festivals occur on a regular basis, monthly, seasonally, or annually, so festival loyalty indicating intentions to revisit and recommend those to others is important. due to this importance, scholars have actively identified a series of antecedents of festival loyalty, and examples of those include authenticity (akhoondnejad, 2016), festival quality (wong, wu, & cheng, 2015), festival value (lee, jin-soo, lee, & choi, 2011), involvement (beckman, shu, & pan, 2020), place attachment (lee, jenny, kyle, & scott, 2012), social identity (grappi & montanari, 2011), and satisfaction (tanford & jung, 2017). while these concepts have been found to positively influence festival loyalty in the diverse ranges of festivals, all of those studies have focused on loyalty to a single, individual festival, which reflects attendees’ intention to visit the same festival again. although the loyalty concept to a single, individual unit of a brand and service is generally common in marketing, the multi-unit loyalty involving multiple tiers of tourism services or multiple destinations has been increasingly recognized in the tourism literature (almeida-santana & morenogil, 2018; mckercher, denizci-guillet, & ng, 2012a). partly due to the variety (or novelty) seeking inherently embedded in the tourists’ mind, their loyalty is not always toward a single unit destination, brand and service. given this, mckercher, denizci-guillet, and ng (2012b) extended https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ choo, h. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 18-33. 23 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 18-33, doi: 10.18060/28150 copyright © 2024 hyungsuk choo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. the conceptualization of loyalty to three dimensions: vertical (loyalty to different tiers, i.e., to an airline and a travel agent), horizontal (loyalty to more than one provider in the same tier, i.e., to more than one hospitality brand), and experiential (loyalty to certain holiday styles). based on indepth interviews, the authors confirmed vertical and experiential loyalty, but found less evidence for horizontal loyalty. in the marketing literature, the relevance of horizontal loyalty is still recognized in the concept of co-branding or co-marketing of multiple brand together. although loyalty to a single unit of a brand and service is a common concept in marketing, the tourism literature increasingly acknowledges multi-unit loyalty, which involves multiple tiers of tourism services or destinations (almeida-santana & moreno-gil, 2018; mckercher, denizciguillet, & ng, 2012). this trend is partly attributed to the inherent variety-seeking nature of tourists' preferences, which doesn't always align with loyalty to a single destination, brand, or service. in response, mckercher et al. (2012) expanded the concept of loyalty to include three dimensions: vertical (loyalty to different tiers, such as an airline and a travel agent), horizontal (loyalty to multiple providers within the same tier, like multiple hospitality brands), and experiential (loyalty to specific holiday styles). through in-depth interviews, the authors validated vertical and experiential loyalty but found limited evidence for horizontal loyalty. however, in marketing literature, the importance of horizontal loyalty persists, evident in concepts such as co-branding or co-marketing multiple brands together. the horizontal multi-unit loyalty can also be applied in local festivals, which occur at various locations and in the various time frame. attendees to one festival might be also interested in another, as well as the one they are attending (tingchi liu et al., 2012). or, they don’t necessarily want to revisit the current festival, but would still like to explore other festivals, instead. therefore, loyalty to one local festival can be extended into other local festivals in the local region, involving collaboration among some local festivals. research methodology 1. measurement measurement of variables in this study was adopted from the previous study to establish the content validity. the self-administered intercept survey questionnaire was developed. five-point likert-type scale (one = not likely at all to five = very much likely) was used for motivation (maeng, jang, & li, 2016), variety seeking (jung & yoon, 2012), satisfaction, festival loyalty (lee, jin-soo, lee, & choi, 2011), and intention to visit other festivals. the first section asked about the festival experience, the total spending at the festival, the number of local agricultural products purchased, etc. the second section was about festival perception involving festival motivation, variety seeking tendency, and satisfaction. the third section measured the festival loyalty (e.g., intention to visit the festival, intention to visit other agricultural festivals, and willingness to recommend the festival to others). the final section asked the socio-demographic information on attendees. the questionnaire was written in english, and then translated into korean by two researchers who are fluent in both english and korean. back translation following the recommendations of (hogg, liao, & o'gorman, 2014) ensured translation accuracy. both korean https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ choo, h. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 18-33. 24 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 18-33, doi: 10.18060/28150 copyright © 2024 hyungsuk choo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. and english versions of survey were used for onsite survey. 2. data collection and analysis the data used in this study were drawn from a segment of a larger visitor profile study conducted during three local agricultural festivals held in august, september and october, 2019 in chungchungnam-do, the central region of south korea, chunahn grape festival, goesan pepper festival, and boun dates festival. on the first or the second day of each festival, three trained undergraduate students were sent to the site. participants were informed that their participation was voluntary and confidentiality was ensured before they proceeded to fill out the questionnaire. every 5th attendees were approached and obtained a sample of 311 useful responses, with the response rate of 32%. 3. data analysis cluster analysis was adopted to identify the variation among festival attendees in their variety seeking tendency and festival loyalty. subsequently, a series of chi-square tests were conducted to compare the demographic characteristics, satisfaction and motivation in the segments identified in the previous step. interpretability, cluster size, dendrogram structure and presence of statistically significant differences between the clusters were all considered when deciding the optimal cluster solution, suggested by kaufman and rousseeuw (2009). results of analysis 1. segmentation of respondents a four-cluster solution was found to display significant inter-cluster differences in variety seeking tendency and festival loyalty of the respondents and their evident interpretability (table 1). the four segments include multi-festival goers (39.3% of the sample) who intend to revisit the current festival and also visit other local agricultural festivals; other festival goers (28.7% of the sample) who do not intend to visit the current festival but would like to visit other local agricultural festivals; one festival goers (24.9% of the sample) who intend to revisit the current festival but do not intend to visit other festivals; and no returners (7.1% of the sample) who do not intend to visit any festival in the future. 2. demographic and behavioral characteristics of the clusters there are more female attendees across festivals. one festival goers tend to be older and local residents who reside in the city where each festival is held. both multi festival goers and other festival goers tend to be visitors who travel to the city to attend the festival. table 1. result of cluster analysis (n = 331) multi-festival goers (n=130; 39.3%) one-festival goers (n=95; 28.7%) other-festival goers (n=90; 24.9%) no returners (n=16; 7.1%) variety seeking 4.10 3.19 3.88 3.24 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ choo, h. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 18-33. 25 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 18-33, doi: 10.18060/28150 copyright © 2024 hyungsuk choo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. festival loyalty i intend to visit the current festival again 4.20 4.11 2.67 2.50 i’ll recommend this festival to my friends 3.89 4.29 3.50 2.90 i’ll say positive things about the festival 3.91 4.11 3.61 2.69 i intend to visit other local festivals 4.13 3.39 3.99 2.99 no returners comprise of both local residents and out-of-towners. over one third of the multi festival goers have visited more than three local festivals in the past and no difference of spending at the festival among three festival goers clusters (table 2). 3. satisfaction and festival loyalty of the four clusters the data shows relatively high satisfaction with the festivals they attended as the mean satisfaction of the four clusters is 3.87 out of 5 scale. among these four clusters, multi festival goers show the highest level of satisfaction (meanmulti sa = 3.99), while other-festival goers and one festival goers are similar in their satisfaction level (meanother sa = = 3.71, and meanone sa = 3.69) (table 3). satisfaction of no returners was significantly lower than other three clusters (mean= 3.00). multi festival goers, showing the highest level of satisfaction among the four clusters, form the highest level of intention to visit the festival they attended (meanmulti rev 4.20) (table 1). table 2. demographic and behavioral profile of the clusters (n = 331) multi-festival goers (n=130; 39.3%) one-festival goers (n=95; 28.7%) other-festival goers (n=90; 24.9%) no returners (n=16; 7.1%) demographic profile gender (x2 = .75, p=.86) female male 51.54 48.46 52.63 47.37 52.26 47.74 60.50 37.50 age (x2 = 18.53, p<.00) 18-39 40-59 60+ 30.77 49.23 20.00 16.84 40.00 43.16 26.67 51.11 22.22 31.25 50.00 31.25 education (x2 = 43.00, p<.00) high school or lower college or lower post graduate work or above 14.62 67.69 17.69 49.47 43.16 7.37 18.89 73.33 7.78 18.75 62.50 18.75 residency (x2 = 66.95, p<.00) city where the festival is held other 23.85 76.15 61.05 38.95 21.11 78.99 50.00 50.00 spending (x2 = 6.65, p=.35) 50,000 won or less 50,000-150,000 won 150,000 or more 6.15 34.62 59.23 5.26 43.16 51.58 2.22 42.22 55.56 12.50 50.00 37.50 local agricultural festival experience % (x2 = 24.43, p<.05) never 1 time 2 times 6.15 27.69 27.69 5.26 31.58 42.11 4.44 27.78 43.33 18.75 25.00 43.75 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ choo, h. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 18-33. 26 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 18-33, doi: 10.18060/28150 copyright © 2024 hyungsuk choo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 3 times 38.46 21.05 24.44 12.50 between one festival goers and other festival goers who report the similar level of high satisfaction, the former intends to revisit the festival (meanone rev = = 4.11) while latter cluster does not do so (meanother rev = = 2.67). intention to visit other local agricultural festivals was found to be highest between multi festival goers and other festival goers (meanmulti oth = = 4.13, and meanother oth = 3.99), followed by one festival goers (meanone oth = 3.39). among the clusters, one festival goers intend to recommend the festival to others (meanone rec = = 4.29) higher than multi festival goers (meanmulti rec = = 3.89) and other festival goers (meanother rec = = 3.50). no returners are not likely to recommend the festival to others. 4. festival motivation average scores for the multi-dimensional factors of festival motivation were computed for subsequent anova tests, which revealed significant differences among the four segments (table 3). in particular, multi festival goers are more motivated by food; other festival goers are more likely to attend the agricultural food festival for escape/novelty; while one festival goers tend to visit the festival to socialize with people sharing similar interests. table 3. satisfaction and motivation of the clusters (n = 331) multi-festival goers (n=130; 39.3%) one-festival goers (n=95; 28.7%) other-festival goers (n=90; 24.9%) no returners (n=16; 7.1%) satisfaction 3.99 3.69 3.71 3.00 motivation local food (f = 8.92; p<.05) 3.71 3.34 3.40 3.24 escape/novelty (f = 7.11; p<.04) 3.50 3.46 3.81 3.29 socialization (f = 10.09; p<.00) 3.49 3.74 3.59 3.33 learning (f = 1.02; p=.14) 3.33 3.24 3.21 3.24 discussion and implications this study analyzes the heterogeneity of local agricultural food festival attendees by adopting a collaborative marketing approach which enables cross-retention of festival attendees between multiple festivals. findings indicates the viability of variety seeking and festival loyalty as segmentation criteria of multiple local agricultural festivals. each of the four clusters identified demonstrate discrete behavioral and geographic characteristics of local agricultural festivals. result of analysis suggests that individual local agricultural festivals need to primarily target one festival goers and multi festival goers to retain them for their own future festivals. a group of local agricultural festivals combined can also cross-target other festivals goers and multi festival goers to cross-retain them and develop a collaborative marketing activity. for other festival goers, local agricultural festivals can promote attending other collaborating local agricultural festivals, as they would like to explore other local agricultural festivals, instead of attending the current one again. multi festival goers can be mutually targeted between the collaborating local agricultural https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ choo, h. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 18-33. 27 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 18-33, doi: 10.18060/28150 copyright © 2024 hyungsuk choo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. festivals. it is important to convince them not only to revisit the festivals in the future but also to explore other local festivals which are located around and/or offer similar programs and activities. by engaging in this collaborative approach shared by some agricultural local festivals, they can broaden their attendee market and cross-retain some of their attendees. in the marketing, this type of collaborating activity among independent entities are well recognized in various terms, co-branding, brand alliance, brand partnership or strategic alliance (helmig, huber, & leeflang, 2007). characteristics and forms of each activity listed are not always similar, but all of these seek to have spillover effects and increase the market share by capitalizing and sharing unique resources of each partner (pinello, picone, & mocciaro li destri, 2022). for local agricultural festivals, where their marketing resource is not sufficiently available, the collaboration activity can help use and share their marketing resource efficiently and effectively (da liang, nie, chen, & chen, 2020). furthermore, a type of collaboration activity among local agricultural festivals can help avoid unnecessary competition among them, if any. in the last few decades, the number of local festivals has increased locally and globally, thus increasing competition implicitly and explicitly among them to attract and retain their attendees (maeng, jang, & li, 2016). different from commercial market where competition is a common, accepted paradigm, local agricultural festivals perform more of a public function in the local community, which seeks to co-exist and support for each other. they communicate and reinforce their distinct value while leveraging aspects of other collaborating festivals’ value—often referred to as positive spillover (kim, lee, & lee, 2007). the finding of this study is consistent with previous studies (almeida-santana & morenogil, 2018; mckercher, denizci-guillet, & ng, 2012a), which suggested the relevance of multi-unit or horizontal loyalty manifesting that tourists can show loyalty to multiple destinations and different suppliers at the same level within the tourism system. many satisfying tourists do not necessarily to go back to the same destination for their next vacation, but instead they choose to explore different destinations specially for the short period of time within a few years (almeida-santana & morenogil, 2018). search for something new or novel is often considered to be inherent among tourists (jang & feng, 2007), so a single unit loyalty to one single destination won’t always work. while having a satisfied attendees is a commendable goal that is not to be questioned (melian-gonzalez, moreno-gil, & arana, 2011), its impact on loyalty needs to be re-examined in the local festival context. some festival studies have reported a weak relationship between satisfaction and loyalty, their relationship is not universally strong for all segments (chang, s., gibson, & sisson, 2014), or the actual revisit is often significantly lower than their intention to revisit (chaney and martin, 2017). therefore, festivals can’t just blindly seek satisfaction in the hopes achieving festival loyalty and revisit. some scholars offer strategic insights for practitioners to identify the difference of customer segments and the varying impact of satisfaction on loyalty (melian-gonzalez, moreno-gil, & arana, 2011; petrick, 2005). it is important to recognize one of segments identified, attendees who do not intend to revisit the festival, although satisfied. most of them are interested in visiting other local festivals instead, so promoting other local agricultural festivals aiming at this segment of attendees is practically useful. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ choo, h. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 18-33. 28 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 18-33, doi: 10.18060/28150 copyright © 2024 hyungsuk choo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. variety seeking is a popular choice strategy in varying levels of tourists’ decision making. variety seeking occurs when people switch between options over time (kahn, kalwani, & morrison, 1986) or select different options within a given choice set in the same product category (ratner & kahn, 2002). by focusing on the latter, this study found variety seeking can help define a new attendee segment which can be shared with collaborating local agricultural festivals. they work together to provide a given choice set of more options of festivals that some of their attendees can explore. product category marketing (tuu & olsen, 2013) recognizes that the increased accessibility of options in the shared category is important for consumers to opt out to choose similar options within the same category over dissimilar options in other product categories (woolley & sharif, 2022). variety seekers are known to be more responsive to promotional cues and displays than nonvariety seekers. when options within a category are more accessible, variety seekers anticipate that future options within that category will be more enjoyable (woolley & sharif, 2022). different from the traditional view identifying the negative role of variety seeking in the tourist loyalty, this study recognizes its positive contribution by adopting the collaborative marketing approach involving multiple local agricultural festivals. the tourism literature has emphasized the need to incorporate collaboration into the management mainly due to the fragmented nature of this sector, but researchers have not considered how local festivals can collaborate to promote those together, particularly for segmentation and targeting. market segmentation is now widely utilized in the festival study, using a variety of variables, geographical, behavioral, demographic, and psychographic segmentation variables. by adopting the collaborative approach of multiple festivals together in the segmentation and targeting, local agricultural festivals can expand the scope of their loyal attendees. practical implications in order to promote the collaborative marketing among local agricultural festivals, this study describes the development of festival attendees’ segmentation embracing multiple neighboring local agricultural festivals together and provides implications to two parties, local agricultural festival agencies and local government. local agricultural festival agencies primarily target to retain attendees who intend to visit their festival again. they also can work with other local agricultural festivals to cross-retain some of their attendees, other festival goers and multi festival goers who like to visit other festivals. after forming a group of neighboring local agricultural festivals, they can launch a co-promotion program by offering the list of other festivals, placing the promotional materials of other festivals at the festival site, or offering a coupon that can be used at other local festivals. this collaborative marketing program will help attract variety seeking attendees (i.e., other festival goers and multi festival goers) while retaining their own loyal attendees. it is also important to design festival programs and promotional messages according to the motivation factor of the market segments to which they are targeted, because different segments are motivated by different factors. in order to attract multi festival goers, each local festival agency needs to use its own local food products that each festival focuses on, their tasting and sampling, and their information should be in the marketing materials. for other festival goers, novel events, entertainment, weekend getaway contents for festivals and so on should appear in the marketing messages. alternatively, how to socialize not only with attendees’ companions but also other attendees need to be highlighted for one festival goers to attend each local agricultural festival. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ choo, h. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 18-33. 29 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 18-33, doi: 10.18060/28150 copyright © 2024 hyungsuk choo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. the local government is to adopt the collaborative marketing approach for its local festivals in the region, thus helping coordinate networking, enjoy its synergy effect, and effectively share their best resources among its local festivals. the local government is one of the key stakeholders for the success of local festivals, which is important for the region and its community as well as festivals themselves. more and more local governments utilize festivals strategically to bring longterm economic and social benefits to the region and its community but competition among local festivals has also been intensified. therefore, the local government needs to help their local festivals in their region to be self-sustaining and become institutionalized rather than being run on an ad-hoc basis (getz & andersson, 2008) for this, the local government needs to not only support individual local festivals but also develop an approach to help all of those mutually benefiting each other. the latter requires to segment festival attendees to share and cross-target some of those would be the first step. limitations of this study the findings of this study are specific to local agricultural festivals in south korea and may not be applicable to other types of festivals. future research should replicate this study across various festival types—such as cultural, art, and music festivals and different geographical locations. moreover, expanding upon this work could involve considering additional variables. for instance, motivation and involvement, as suggested by previous festival scholars (chang, s. & gibson, 2015; shi, ji, weaver, & huang, 2022), could help explain varying levels of satisfaction and loyalty among different groups attending local festivals. furthermore, it is important to recognize that the predictors identified in this study's framework may vary across cultures. therefore, cross-cultural studies are needed to better understand these differences within specific regions and countries. references akhoondnejad, a. 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(2015). an empirical analysis of synthesizing the effects of festival quality, emotion, festival image and festival satisfaction on festival loyalty: a case study of https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ choo, h. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 18-33. 32 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 18-33, doi: 10.18060/28150 copyright © 2024 hyungsuk choo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. macau food festival. international journal of tourism research, 17(6), 521-536. woolley, k., & sharif, m. a. (2022). down a rabbit hole: how prior media consumption shapes subsequent media consumption. journal of marketing research, 59(3), 453-471. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ choo, h. (2024) / events and tourism review, 7(1), 18-33. 33 events and tourism review vol. 7 no. 1 (2024), 18-33, doi: 10.18060/28150 copyright © 2024 hyungsuk choo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. appendix. measurement of concepts variety seeking i generally like to try out something different or new. i attend different local agricultural food festivals to try something different. i like diversity. i like new, different types of local agricultural food festival. always attending the same festival is boring. festival loyalty i intend to visit the current festival again. i’ll recommend this festival to my friends/families. i’ll say positive things about the festival satisfaction i am satisfied with my decision to visit the festival. my overall feeling about the festival was positive. i am satisfied with the programs/operations of the festival. motivation-novelty/escape because i enjoy special events. for the festival atmosphere. i can enjoy a festival crowd. i can enjoy a day out. to enjoy the entertainment. for a change of pace from everyday life. festivals are unique. to get away on the weekend. to try something new. motivation local product to experience local agricultural products. for local agriculture food tasting. to get familiar with local agricultural food. to increase food knowledge. to buy food. motivation socialization to visit a place i can talk about when i get home. to help bring the family together. to spend time with the family. i can meet people with similar interests. i can exchange ideas with food providers. motivation learning to learn local food products to explore culture to seek education and education to meet experts https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 30-38, doi: 10.18060/26827 copyright © 2022 godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2022 volume 5 no. 2 generation y and z perceptions of hospitality self-service technology godwin-charles ogbeide metropolitan state university-denver correspondence: gogbeide@msudenver.edu (g. ogbeide) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation ogbeide, g. (2022). generation y and z perceptions of hospitality self-service technology. events and tourism review, 5(2), 30-38. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr ogbeide, g. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 30-38. 31 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 30-38, doi: 10.18060/26827 copyright © 2022 godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract the purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of generation y and z regarding selfservice technology and personal service in the hospitality industry. technologically-savvy collegiate students in the midwestern part of the usa served as the target population for this study. the results of this study indicate that the participants believe that personal service is more important than the use of self-service technology in the hospitality industry. however, generation y and z prefer the convenience and promptness of self-service technology. practical implications of this study and recommendations for further studies were addressed. keywords: generation y; generation z; personal service; self-service technology; hospitality; customer experience introduction this current period in human history is known as the information age (binh, 2016), characterized by a shift in focus from industrialization to computerization. “this evolution of services is somewhat similar to the past experience in the agricultural and manufacturing industry where human labor has been relentlessly replaced by automation” (ong, 2010, p. 8). with the advent of information technology, some have lost their jobs due to the digital trend of self-service technology (chen, 2011). the increasing use of self-service technology is changing the essence of service experience and service failure recovery (bitner, brown, & meuter, 2000; collier, breazeale, & white, 2017). this modification of decreased social interaction is noteworthy and may impact guest satisfaction in the hospitality industry. even with extensive research surrounding the impact of technology on customer retention and guest satisfaction (beatson, coote & rudd, 2006), generation y and z’s perceptions of hospitality self-service technology cannot be undermined. this study intends to investigate generation y and z’s importance and preference for using self-service technologies to personal service in the hospitality industry. literature review self-service technology a previous study indicated that technological advancement and high labor costs drove service providers to investigate and develop the self-service delivery option (shamdasani, mukherjee, & malhotra, 2008). self-service technology is becoming popular because of its benefit to both hoteliers and customers (kucukusta, heung & hui, 2012). self-service technology is based on “technological interfaces that enable customers to produce a service independent of direct service employee involvement” (meuter et al., 2000, p. 50). many organizations use these technology-based self-services to increase service productivity while reducing service delivery costs (meuter & bitner, 1998; shamdasani, mukherjee, & malhotra, 2008). during self-service, customers often take on a partial employee role, and employees offer little to no support to complete the transactions https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 30-38. 32 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 30-38, doi: 10.18060/26827 copyright © 2022 godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. (meuter et al., 2005; zhu et al., 2007; ding et al., 2011). thus, using these technologies might affect service quality, customer satisfaction, and customer loyalty (chen, 2011). the disadvantages of self-service technology include social stress and the wariness of technology. some customers feel anxious about using self-service technology (lovelock & wirtz, 2007). nevertheless, self-service technology holds a valuable place in modern businesses, serving convenience needs for customers and cost-saving needs pursued by business owners (oh et al., 2013; collier & barnes, 2015). personal service researchers emphasize that the interaction between the service employee and the customer allows individualized attention to the customer’s needs and preferences, provides important relational benefits to customers, fosters trust, and creates social bonds between the employee and the customer (forrester, 2018). customers welcome the extra level of help from personal service, which ultimately enhances evaluations of the service experience (collier, breazeale, & white, 2017). the humanization of customer service processes is vital. despite this, customers use self-service technologies more frequently, resulting in fewer possibilities for true human interaction and sociability (forrester, 2018). one of the managerial implications of the above phenomenon is determining the right balance for utilizing self-service technology and personal service in the hospitality industry. hence, the purpose of this study was to investigate the perceptions of generation y and z regarding self-service technology and personal service in the hospitality industry. thus, the following hypotheses were proposed: h1: there is no difference in the level of importance between personal service and the use of self-service technology in the hospitality industry. h2: there is no preference between personal service and the use of self-service technology in the hospitality industry. h3: generation y and z students prefer the convenience of the use of self-service technology to personal service. h4: generation y and z students prefer the promptness of the use of self-service technology to personal service. methodology population and sample selection collegiate students in the midwestern part of the usa who were technologically savvy and familiar with selfservice technologies served as the target population for this study. the sample selection for this study was a random sample of generation y and z students. validity and reliability the instrument for this study was adapted from the literature review and consisted of three parts. part i was used to measure consumer perceptions and preferences for personal service in the hospitality industry. part ii measured consumer perceptions and preferences for self-service technology in the hospitality industry. part iii of the instrument included questions about the demographic characteristics of the participants. part i and part ii of the instrument were based on a five-point likert scale. a panel of experts established the instrument's validity, and its reliability was 0.80, which indicates good internal consistency among the data collected (ary et al., 2002; ogbeide, 2006). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 30-38. 33 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 30-38, doi: 10.18060/26827 copyright © 2022 godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. data collection and analysis data collection was via an online survey link (qualtrics). collected data was analyzed using the statistical package for social sciences (spss) version 24. results and discussions a total of 209 respondents provided usable data as the sample for this study. about 72 percent of the respondents were female, 27 percent were male, and one percent of the respondents' gender was unknown. the age of the respondents ranged between 18-38 years old. tables 1, 2, and 3 show the mean and standard deviation of the "reservation, check-in, and check-out services importance," "reservation and room services preference," and "perception of personal service and self-service technology processes," respectively. table 1. reservation, check-in, and check-out services importance service process of service mean std. deviation personal service it is important to me that i am provided check-in services by a person during my visit to a hotel 3.89 1.11 self-service technology it is important to me that there are self-service technology (self-service kiosk) in a hotel for check-in services 3.08 1.15 personal service it is important to me that i am provided check-out services by a person during my visit to a hotel 3.32 1.38 self-service technology it is important to me that there are self-service technology (self-service kiosk) in a hotel for check-out services 3.26 1.17 personal service it is important to me that i am provided reservation services by a person during my visit to a hotel 3.16 1.23 self-service technology it is important to me that there are self-service technology (self-service kiosk) in a hotel for reservation services. 3.36 1.18 n = 209 table 2. reservation and room services preference service process of service mean std. deviation personal service i prefer to reserve my hotel room through mail 1.43 0.84 i prefer to reserve my hotel room through fax 1.30 0.69 self-service technology i prefer reserving my room at a hotel through a website without the involvement of human interaction 4.26 0.94 personal service i prefer talking to a person on the phone for my hotel room reservation 2.84 1.33 self-service technology i prefer reserving my hotel room through a phone call with automated services. 2.09 1.24 personal service i prefer ordering room service by talking with a person through a phone call 3.37 1.20 self-service technology i prefer ordering room service through the self-service technology present in my hotel room 3.73 1.10 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 30-38. 34 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 30-38, doi: 10.18060/26827 copyright © 2022 godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. n = 209 table 3. perception of personal service and self-service technology processes service process of service mean std. deviation personal service i believe that personal service is easier than the use of self-service technology in hotel 3.16 1.02 self-service technology i believe the use of self-service technology in hotel services is easier than personal service 3.19 1.10 personal service i believe that personal service is faster than the use of self-service technology in hotel 2.85 1.00 self-service technology i believe the use of self-service technology in hotel services is faster than personal service 3.44 1.08 personal service the use of personal services can be frustrating 3.35 .980 self-service technology the use of self-service technology can be frustrating 3.56 .999 personal service personal service is better than automated self-service technology in a hotel 3.31 1.04 self-service technology automated self-service technology is better than personal services in a hotel 2.89 1.01 n = 209 to examine the first hypothesis (h1): a paired-sample t-test was conducted to compare the level of importance of personal service and the use of self-service technology in the hospitality industry. the analysis of the test indicated a significant difference in the level of importance between personal service (m = 3.46, sd = 1.03) and the use of self-service technology (m =3.23, sd = 1.02) in the hospitality industry; t (208) = 2.14, p = 0.03. these results suggest that personal service is more important than the use of self-service technology in the hospitality industry (see table 4). table 4: level of importance and preference of self-service technology and personal service paired samples statistics m n sd sem importance sst 3.23 209 1.02 0.07 ps 3.46 209 1.03 0.07 preference sst 3.29 209 0.72 0.05 ps 2.57 209 0.62 0.04 paired samples correlations n correlation p importance sst & ps 209 -0.09 0.19 preference sst & ps 209 -0.17 0.01 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 30-38. 35 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 30-38, doi: 10.18060/26827 copyright © 2022 godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. paired samples test paired difference m sd sem 95% cidl 95% cidu t df p importance sst & ps 0.22 1.52 0.10 0.18 0.43 2.14 208 0.03 preference sst & ps -0.73 1.03 0.71 0.87 -0.57 -10.24 208 <0.00 sst: self-service technology, ps: personal service, sd: standard deviation, sem: standard error mean, cidl: confidence interval of the difference lower, cidu: confidence interval of the difference upper, m: mean, p: probability a paired-sample t-test was also used to examine the second hypothesis (h2): there is no preference between personal service and the use of self-service technology in the hospitality industry. the analysis of the test indicated a significant difference regarding preference between personal service (m = 2.57, sd = 0.62) and the use of self-service technology (m =3.29, sd = 0.72) in the hospitality industry; t (208) = -10.24, p = <0.001. these results suggest that generation y and z prefer the use of self-service technology more than personal service in the hospitality industry (see table 4). to examine the third hypothesis (h3), a paired-sample t-test was also conducted to compare and contrast the difference between the convenience attribute of personal service and the use of selfservice technology in the hospitality industry. the analysis of the test indicated a significant difference regarding the level of convenience between personal service (m = 3.46, sd = 1.06) and the use of self-service technology (m =4.44, sd = 0.74) in the hospitality industry; t (208) = 11.18, p = <0.001. these results suggest that generation y and z prefer the convenience of using selfservice technology more than personal service in the hospitality industry. to examine the fourth hypothesis (h4), a paired-sample t-test was also conducted to compare and contrast the difference between the promptness attribute of personal service and the use of self-service technology in the hospitality industry. the analysis of the test indicated a significant difference regarding the level of promptness between personal service (m = 3.41, sd = 0.95) and the use of self-service technology (m =3.98, sd = 0.87) in the hospitality industry; t (208) = 6.52, p = <0.001. these results suggest that generation y and z prefer the promptness in the use of self-service technology more than personal service in the hospitality industry (see table 5). table 5: preferred attributes of self-service technology paired samples statistics m n sd std. error mean service convenience sst 4.44 209 0.74 0.05 ps 3.46 209 1.06 0.07 service promptness sst 3.98 209 0.87 0.06 ps 3.41 209 0.95 0.07 paired samples correlations n correlation p service convenience sst & ps 209 0.05 0.47 service promptness sst & ps 209 0.02 0.76 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ ogbeide, g. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 30-38. 36 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 30-38, doi: 10.18060/26827 copyright © 2022 godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. paired samples test paired difference m sd sem 95% cidl 95% cidu t df p service convenience sst & ps 0.98 1.26 0.09 0.80 1.15 11.19 208 0.00 service promptness sst & ps 0.57 1.27 0.09 0.40 0.75 6.52 208 0.00 sst: self-service technology, ps: personal service, sd: standard deviation, sem: standard error mean, cidl: confidence interval of the difference lower, cidu: confidence interval of the difference upper, m: mean, p: probability conclusions, implications, and limitations the results of this study illustrated that even though generation y and z indicated that personal service is more important than the use of self-service technology in the hospitality industry, they still prefer the convenience and promptness of self-service technology. the practical implications of this finding for hospitality professionals and managers include the significance of convenience and promptness to future tourists (generation y and z). hence, extra care should be given to ensure guests are provided with excellent hospitality service characterized by convenience and promptness. the results of this study also suggest that self-service technology is not just a fad. still, it is gaining more acceptance, especially by generation y and z. hence, hospitality professionals should be prepared to offer the benefits of self-service technology without losing the critical importance of personal service hospitality. bearing the above in mind, hospitality professionals and management should endeavor to find an appropriate balance between the use of self-service technology and personal service suitable enough to enhance customer experience. the authors hope this research inspires other researchers to continue investigating the significance of personal service in the hospitality industry. it is critical to determine if and when customers will be less interested in personal service with the advent and use of self-service technology. one of the limitations of this study is that it focused only on generation y and z within a small geographical area in the midwestern part of the usa. another study focusing on a larger population and more generations would yield room for generalizable research. references ary, d., & jacobs, l.c., & razavieh, a. 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(2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 30-38. 38 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 30-38, doi: 10.18060/26827 copyright © 2022 godwin-charles ogbeide this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. readiness to embrace new technologies”, journal of service research, vol. 2 no. 4, pp. 307-320. shamdasani, p., mukherjee, a., & malhotra, n. (2008). antecedents and consequences of service quality in consumer evaluation of self-service internet technologies. service industries journal, 28(1), 117-138. doi:10.1080/02642060701725669 weijters, b., rangarajan, d., falk, t. & schillewaert, n. (2007), “determinants and outcomes of customers’ use of self-service technology in a retail setting”, journal of service research, vol. 10 no. 1, pp. 3-21. zhu, z., nakata, c., sivakumar, k. & grewal, d. (2007), “self-service technology effectiveness: the role of design features and individual traits”, journal of the academy of marketing science, vol. 35no. 4, pp. 492-506. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ abstract events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 1-14, doi: 10.18060/29384 copyright © 2025 jumana baqaain, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2025 volume 8 no. 1 residents’ perceptions towards the social impacts of the indianapolis 500 miles race: a hallmark event jumana baqaain soonhwan lee suosheng wang indiana university, indianapolis correspondence: lee291@iu.edu (s. lee) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation baqaain, j. , lee, s., & wang, s. (2025). residents’ perceptions towards the social impacts of the indianapolis 500 miles race: a hallmark event. events and tourism review, 8(1), 1-14. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:lee291@iu.edu http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr baqaain, j., lee, s. & wang, s. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 1-14. 2 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 1-14, doi: 10.18060/29384 copyright © 2025 jumana baqaain, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract the aim of the study was to identify the major social benefits and costs associated with hosting the indianapolis 500 in indianapolis, indiana. how residents’ perceptions toward this sport event are formed, as well as how the perceived social impacts affected their support towards the future hosting of this event using the social exchange theory as a theoretical framework. the paper employed qualitative semi-structured in-depth interviews with 12 residents of indianapolis, indiana. the result of the qualitative study revealed that the sense of community, enhancing city image and the sense of pride are among the positive social impacts as perceived by the residents. keywords: social impacts; indy 500; resident perceptions; social exchange theory introduction hallmark events can give the host city greater prominence in the tourism marketplace while also being a significant tool for urban renewal and social cohesion (van der steen & richard, 2021). hallmark events, also called mega events or special events, are significant fairs, festivals, exhibitions, cultural events, and sporting events held either on a regular or a one-off basis and play a key role in international, national, and regional tourism marketing strategies (van der steen & richards, 2021). the success of such events largely relies on the support of the local community, as the event destination typically attracts the primary advantages and the most considerable proportion of the expenses. residents are an important stakeholder group, and their involvement in the event could have implications for providing welcoming visitor experiences and increasing the longevity of positive impacts (gursoy & kendall, 2006). therefore, obtaining the support of residents is vital to developing and sustaining a successful hallmark event (duan et al., 2020). nevertheless, until now, there has been little investigation into the factors that influence residents' support for hallmark events (van der steen & richards, 2021). scholars argued that residents' perceptions or attitudes towards small-scale annual sporting events have not been well discussed in the literature (jeong, 2019; yao &schwarz, 2018) and should be examined further in the event tourism literature even though small and medium-scale sports events cannot be compared in terms of size and scale, with mega sports events, they are essential to examine because these events are held periodically and continuously, which are correlated more closely to the local community residents' life and sometimes are more attractive to residents and tourists (duan et al., 2020). furthermore, a significant focus of previous studies has centered on the perceptions or attitudes of residents toward mega-sport events such as the olympic games (prayag et al., 2013; waitt, 2003; zhou &ap, 2009) and the fifa world cup (kaplanidou et al., 2013; ohmann et al., 2006). in addition, much previous research has mainly focused on a sports event's economic, commercial, and promotional benefits impacts (hirtz & ross, 2010), assuming that the economic benefits of special events are one of the most important reasons for organizing a special event in the first place (gursoy et al.,2004). however, understanding residents' perceptions and opinions towards the social impacts of major events or how perceptions can impact the support of the events still https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ baqaain, j., lee, s. & wang, s. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 1-14. 3 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 1-14, doi: 10.18060/29384 copyright © 2025 jumana baqaain, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. needs to be improved. as suggested by ohmann et al. (2006), research into the social impacts of sports tourism events is a recent phenomenon compared to a long history of economic impact assessment and there is a need that there is a need for social impact studies at a variety of events and locations to identify patterns and trends so that these impacts can be managed before, during, and after the event (balduck et al., 2011). no study has specifically examined the indianapolis 500 in indianapolis, indiana, particularly in terms of its social impacts. therefore, there is a clear need to investigate the social effects of this annual hallmark event. this study aims to explore local residents’ perceptions of the event’s social impacts on the community, as well as how these perceived impacts influence their support for the event. research on the social impacts of the indianapolis 500 is needed from both theoretical and practical perspectives. the famous indianapolis 500-mile race, held annually at the indianapolis motor speedway in the usa, represents the world's most desirable open-wheel race victories. the significance of the indianapolis 500 is unquestioned within the motor racing industry due to the long history and tradition of the race (o'kane, 2011). the indianapolis 500 is among the oldest and richest motorsport events, with the largest attendance and t.v./radio audiences of any single-day sporting event worldwide. the race holds a vital place in american culture and has become an annual pilgrimage for many american families. the iconic race is staged annually on memorial day weekend in late may at the indianapolis motor speedway, indiana, usa. there are numerous references to the armed forces before the event to stir the crowd before the race, such as 'america the beautiful', another pre-race musical tradition is the singing of 'back home again in indiana'. these pre-race ceremonies and traditions take some time and help build the atmosphere among the crowd and it plays a part in establishing race as the cultural reservoir it has now become within the american psyche (o'krane, 2011). literature review in the literature review related to resident perceptions for events, the paper considered studies of major sports events and their impacts and the application of social exchange theory to explain resident support. the earliest reference to hallmark events in the research literature was by ritchie (1984), the widely accepted definition proposed by ritchie (1984) describes hallmark events as: “major onetime or recurring events of limited duration, developed primarily to enhance the awareness, appeal, and profitability of a tourism destination in the short and/or long term. such events rely for their success on uniqueness, status, or timely significance to create interest and attract attention” (1984, p. 2). getz et al. (2012) argued that hallmark events refer to the function of events in achieving goals that benefit the host community, namely, attracting tourists, creating, and enhancing a positive image co-branded with the destination/ community, and delivering multiple benefits to residents. a recurring sports event, especially a hallmark event, may generate positive intangible social impacts, such as increasing community identity, attachment, and civic pride (getz et al., 2012). hallmark events occupy an essential place in any destination's portfolio of events and take on additional meanings as permanent institutions within communities, in addition, these recurring events can offer a venue for entertainment, socialization, and community cohesion (ouyang et al., 2019). they can enhance the visibility of the host city within the tourism marketplace (van der steen & richards, 2021). moreover, the smaller-scale sports event hosted regularly in one community ensures a consistent flow of visitors and expenditures (ouyang et al., 2019). in https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ baqaain, j., lee, s. & wang, s. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 1-14. 4 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 1-14, doi: 10.18060/29384 copyright © 2025 jumana baqaain, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. discussing this further (todd et al., 2017), argued that a critical feature of hallmark events is their close association with their host. hosting hallmark events can have a significant influence on the community that is hosting them, and the community must show their support. their support is critical not only for the success of the event but also for the sustainability of these events (cheng& jarvis, 2010). residents are the most influenced socially by the events in their region, and the host community is a prime beneficiary as they can enjoy the games, new sports facilities, and upgraded services. at the same time, they are the ones who need to deal with the inconveniences such as disruptions in their daily lives and traffic jams. thus, residents' support of the event comes partially but instead based on their evaluation of benefits and costs (lee et al., 2022). for this reason, these impacts significantly affect residents and are necessary antecedents to gain their support (cheng & jarvis, 2010). therefore, perception is a crucial aspect of an event; perception is vital to knowing if the event is successful or not (gursoy et al., 2004). perception is what a person thinks and believes, based on many different aspects; all conceptual knowledge, however, is based on awareness (efron, 1969). there is a small but growing body of literature examining the impacts of special events on the host community as perceived by residents (fredline et al., 2013). the most noticeable research theme in the last decade is how residents perceive the impact of events on the community itself (chen, 2011). this theme emerged in the literature because organizers should aim to minimize the adverse effects, such as disrupting daily routines, while maximizing the positive outcomes. ritchie (1984) identified six significant types of impact hallmark events: economic, tourism/commercial, physical, social, cultural, psychological, and political. nevertheless, little academic attention has been paid to the social, psychological, and political dimensions, with previous studies emphasizing the economic, commercial, and promotional benefits (van der steen & richards, 2021). accordingly, scholars have started to examine the social, cultural, and environmental impacts of such events, and there is growing literature on the perceptual and social impact associated with sporting events. several empirical studies explored local community opinions and perceptions towards these impacts (ohmann et al., 2006; balduck et al., 2011; liu, 2016). furthermore, many researchers have found that noneconomic impacts are more related to residents' perceptions than economic impacts (yao& schwarz, 2018). kim et al. (2006) revealed that residents perceived the 2002 fifa world cup in south korea to generate more societal and cultural benefits than economic ones. in the sports event context, the social impacts refer to the consequences of the influx of tourists to the host city because of hosting the sports event, the development of equipment and infrastructure for tourists, and the impacts on image and international reputation, which alters the way residents live, work, play (gaudette et al., 2017). major sports events have the potential to create a few positive and negative impacts; hosting sports events in a city provides entertainment opportunities, in addition to enhancing the destination image and developing facilities and infrastructure for the community (cheng &jarvis, 2010). on the other hand, possible problems are overcrowding, traffic congestion, noise, less accessibility to facilities, crime, and demonstration effect (cheng & jarvis, 2010). in singapore, during the f1 grand prix, the most critical problem is that the circuit is in the city and therefore leads to the closure of roads for several weeks, which negatively impacts the quality of life of residents (cheng & jarvis, 2010), while kim and petrick (2005) claimed that image enhancement and consolidation were the positive outcomes of hosting the fifa world cup in seoul, south korea, while traffic problems and congestion were perceived as the most negative impacts of hosting the world cup. also, ohmann et al., (2006) measured the perceived social impacts of the 2006 football world cup on the munich residents; a sense of community and sharing the event experience were perceived as positive social impacts in addition to https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ baqaain, j., lee, s. & wang, s. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 1-14. 5 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 1-14, doi: 10.18060/29384 copyright © 2025 jumana baqaain, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. urban regeneration .at the same time, most residents of ghent believed that the critical benefits concerning the arrival of the tour de france in 2007 were cultural and image benefits (balduck, et al., 2011). the social exchange theory to understand residents' attitudes toward sports events, it is necessary to understand how residents' attitudes towards sports events are formed. the social exchange theory (set) is widely used to analyze how social, economic, cultural, and environmental variables affect residents' support for events (duan et al., 2020; gursoy& kendall, 2006). according to the social exchange theory (set), individuals' behaviors are subject to exchange activities that can bring rewards and compensation. the attitude of residents to support an event mainly depends on the relationships between their perceptions of social, economic, cultural, and environmental benefits and costs to the community brought by the sports event. in other words, whether the residents decide to support a sports event will depend on the outcome of the sports event evaluation (duam et al., 2020). the higher the benefits obtained from the exchange, the greater the likelihood of positive attitudes toward the event and the stronger the support for the event. conversely, negative perceptions will arise when the outcome of the exchange results in higher costs (kim & walker, 2012). gursoy and kendall (2006) used the social exchange theory to measure residents' support for the olympic games, and lee and krohn (2013) applied it to study resident support for the super bowl and the results showed that after hosting the event, positive evaluations of the event’s social impacts are likely to lead to supportive attitudes toward future events .similar research has been conducted on the impacts of motor car races; cheng and jarvis (2010) examined mainly the positive and negative social-cultural impacts of the f1 grand prix in singapore using the social exchange theory. the widespread conclusion is that from a social exchange perspective, the attitude of residents to support an event mainly depends on the relationships between their perceptions of the benefits and costs to the community brought by the sports event. the assessment of the costs and benefits of these exchanges and their overall perception will then lead to an internal cost-benefit analysis of the analyzed phenomenon (ap, 1992). therefore, this study proposed a positive relationship between the perceived benefits and the support for hosting the hallmark event. perceived benefits a judgment by the residents of the comparison between the benefits and the costs. the benefit components of value include economic, social, and environmental attributes (li et al., 2018). lee and krohn (2013) stated that psychological impacts include increased awareness and visibility for the host community, enhanced image, and emotional and psychological benefits .several researchers suggested that perhaps one of the most important perceived benefits of hosting megaevents, for example, the 1988 olympic winter games in calgary and the 1996 summer olympics in atlanta, are the positive social impacts, as community pride and international recognition (gursoy & kendal, 2006). in addition, van der steen and richards (2021) revealed that resident support for the 2018 european capital of culture in valletta, malta, was influenced by levels of perceived benefits and perceived costs, which aligns with social exchange theory. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ baqaain, j., lee, s. & wang, s. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 1-14. 6 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 1-14, doi: 10.18060/29384 copyright © 2025 jumana baqaain, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. perceived costs it is defined as something the residents give up acquiring or consuming a product; as an economic or social effect, high perceived costs may stimulate negative attitudes on the part of residents of the host city. for example, hosting sporting events will likely create negative externalities, including negative economic impacts and noneconomic cost problems such as traffic congestion, crowding, and increasing crime rates (lee & krohn, 2013). gursoy and kendall (2006) analyzed negative economic, cultural, and social impacts, while deccio and baloglu (2002) measured perceived costs regarding traffic congestion, crime rate, and natural environment. both studies failed to identify a significant relationship between perceived costs and resident support. gursoy and kendall (2006) argued that if people give more importance to benefits, such as employment, they might overlook the costs associated with hosting the event. methods data collection data was collected through a semi-structured interview, 12 of the city residents were interviewed during july and august (2022). all interviewees were residents of indianapolis, where the annual event is held. the semi-structured interviews allowed for a flexible and open-ended data collection approach while ensuring all participants were asked the same core questions (haddad et al., 2019) while encouraging the interviewees to provide details based on their experience to gain insight into their attitudes and perceptions. participants were english-speaking locals who were willing to participate in this interview process. the process of the interview started with the preparation of the "interview guide" that included the main themes, including the residents' personal experiences as attendees at the event, the positive and negative social impacts of the event, residents' perception of the impacts and the factor influencing residents' support. furthermore, it was further reviewed by the author's academic advisor. interviews were held via zoom meetings as a preferable platform during the covid-19 pandemic. zoom is a communications platform that allows users to connect with video, audio, phone, and chat. “support.zoom.us”. interviews lasted between forty and ninety minutes, mostly lasting around one hour. each interview session started with an introduction to restate the purpose of the study and ask for the participants` consent to record the interview. the open-ended questions were based on a study by ap and crompton (1998). they developed a 35-item tourism impact scale derived from a pool of 147 impact items drawn from personal interviews and literature. interviews were audio-recorded with the interviewees` consent to minimize bias. participants table 1 presents the profile of the interviewees included in the sample. in this case, the sample consisted of 12 residents living around different areas in the city of indianapolis, and some of them were residents of speedway town, where the event is held annually—one of the interviewees living a few blocks away from the ims racetrack. the minimum length of residency for residents of the speedway was three years. the other residents live in different areas in indianapolis, like avon and downtown. individuals needed to be representative of both male and female genders so that the data would not isolate views that could be different based on gender influence. however, most participants were male, a sample composition characteristic of a diverse educational background and dissimilar occupations. the age of participants was between 23 68 years. all the interviewees confirmed that they attended the indy 500 at least once and are fully aware of their personal experiences at the event, except for one participant, who has lived in the https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ baqaain, j., lee, s. & wang, s. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 1-14. 7 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 1-14, doi: 10.18060/29384 copyright © 2025 jumana baqaain, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. speedway for the past three years. he attended the event when he was a toddler and expressed his willingness to go to the event in the future if he has the availability and the time to go. table 1. interviewees’ profiles no age gender profession educational background 1 60s female principal master’s degree 2 60s male clergy master’s degree 3 20s male counselor intern master’s degree 4 20s male operation staff graduate student 5 40s male creative director college 6 20s male account manager graduate student 7 20s male analyst master’s degree 8 20s male park management bachelor’s degree 9 20s female insurance agent bachelor’s degree 10 50s female principal master’s degree 11. 50s male lawyer doctorate student 12 20s male researcher doctorate student data analysis to analyze the collected data, the author completed an initial verbatim transcription of the interviews. after each interview, the author transcribed each interviewee through "speechy," then conducted an individual review, and made necessary revisions to the transcription of each interview. following this, inductive thematic analysis was used to analyze transcribed data, and identify common primary themes, and patterns among all interviews. the process of data analysis included five stages: 1. transcribing the data; 2. reading through the transcripts to become familiar with the data ;3. coding each interview to discover the main themes; this stage involved viewing each transcript as a whole and interpreting each one by relating parts of the text to its overall meaning. 4. grouping the codes to form themes involved relating the interview transcripts to one another to identify common global themes until theoretical saturation was evident. 5. describing and interpreting meanings: this was achieved by examining the themes developed from the interviews to determine the point at which no new themes emerged from the data (todd et al., 2017; haddad et al., 2019). using this process, five themes were identified and are presented as findings. overall, the following thematic categories were identified: (a) residents' attendance of the event, (b) residents' personal experience as attendees, (c) the pros and cons associated with the event, (d) residents' perceptions of the impacts of the indy 500. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ baqaain, j., lee, s. & wang, s. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 1-14. 8 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 1-14, doi: 10.18060/29384 copyright © 2025 jumana baqaain, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. findings and discussion the impacts identified by the respondents are predominantly framed within the social and socio-economic perspectives described below. sense of community the sense of community is one of the most prominent themes that emerged; the residents perceived that the event fostered a sense of community and social cohesion among residents. in our sample, several sub-themes are related to the concept, such as togetherness, cohesion, belonging, camaraderie, solidarity, unity, and connection. participants explained that the indianapolis 500, with its shared experiences and traditions, not only brings people together but also strengthens community bonds, fostering a sense of solidarity and togetherness. for example, informant # 5 said: “every time they sing back home again in indiana it's one of these things where it's one of the most popular songs in indiana every time that song just it kind of just gives you a sense of home feeling like you're at home you have over 200,000 fans enjoy doing the same thing”. the two critical elements for creating a sense of community are celebration and social camaraderie; the indianapolis 500 event is an occasion for celebration and joy and allows individuals to share in the celebration and the tradition together. a respondent spotted: “i was really excited i like the camaraderie of big social events; excited when they do the traditional beginning things like the opening ceremony the parade and the fly over the national anthem and the singing i'm back home and get in indiana, i really like the cultural kind of community parts of all that i like all the traditions involved in.”(informant # 7). informant #6 clarified: “socially i think it brings a lot of good community events that’s right just things that can i bring people together in safe space, it brings people that idea of bringing people together i don't know how you would say that maybe like how to make that a feeling community yeah, sense of community.” in addition, some of the residents of the town of speedway, where the event takes place every year, decorated their houses and backyards to welcome race fans, volunteered to pass out water along the way to the racetrack, and provide first aid when needed. these actions can strengthen social bonds and bring people together. informant # 12 commented: “i was biking back to my place some people in the front yard and their porches offer me some water because they saw that i was tired from the bike trying to get back i thought that was those really interesting to see that the social dynamic how people want to help each other during the day.” another interviewee added: “so i like you know the feeling that you get in may that everybody is talking about this feeling in indiana its super unique people are decorating their yard and you look up their indianapolis 500 flag out it's almost like it's a little holiday that we get to celebrate inside its special in this regards”. (informant # 9). the finding of the study echoes the findings reported by ohmann et al. (2006) that one of the perceived social impacts of the fifa world cup 2006 in munich was that the event fortified the sense of community and improved relationships between people. buelens et al. (2011) emphasized that sports events are more than entertainment; they are transformative social events that allow for social leverage. it feels like a new era of inspiration has been ignited in the communal atmosphere, an inspiration that all can share. civic pride most respondents expressed that hosting the event elevated their pride and self-esteem. their pride was profound, with sub-themes like joy, achievement, ability, satisfaction, esteem, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ baqaain, j., lee, s. & wang, s. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 1-14. 9 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 1-14, doi: 10.18060/29384 copyright © 2025 jumana baqaain, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. and identity. the informants' pride in their city hosting the indianapolis 500 every year was particularly noteworthy, highlighting the unique and exclusive nature of this event. this uniqueness significantly fosters residents' pride in their city and community. the words of informant # 11 vividly capture this emotion. “ i don' feel this could replicate what has become the indianapolis 500 about anywhere else on, kind of feeling this is a one day event a year and it doesn't happen anywhere also a feeling of pride like pride in the city in the state that we do something so special yeah of just like satisfaction and pride in your community, in the city that like your city can put on a super mega event in not a big town this is cool.” one resident of the town of speedway expressed her feeling of pride and put it “it makes all of us proud we're proud to live in this town and we're proud to share our town for a whole month with complete and absolute strangers; just a sense of pride you know our little town is very prideful in our schools and our racetrack and the historical part of speedway”. (informant # 10). informant # 8 added: “it’s just it's a pride we're very proud just have this race here every year and have the fans come back year after year and to share it with people”. other interviewees expressed that they are hugely proud of their city being able to organize this sports event successfully every year. one male said: "i think it proved to the world that we could put on an event of this magnitude year after year and make it look semi-effortless. i think it is the cornerstone that all of you need in indianapolis and the spirit the community; with all the things we host now, this is just for the year's crown jewel to host something so historic and meaningful you can ask anybody across the globe. they would know what the indy 500 is; i am proud to have it here in our city and then out of the state." (informant # 5). another participant added:” it's been going on for so long i think that's one of the main things the indianapolis 500 thing over 100 years to be able to host the same large sporting event in the world in the same place, it kind of built up community, here there's a big sense of pride in our city and everything we can do here.” (informant # 1). these findings align with the research of fredline and faulkner (2000), who measured the pride in the city following the v8 race in canberra. a significant 55% of the community expressed their support, affirming that the event had indeed instilled a sense of pride. furthermore, the residents in our study not only perceive the pride in their city as a positive impact gained from hosting the event, but they also express a deep admiration for their city's ability to organize such a mega event. this attitude, like the findings of cheng& jarvis (2010), underscores the residents' pride in the collective ability of their community to manage an international event like the 2008 formula 1 singtel singapore grand prix. entertainment this research highlights that the respondents not only acknowledged the entertainment opportunities but also the opportunities for personal connections and networking that residents gain from hosting the event as a significant social benefit. the results indicate that entertainment is associated with concepts such as fun, excitement, parade, enjoyment, atmosphere, and celebrations. additionally, the event enhances opportunities for family reunions, enjoyable gatherings with friends and extended family, and social networking. it acts as a incentive for people to form personal connections and enhances entertainment opportunities for the locals of indianapolis. the indianapolis 500 is a platform for the local community to participate in exciting events, meet new people, and interact with tourists. almost all the respondents emphasized the entertainment aspect of the event as a perceived social impact derived from the event. for example, informant # 3 described the event: “like if i meet someone that lives in california for example, and https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ baqaain, j., lee, s. & wang, s. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 1-14. 10 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 1-14, doi: 10.18060/29384 copyright © 2025 jumana baqaain, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. we exchange phone numbers they we both attended the event we're talking about throughout the year”. “another female participant commented: “it's a nice scene the overall and the atmosphere was really enjoyable, you feel you feel that that energy, and yeah a social interaction what makes really cool, the social interaction the opportunities to do more things to meet new people to have something to do.” (informant # 1). one more code was: “i would say leading up to it it's a bit of a party atmosphere e: on a personal note, it's just a fun day for me gives me a chance to see my friends it's just exciting”. (informant # 10). another male said: “excited, had a lot of fun much wanted to share it with lots of people i invited lots of friends and family to come in and lots of people to see it’s just a fun event too it’s.” (informant # 3). the finding of the study regarding the entertainment aspect as a social benefit derived from hosting the event fulfilled with the finding of the study by chen (2011) stated that from a sociological perspective, having sports events in town can provide a good diversion and recreational options to the hosting city’s residents. enhance the image of the city and city brand it is defined as shared perceptions or views of a city, and a city brand is defined as the name or symbol that identifies a particular city and distinguishes it from other cities (olberding, 2014). these concepts are key aspects of the findings and are closely linked to the following subthemes: reputation, prominence, recognition, prestige, and visibility. most respondents defined the mass exposure that indianapolis received throughout hosting the event as a social benefit; most participants explained that the event positively impacted the image of indianapolis "as the racing capital of the world." it enhances the city's brand and makes the event's name associated with and tied with the host city's name. interviewee # 2 commented: “visibility, name recognition, indianapolis out in the public eye. is the one of the biggest ones because if you go any place in the world and you were something indianapolis people will say the indy 500, it helped the city a lot as well and it's giving it more character in prominence”. in addition to another code: “would really put it on the maps, usually if you're talking to someone like from out of town or just you know not from indy at all, and everyone knows about the indy 500”. (informant # 4). the most common response was that the event lifted the city's profile and made the town of speedway a more exciting place to visit. interviewee # 12 added: “when you're talking about it to friends and families it’s the biggest one-day event in the world that creates a cool image of the city is that cool a lot of people around the world know about it is important to the city is to promote the idea of a world-class city changes that idea of the boring city”. one code in this theme was: “it's also a tourism factor in indianapolis was known as a nap town where it's lazy boring there's not a lot to do but all the sporting events allowed us to bring in people from outside of indianapolis to experience our city to see the culture that we have here so if it's constantly bringing people in new set of eyes to the city and exposing them to what we have here in indianapolis”. (informant # 6). “the recognition i think people again people know indianapolis sometimes they only know indianapolis because of the 500if the indy 500 wasn’t here i'd be a lot less people who even knew indianapolis existed i think more people knowing about the city is good for those who live in the city.” (informant # 9). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ baqaain, j., lee, s. & wang, s. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 1-14. 11 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 1-14, doi: 10.18060/29384 copyright © 2025 jumana baqaain, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. this finding is aligned with the findings by kim and petrick (2005), who claimed that image enhancement and consolidation were the positive outcomes of hosting the fifa world cup in seoul. importantly, our study's findings on the perceived social impacts are in line with several prior research on hallmark events. for instance, ouyang et al. (2019) found that recurring events can serve as a platform for entertainment, socialization, and community cohesion. similarly, van der steen & richards (2021) emphasized that hallmark events can significantly boost the visibility of the host city within the tourism marketplace. moreover, a recurring sports event, particularly a hallmark event, can generate positive intangible social impacts, such as fostering community identity, attachment, and civic pride (getz et al., 2012). most interviewees acknowledged that hosting the event in the city attracts visitors and investments. for example, during the indianapolis 500, the influx of visitors and their spending enhanced the local businesses located along the racetrack. participant # 9 said:” it gives our businesses a chance to boom and making a decent amount of money especially on the on main street where there's a lot of restaurants and bars, i mean those are packed to the brim.” another example was: “i guess we say about it it's huge for the economy indianapolis speedway economy you know all the visitors, just boosted the economy a ton, i don't know how much money bringing but i know it’s a lot.” (informant # 7). such an impact appears to concur with previous research findings, which identify increased numbers of visitors as one of the key benefits to hosting a city; events can also stimulate the growth of existing businesses and the establishment of new ones, like restaurants, bars, hotels, and merchandise stores (krohn & lee, 2013). results reveal the dominance of positive perceptions towards indianapolis 500. in this regard, the possibility of social benefits from the event was recognized as a strong driver of positive perceptions among residents. nonetheless, informers raised concerns that reflected issues related to the inconveniences that the local community experienced from hosting the event. these included the issues of parking problems, overcrowding during the event, alcoholism, and the traffic patterns that were disturbed during the long weekend of the race. for example, as stated by interviewee # 3: “if somebody's not attending the race then trying to navigate the traffic would definitely be an inconvenience if you're trying to work on that day and need to leave your home and get somewhere it would be an inconvenience.” again, even though respondents mentioned that the race might disrupt the lives of residents and create inconveniences, such as potential traffic problems, they did not classify them as being negative impacts of the event. many participants put comments that reflect their positive perceptions, such as: “where it's like look this the craziest thing that happened. i think that most of the people, and local people they do care more about the positive things”. (informant # 5). “i don't think there's too many negative associations that i'm getting with it if somebody if i mention the indy 500 the is nothing negative associated with it if they said something like oh all the drinking there or something like that yeah for you it's mostly it’s fine yeah”. (informant # 9). “no nothing negatively some of the people obviously are it gets very loud and very get very loud and some people are drunk but other than that no major issues yeah. it does change like the traffic patterns but overall, i see it as a positive thing.” (informant # 2). consequently, the residents of indianapolis are influenced by the event's perceived benefits in terms of social aspects. this finding aligns with the set that suggests that people support the event if the benefits are high (ap,1992). according to the social exchange theory, the residents evaluated the benefits of the exchange and the costs of the social interaction. participants agree that https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ baqaain, j., lee, s. & wang, s. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 1-14. 12 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 1-14, doi: 10.18060/29384 copyright © 2025 jumana baqaain, soonhwan lee and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. the event is more beneficial to the community, instilling a sense of pride and fostering socialization opportunities. it enhances the social bonds in the community and provides socioeconomic benefits. at the same time, they recognized the events' impact on the city's traffic patterns. in this research, residents are not just ready, but willing to sacrifice certain inconveniences because the social benefits are significant. this demonstrates their strong commitment to the well-being of the community. this study shows that the interviewed residents are not only incredibly supportive of the event itself but also support further sport events in the future. residents also believed that the costs of the event did not exceed the benefits in terms of positive social – benefits which explains their support and is in line with the results from previous studies in the context of sporting events (gursoy & kendall, 2006; deccio & baloglu, 2002) conclusion this study aimed to examine residents' perceptions toward the social impacts of the premier annual event, the indy 500, held at the indianapolis motor speedway, indianapolis. the findings suggest that the residents in the sample could acknowledge that the benefits outweigh the costs and, therefore, support and accept the event. overall, the study found that the residents of indianapolis are aware of the importance of hosting the indy 500 in the city. therefore, a dominance of positive views on behalf of residents was noted, with informants identifying various social benefits associated with hosting the event. the findings reveal how involvement in the event and its recurring nature over time contributed to it becoming a delightful tradition for the residents of indianapolis (getz et al., 2012). in addition, the general idea that the more significant perceived benefits will lead to more positive attitudes has been supported by the findings of this research; however, the perceived costs will lead to more negative attitudes, which seems not to be supported by the identified results. residents recognize the event's actual benefits and could be more supportive of hosting similar events in the future. therefore, it is essential to minimize the costs and enhance the benefits of events to win their support for hallmark events. therefore, this study is beneficial as it may offer profound suggestions for event organizers to maintain a favorable attitude among residents towards this premier annual event and try to mitigate the challenges associated with hosting the event by adopting appropriate event strategies. for example, the city can adjust its suggested plan for increased traffic and visitors. theoretically , the use of the qualitative method technique to analyze the data could have significant future implications since it can be said that there are limited qualitative methods used in the sports events literature, and this study placed more weight on the qualitative side since more meaningful data was extracted from analyzed data that explained why the perceived impacts and are so significant in influencing residents support towards a hallmark event not just identified them. thus, it would be imperative for future studies to include a broader range of participants, such as local businesses, volunteers, and event personnel, as this study had a restricted sample, consisting only of residents from indianapolis city as it might offer different attitudes towards hosting recurring sporting events. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ baqaain, j., lee, s. & wang, s. 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(2009). residents' perceptions towards the impacts of the beijing 2008 olympic games. journal of travel research, 48(1), 78-91 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 16-29, doi: 10.18060/26534 copyright © 2022 renata andrea szabo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2022 volume 5 no. 2 covid-19 as a transformative power in the inbound tourism of japan: multiple case studies of foreign tourism professionals in kyoto renata andrea szabo ritsumeikan university, japan correspondence: renata.tailor@gmail.com (r. a. szabo) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation szabo, r. a. (2022). covid-19 as a transformative power in the inbound tourism of japan: multiple case studies of foreign tourism professionals in kyoto. events and tourism review, 5(2), x-xx. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:renata.tailor@gmail.com http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr szabo, r. a. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 16-29. 17 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 16-29, doi: 10.18060/26534 copyright © 2022 renata andrea szabo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract purpose: this study seeks to explore the transformative power of covid-19 in the tourism sector of japan, with attention to the unprecedented changes, growing activities and interconnectedness caused by covid-19 crisis through multiple case studies conducted among foreign tourism professionals in kyoto. design/methodology/approach: this study applies participant observation, in-depth interviews and narrative analysis. findings: tourism shifted to offer experiences in a digital way and new forms of digital travelling became popular like travel live streaming, virtual tours, virtual experiences. not just previous travelers, but people who don't have the chance to travel became digital tourists and frequent interactions happen between tourists and guides, forming new communities in virtual space. the role of tour guides in digital context became more important as their interpretation reach a wider audience and shape the image of japan. the data also shows that live streams increase the willingness to visit the destination and create connections among digital tourists as well. originality/value: shifting away from the negative impacts of covid-19 in tourism, this study shows the growth and industry shaping transformations in the tourism sector during the pandemic era, and presents forward-looking solutions through increased interconnectedness in virtual space. keywords: transformative power; covid-19; inbound tourism; digital tourism 1. introduction the japanese word for crisis contains two characters: one is for the danger and fear, other is for opportunity and occasion. every crisis brings opportunities, “crises are adrenaline for innovation” (fursenthal et al., 2021). this is also true for the tourism industry, which on one hand, felt the devastating effects of the recent corona pandemic, but it is also that which tried to survive with innovative methods and offering the experience of travel without physical travelling. globally the international tourist arrivals decreased by 74% according to unwto (2021), and the complete recovery is not likely to happen before 2024. early in 2020 japan was preparing for the upcoming olympics and many new facilities were open or scheduled to be opened along with services to offer for the visitors. so among all countries, japan has a special situation related to inbound tourism in the pandemic era, and with the 99% fall in international tourist number, japan is one of the biggest victims, 9th in global ranking (covid-19: global tourism revenue loss by country, 2021) as it expected 40 million tourists, but in the end only a minimal number were accepted into the country due to the exceptionally strict border control. japan only started to open the border for individual tourists after more than 2 years of closure. inside japan, the kinki region lost the most tourists (yagasaki, 2021), especially the city of kyoto, which in the past was dealing with the problem of overtourism, but it became almost deserted in the early months of the travel ban. in kyoto several tourism services were offered by foreign residents, who were targeting inbound customers, therefore after the inbound tourism restriction was in effect, their commerce fell to zero. as it was summarized pre-covid (szabo, 2021), the combination of the future vision of the government about “tourism nation”, the record high number of inbound tourists, the lack of foreign language abilities among locals and the “mysterious” image of the country led to a new phenomenon in japan: growing https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ szabo, r. a. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 16-29. 18 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 16-29, doi: 10.18060/26534 copyright © 2022 renata andrea szabo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. number of foreign tourism professionals, who resides in japan and became tour guides, accommodation owners, event organizers, experience and content creators for inbound tourists. as japan is one of the countries which shut down its borders for the longest, their dealing with the crisis produces a valuable and unique field to investigate the transformative power of covid-19 related to tourism. during this time new forms of tourism got implemented, foundations of new communities were laid down, thousands of online tourists “visited” japan, collaborations started to happen between previous competitors, and it also exposed new perspectives in the relationship between international tourists, tourism stakeholders and locals, altogether potentially shaping the future of the industry. tourism arrivals are not in a vacuum, and they shape the lives and interactions of residents (jordan et al., 2019), but still the majority of researchers are focusing on the loss compared to pre-pandemic and the possibilities of recovering postpandemic from an economic and sustainability viewpoint, but covid-19 crisis is not a pause button, as it reshapes the social behavior of communities worldwide and transformations are happening during the inbound travel ban period in the local societies. since previous crises in tourism did not lead to long-term decline as this one (gössling et al., 2020), therefore this period can shed light on how japan is exposed to globalization. moving away from the negative impacts, this study seeks to explore the transformative power of covid-19 with attention to the unprecedented changes, growing activities and interconnectedness caused by covid-19 crisis through multiple case studies conducted among foreign tourism professionals in kyoto. in order to explore how foreign tourism professionals are adapting to the covid-19 crisis, the following subquestions are beneficial: what kind of activities foreign tourism professionals are conducting during the inbound travel ban (despite the impossibility to travel as a tourist to japan), what are the growing areas in inbound tourism sector, and what is their core motivation behind the adaptation process. 2. from overtourism to empty streets 2.1. covid as a transformative power “the covid-19 pandemic has upended nearly every aspect of life, from the personal (how people live and work) to the professional (how companies interact with their customers, how customers choose and purchase products and services, how supply chains deliver them)” (fursenthal et al., 2021). however, the effects of covid crisis were not equal in all sectors and regions of the world, it caused major discontinuities and changed the way of living and working. crisis stimulates the development of new technologies and solutions, and could work as a catalysator, speeding up the process of innovation (colombo et al., 2016). “organizations that innovate through crises by focusing on generating new growth versus simply weathering the storm outperform significantly over time” (am et al., 2020). following this mindset many fields such as robotics, artificial intelligence and the hospitality industry looked into new solutions during the pandemic (zeng et al., 2020), in this spirit macau adopted a public-private partnership led by the government to aid the recovery (wan et al., 2022), as for tanzania, the future could be a more sustainable and nature-based tourism (henseler et al., 2022), in other cases changing into a smart destination could support the recovery (bulchand-gidumal, 2022), and in general this period opened up a window to the complexities of sustainable tourism (jones & comfort, 2020). the pressure of the pandemic is a transformative power for the tourism sector, not just a simple rebound, as this size of impact and recovery never happened before but could happen later too. the rate of pandemics and epidemics will increase as the world population becomes more mobile, and urbanization makes more concentrated areas all around the world (gössling et al., 2020). this could also mean that innovations and solutions adopted in the tourism sector during covid-19 crisis can be useful for the long term and could stay in the post-covid era too. covid-19 should be seen as a transformative power and novel thinking is needed to explore the development related to this crisis, however tourism studies “theoretically provide minimal space for advancing the understanding of crisis management and potentiating the https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ szabo, r. a. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 16-29. 19 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 16-29, doi: 10.18060/26534 copyright © 2022 renata andrea szabo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. pandemic’s ability” (abbas et al., 2021). therefore, this study is seeking to shed light on the ongoing changes and future implications. 2.2. from overtourism to empty kyoto the increasing number of inbound tourists in japan was a relatively new trend, as it started to grow with new tourism-oriented policies from 2013, and the visitor arrivals have tripled in the next five years, reaching 31 million in 2018 and with the vision of 60 million arrivals in 2030, however during the pandemic the visitor numbers were falling to almost zero (nguyen, 2020). kyoto as the ancient capital of japan is a tourism city, targeted also by domestic and inbound tourists, and it was the 3rd visited city by foreign travellers in 2019 (data analysis on japanese inbound tourism trends, 2020). before kyoto city had many problems with overtourism and crowded touristic areas, but after february 2020, a so called “empty kyoto” campaign started, showing the once busy areas without any people around in order to lure some domestic travelers. as kyoto was also preparing for the increased number of inbound tourists during the olympics, the travel ban left kyoto with many new, empty hotels, freshly renovated traditional houses and private lodgings, and left without customers the local guides, foreign tourism professionals, therefore kyoto provides a suitable context to observe the adaptation and strategy of the industry. 2.3. new ways of travelling: interactive digital tourism during the covid-19 crises, people changed their private and professional lives and digital communication channels became more accessible. video conferences became widely adopted among businesses, office workers, students, previous business travellers (gössling et al., 2020), the first time, the g20 leaders meeting was organized not by person, but online (european council, 2020). overall, the digitalization and digital knowledge improved and it spread through private and professional use, and also found its way to tourism. digital tourism contains all of the digital support which enhances the travel as websites, on-line booking engines, e-books etc. (benyon et al., 2013). however, it is not a new field, but during the pandemic digital tourism tools became widely accepted (akhtar et al., 2021), and three main categories were defined: virtual reality tourism, virtual tourism, and augmented reality. among them virtual tourism tourists visiting online (pre-captured way) destinations seems to be a viable solution and it could stay for long term, getting a space in mass tourism. the developments in technology made it easier for users to explore destinations without actual physical travel. the authors did a systematic literature analysis and found that digital technologies in tourism became an academic field with few, but increased numbers of publications. however the findings are beneficial, there are no listed publications about other forms of virtual tourism, such as travel live streaming or online streaming from a destination, virtual travel live experience etc. travel live stream also existed before, and “can be viewed as a product where the boundaries of tourism experience are negotiated and challenged to establish a new genre of interactive digital tourism.” (deng, 2021). despite being increasingly adopted by the tourism industry, particularly in asian destinations (e.g., china, south korea, and japan), academic research has paid little attention to live streaming in relation to tourism. others argue (tussyadiah et al., 2018) that virtual reality in tourism offers more meaningful content and it is also opening new understandings and intentions for destination tourism, as the virtual environment enhances the satisfaction of tourists and they measured a positive attitude change related to the destination, which could lead to higher level of visitation. from risk-perception perspective, joining an online tour became part of risk avoidance strategies, and online tourism is the safest way to “travel” (lee & chen, 2021). overall, it seems to be difficult to keep up with the changes, new platforms and contents of digital tourism, therefore this study is seeking to deepen the understanding of these new forms and the growing interactions and virtual visitations to japan. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ szabo, r. a. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 16-29. 20 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 16-29, doi: 10.18060/26534 copyright © 2022 renata andrea szabo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 3. data collection and research method general list about tourist guides or on-line tours is not existent in japan or kyoto, therefore a previously collected database by the author (szabo, 2021) was used, which contains 300 foreign tourism professionals, who were involved in tour guiding, managing/owning accommodations, organizing tourism events etc. kyoto based foreign tourism professionals were actively monitored from 2020 february, along with the activity of tourism centers and japanese guides. the collected data was obtained by three channels: observation and participation was used between 2020 february and 2022 june, as the author actively joined on-line tourism activities, such as virtual tours, live streams, live streamed events not only conducted by the selected interviewees, but other foreign and japanese professionals and also organizations. secondly the author also joined new forming online groups during this time period in order to observe and collect feedback from the digital tourists and to see the interactions between them and foreign tourism professionals. the general information about their activities and transformations in the industry was obtained by these channels. to ensure that not only general but also more insightful information is obtained, the third data source is indepth interviews with foreign professionals. as the multiple case study offers advantage related to examining interferences and variables, but it also involves the danger of selection bias (bennett, 2007), building on these observations, three interviewees were selected based on the following factors: popularity (has a broader audience), frequency (continuously doing the activity, not limited only to events or limited for a few times), generating income (not only free tours, but offering paid services) and offering their services for international audience too (using english and other languages, not limiting the entry based on the geographical location). the sampling strategy was also based on choosing interviewees who represent different categories and also to maximize diversity. narrative analysis was applied to explore the personal stories and the author’s own data was also used, as the author is also involved in these activities. in summary, these case studies are not only based on in-depth interviews, but observations, active participation and the author’s own online activity. table 1: list of the cases occupation origin education activity main language during tours miss a tour guide israel (ukraine) phd, kyoto university, jp live tours hebrew, english mr. b tour guide, hotel owner singapore ma, waseda university, jp live tours app development regional development english mr. c. garden consultant, tour guide usa ma, colorado university, us online experiences, online trainings english ms. d tour guide, accommodation owner (author) hungary ma, doshisha, jp live tours hungarian, english https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ szabo, r. a. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 16-29. 21 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 16-29, doi: 10.18060/26534 copyright © 2022 renata andrea szabo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 4. transformations in tourism sector of kyoto related to covid-19 4.1. overview of the transformations in the tourism sector of kyoto among g7 countries, japan kept the borders closed for the longest time as individual inbound travel for tourism purposes was denied for more than 2 years, until 2022. october. in general, the first half year of this period was the “big silence” in terms of inbound travel: not much communication happened on social media sites or official channels related to travel, as individuals and organizations were waiting for the pandemic and regulations to change. but after this period, when the actors realized that it is not a short-term change, different strategies and crisis management emerged in the inbound tourism sector of japan. there was no official, organized strategy on how to respond, so every organization and individuals decided it for themselves. it was possible to see different thinking and behavior in the on-line space, as some choose to stay in silence: visit kyoto is the official tourism page of kyoto city with half million followers on facebook, which was really active on social media sites before covid, but it became silent after the 2020 spring and shifted from average 2 posts/week to 1 post/month. others like shiga tourism center kept their original activity during covid, while nara city chose a different strategy and shifted to a more active on-line present through regular tea ceremony experiences, online live walks, japanese lessons and quizzes about nara. companies also started to experience with online solutions: main leader travel agencies such as jtb and his, started to offer free on-line tours, but those were mainly targeting domestic audiences and only temporary were accessible for international audiences. table 2. categories of activities taking a break self improvement restructuring online presence activities in other fields (teaching, part time activities, webshop etc.) pursuing education (degree, on-line courses) accommodations (pause, long term rent, finding new function, periodically continue) strengthening the online presence sabbatical break writing, publishing guides (pause, on-line experiences, live streaming) social media presence and online community building 4.2. activities foreign tourism professionals are conducting during the inbound travel restrictions the data about the general activities was obtained by various interactions in online groups and during online activities (tours, events) during the inbound travel ban time period. it shows the different paths what foreign tourism professionals chose during the pandemic period. the first category is about temporarily changing their activity and trying out new fields of work and income: for some it is a necessity, for others it is an opportunity to try out their previously planned ideas. typically this includes teaching foreign languages (mainly english), finding a temporary part time job, starting a webshop (typically exporting japanese goods to overseas). the second subcategory, sabbatical means that they are not sure what to do and using this time period to figure out their future plans, change of https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ szabo, r. a. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 16-29. 22 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 16-29, doi: 10.18060/26534 copyright © 2022 renata andrea szabo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. career or other activities. the second category is self-improvement, which involves stepping up in the educational field, such as going to university, joining online courses and using the time to brush up individual skills. the other subcategory is writing and publishing, which shares the same time-constraint limitation, and they used the opportunity to write a book or publishing articles, building up their own blog etc. the third category contains professionals, who wish to restructure their businesses and create a strategy for survival. it includes accommodation owners who refurbish their short time rental for long term rent or using it for other purposes and tour guides, who are creating on-line experiences and live streaming services. the fourth category related to increased activities in the online field such as building up their social media presence and partaking in online communities. 4.3. the growing areas in inbound tourism sector of kyoto 4.3.1. new communities in november 2020, a new informal organization started to grow online, collecting foreigner residents, who are involved in tourism on a professional level, like employees of tourism centers, ryokans, tour operators, tours guides, etc. the online group has more than 270 members from all over japan, and continuously sharing information such as surveys, job offers, cooperation possibilities etc., resolving the mission of the founder related to building a community and supporting each other. but why wasn’t this community alive before the pandemic, whereas there were much more projects and options to work together than during the travel ban? before the pandemic professionals were not much in need to contact each other, in a sense they were competitors and typically they had limited connections with their peers. however, covid disrupted their business and economic survival, so the group started as a platform for information sharing and introducing themselves, and during the time it became the base of many co-operations between the members, which would have been impossible in the pre-covid scene. 4.3.2. live streams, virtual tours, on-line events live streams, virtual tours and live streamed events became popular during the pandemic, offering a variety of alternative ways to visit japan. these options existed on a limited range pre-pandemic, but companies and individuals started to offer them more frequently in the last period. a before completely closed and private world is also opened up: the first live stream of a geisha dinner entertainment in english also happened during this period, organized by a foreign-born tourism professional. similar happened with tea ceremonies, sake tastings, ikebana experiences: they were available only as an in-person experience, the travellers had to be physically present. offering these in an on-line space opened up the opportunity to a more wide audience and offered a semi-present feeling. the importance of this is not just the fact that you don't have to travel to experience it, but the ever-increasing degree of interconnectedness. a few years ago, it would have been impossible to connect and communicate in this way, spreading japanese concepts more widely and increasing international common understanding. table 3. differences between a virtual tour and live stream virtual tour live stream https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ szabo, r. a. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 16-29. 23 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 16-29, doi: 10.18060/26534 copyright © 2022 renata andrea szabo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. timing pre-recorded videos audio (narration) is happening in real time audio and video happening in real time tool zoom or other hosting platform fb, youtube, tik-tok communicat ion visual: not interactive (pre-recorded) audio: interactive, questions and answers with locals: no option to communicate with locals between tourists: they have the option to see each other, but no other information (no profiles) visual: happening live and interactive audio: interactive, questions and answers with locals: option to communicate with locals between tourists: they communicate in writing, only seeing each other profiles long-term option typically they don’t meet again after the tour, but it is possible to join again they have the chance to meet next time too editing the content is edited the content is not edited, happening real time location of the guide at a computer in any location live at the visited location ms a. completely changed her lifestyle because of her live streaming activity. whenever she goes around in kyoto or inside japan, she is always taking the time to do a 30 minutes-1 hours live streaming, almost every day. she not only introduces tourist sites, but the normal, everyday life, because this is what is the main interest of her online tourists. she casually walks around in different areas of the city, but also holds on-line lessons about the geisha culture of kyoto. as the place of the live stream is continuously changing, she shortly prepares before the live streams, but mainly interacting with her viewers and answering their questions about various topics mainly not tourism related, but garbage collection, prices, cleaning of the streets, everyday customs etc. ms. d. applies the same approach, however the tours are more planned and it is possible to know the time and place beforehand, so a bigger audience can gather at the same time. offering virtual tours works differently: mr. c. prepared a few topics like zen gardens as virtual tours and offered the same content every time to different, small groups. he is using his own recorded videos and pictures, adding narration during the tour. as he was a highly rated tour guide pre-pandemic, he is using the same logic and after a session of explanation, starts to interact with the guests and motivates them to ask questions. he has also inquiries from companies to lead team building activities, so in this context the digital tourists are taken to a “field trip” together. table 4. summary of the activities origin business model activity on-line presence community interactions https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ szabo, r. a. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 16-29. 24 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 16-29, doi: 10.18060/26534 copyright © 2022 renata andrea szabo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. ms. a. israel open, free tours collecting tips live streaming educational webinars social media manages her own group and building up community frequent and long term between tourists and guide-tourists mr. b. singapore paid events, fixed date tours virtual tour tour and guide sites have a social media presence, but not community building limited during the tour with follow up mr. c. usa paid events, fixed date tours private tours virtual tour tour and guide sites youtube have a social media presence, but not community building limited during the tour with follow up ms. d hungary open, free tours monthly subscriptions private tours live streaming social media manages her own group and building up community frequent and long term between tourists and guide-tourists 4.3.3. new on-line tourists during the stay-at-home regulations, many companies and people shifted their personal and working life on-line and adapted (relatively) new technologies like video calls, on-line conferences, friendly meetings in chat applications, tv shows shifted to broadcast over the internet etc. many people who were not familiar with these solutions before, started to use them to overcome the difficulties of the pandemic. this led to higher digital competencies among people who were not daily users before, like elderly and people whose work or personal life was not necessary based on on-line activity. the consequence of this in the tourism sector is that a previously non-existent audience joined into the virtual space and started to consume different on-line contents. based on the impressions of interviewees, their audience contains people who can’t travel other ways (because of health, money or time issues), families who want to share experiences, even if the family members live apart from each other, often in different countries, therefore under travel restrictions, this was the only way to meet and share experiences. and not only families, but also friends and acquaintances joined these live broadcasts, and friendships and acquaintanceships were often formed between participants as a result of the repeated shared experience. in the case of mr. d., another segment of virtual travelers emerged: companies that used virtual tours for team-building activities. the interviewees all said that they bring together people of completely different ages, social backgrounds, educational backgrounds, countries and mother tongues through their online activities. 4.4. the core motivation behind the adaptation process these people would have had the opportunity to do well in other areas during the pandemic, but they decided to stick to tourism and to transform their activities in this area. apart from the financial needs, what was their motivation? their answers can be categorized as follows: a) as personal mission: “i am more of a teacher than a tour guide”, “i want to heal through my walks”, “i feel i have a mission to teach japanese https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ szabo, r. a. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 16-29. 25 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 16-29, doi: 10.18060/26534 copyright © 2022 renata andrea szabo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. culture”, “i can be an english teacher anytime, but i wanted to use my knowledge other way”, b) a responsibility towards local community: “i wanted to support the local japanese community”, “empty kyoto felt really sad”, “i wanted to raise awareness towards less-known places, so kyoto will be not so overcrowded like before.” and c) “being the bridge”: “i am a bridge between cultures'', “i enjoy to connect concepts together from different cultures” , “i try to interpret complex ideas in a simple way”, “i would like them (the tourists) to adapt good things from japanese people, like cleaning the streets”, “i don’t want them to see me, i am just the mediator, i want them to see what i want to show about japan.” so the common point among these foreign-born individuals, originally from different countries, social background, native language is this core motivation, which starts with a personal mission, responsibility towards local community and it peaks in the mediator role, which they are aware of and using different expressions to explain their “bridging role”. 4.4.1. bridging capital on different levels 4.4.1.1. tourists and tourists guides are meeting tourists in-person and nowadays on-line too. in this research the focus is on the digital tourists, where the tourist groups are homogenous. in the case of the ms. a., the common point is the language (hebrew), not the physical location and the same is with the hungarian guide, where hungarians living in different countries are also joining the tours. both of them are conducting tours in english for international audiences, but the interest is not so high because of many factors: different time zones make it difficult to join for live streams at the same time, and the atmosphere is not so intimate without the common reference. these online tourists typically don't know each other, but because the same people could join many times, they can get to know each other, and both guides received messages related to forming friendships through this activity. both of them started a group on social media to connect these digital tourists with each other through the common interest, boosting the communication and community forming among them and also expanding the social network of the guides. this is working differently for mr. b. and mr. c, because both of them offer one-time or short time on-line experiences, which are virtual tours or team building activities for companies. therefore, they help to form connections inside those groups, but do not contribute to longer or deeper understanding between them. 4.4.1.2. tourist and guide tourism is often seen as an upper, superficial layer of globalization, offering insight but often not immersion. the role of tourist guides in mass tourism is often limited to organizing and providing historical information, but there is a growing trend worldwide to move away from this. even before the pandemic, there was a move towards private or small group experiences and immersion, greater involvement in local life, including sustainability issues. the role of guides is changing in the online space. since the traveler cannot see everything around them, the guide chooses the slice of reality they want to show (either live or through a virtual tour). as a consequence, the guide's narrative is also becoming more valuable, and is not limited to classic tourist information. for each of the interviewees, a good part of the questions and interactions relate to the guide himself, the everyday events of the world around them, their own personal experiences and interpretation of what is happening around them. no matter how many people join a tour, the voice and person of the guide are just as close to everyone, and what they see through the camera becomes a shared experience for the viewers, because everybody is seeing the same slice of the reality during live streams. virtual passengers cannot look away or look around, they only see what the tour guide shows them, which is why they encounter the different faces of kyoto through the interpretation of the guides. for those who have never had such an experience, the importance of this cannot be stressed enough: the guide has never had such a strong influence on what tourists focus their attention on, and they are given a narrative world filtered through the guide’s personality, knowledge and stories. at the same time, when asked, participants feel "as if i had walked there", "as if i had been there", the experience is authentic and genuine https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ szabo, r. a. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(2), 16-29. 26 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 2 (2022), 16-29, doi: 10.18060/26534 copyright © 2022 renata andrea szabo this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. for them. this feedback is particularly evident during live broadcasts, the pre-recorded nature of virtual tours gives participants less of this experience. 4.4.1.3. guide and local community apart from a person walking the streets of kyoto with a camera and a microphone, speaking in a foreign language, what do local people experience from these online tours? ms. a considers it of the utmost importance to be able to support the local community both financially and relationally. during her walks, she regularly shops at local temples and stores, and raffles off prizes to participants. ms. d not only conducts walks, but regularly invites japanese participants or interviews them and pays them for their participation in the spirit of supporting their lost income due to the disappearance of tourism. virtual tours do not have such a direct impact on the local community, as the tour guide is not present in person. however, in the case of mr. b., the effect is indirect, as he reinvests a percentage of his income back into the local community. these guides have an ongoing impact on shaping the image of japan in the minds of the participants, and help to connect people who would otherwise not find each other. they support the creation of economic links (linking foreign tea traders with japanese tea planters, helping japanese knives to be exported abroad, etc.) and cultural links (developing japanese-swedish ikebana relations, linking craftsmen to each other, etc.) in summary, the growing areas consist of new types of tourists, new communities among tourism professionals, growing publications and virtual events, supported by the strengthened digital activity by tourism professionals, who are mindfully aware of their role in the process and have strong mission as their core motivation to conduct this activity. the transformative power of this crisis caused more interdependence between tourists and guides through online occasions and also strengthened on-line community activity. 5. conclusions during digital tourism activity, people are getting into situations where they interact with other persons, who they never met before or normally wouldn’t have the chance to meet, as they differ in country of residence, native language, educational background, class, religion etc. as can be seen from the above sections, the tourism sector has not only experienced negative losses, but also forward-looking, community-shaping changes, which are not often analyzed in academic research. in this new kind of tourism, the growing role and continuing role of tour guides in shaping the image of japan can be easily observed, which has an impact on the interest and willingness to travel of tourists. all participants reported that some of them had not previously been interested in japan, but that this had changed as a result of the live tours and the visual experience, and many were planning to make a real trip to japan. therefore, this type of activity among those who are able to travel is not a trigger, but a precursor or motivation to travel. digital tourism does not work against face-to-face tourism, but rather channels and thematically narrows the interest of travelers. the newly established and strengthened online communities have become important platforms for cooperation and support for joint, united action, thus promoting the long-term sustainability of the profession and good practice. the legitimate question is whether this on-line tourism will disappear or decrease with the lifting of travel restrictions. from an economic point of view, it is the cheapest way for tourists to travel, and the pool of people who want to travel to japan is much larger than those who can afford to, so it is likely that these opportunities will continue to exist in the future. all of the interviewees want to continue their activities when there are no longer travel restrictions. even before the pandemic, kyoto had seen the rise of a foreign professional class in tourism, and those who gained a larger follower base during the travel restrictions can expect greater demand in the future. in this way, not only do they benefit through their own self-generated desire to travel, but also the local community where tourists spend and consume a revenue stream in japanese tourism that was generated by foreign professionals during the pandemic. the phenomena described earlier are not only temporary and transitory, but also provide new ways of doing tourism in a global world. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ szabo, r. a. 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(2020). from high-touch to high-tech: covid-19 drives robotics adoption. tourism geographies, 22(3), 1–11. https://doi.org/10.1080/14616688.2020.1762118 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ abstract 1. introduction 2. from overtourism to empty streets 2.1. covid as a transformative power 2.2. from overtourism to empty kyoto 2.3. new ways of travelling: interactive digital tourism 3. data collection and research method 4. transformations in tourism sector of kyoto related to covid-19 4.1. overview of the transformations in the tourism sector of kyoto 4.3. the growing areas in inbound tourism sector of kyoto 4.3.1. new communities 4.3.2. live streams, virtual tours, on-line events 4.3.3. new on-line tourists 4.4. the core motivation behind the adaptation process 5. conclusions events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 36-51, doi: 10.18060/29458 copyright © 2025 suosheng wang, beatrice imbaya, susan matiku, rita nthiga, and wendy rop this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2025 volume 8 no. 1 community-based tourism: global perspectives, benefits, challenges, and research frameworks for sustainable development suosheng wang indiana university, indianapolis beatrice imbaya susan matiku rita nthiga wendy rop moi university, kenya correspondence: ropwendy@mu.ac.ke (w. rop) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation wang, s., imbaya, b., matiku, s., nthiga, r. & rop, w. (2025). community-based tourism: global perspectives, benefits, challenges, and research frameworks for sustainable development. events and tourism review, 8(1), 36-51. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:ropwendy@mu.ac.ke http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr wang et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 36-51. 37 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 36-51, doi: 10.18060/29458 copyright © 2025 suosheng wang, beatrice imbaya, susan matiku, rita nthiga, and wendy rop this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract this review synthesizes global and regional perspectives on community-based tourism (cbt), highlighting its evolution from a niche concept to a mainstream development strategy linked to poverty reduction, cultural preservation, and socio-ecological resilience. drawing on recent literature, the paper examines the opportunities and benefits of cbt alongside persistent challenges. a comparative analysis of cbt implementation in developing and developed nations underscores contextual differences in policy frameworks, land tenure, and community cohesion. the review further explores key research frameworks applied in cbt assessment, including the sustainable livelihoods framework (slf), social exchange theory (set), and community capitals framework (ccf), as well as global guidelines like the alula framework and practical models such as community-based ecotourism (cbet). special attention is given to slf and its adaptation for tourism (slft), outlining its strengths, applications, and limitations. the paper concludes by emphasizing the need for integrated, participatory, and resilience-oriented frameworks to ensure cbt delivers inclusive and sustainable outcomes, particularly in developing regions such as african countries. keywords: community-based tourism (cbt); benefits and challenges; research frameworks; sustainable livelihoods framework for tourism (slft); africa concepts and perspectives community-based tourism (cbt), which involves local communities in planning, developing, and managing tourism activities, has become a widely adopted approach for sustainable tourism development (lee & jan, 2019). both cbt and sustainable tourism development (std) aim to balance economic growth, environmental conservation, and social equity by integrating local knowledge, promoting conservation, and enhancing community well-being (kiss, 2004; lee & jan, 2019). cbt seeks to ensure that economic benefits remain within the community while prioritizing cultural and environmental sustainability (tosun, 2006). resident involvement fosters ownership, responsibility, and improved economic and social outcomes (ngo et al., 2024; jackson, 2025). according to summit (2002), cbt promotes belonging among residents and supports tourism development alongside natural resource conservation, protecting heritage and customs. successful cbt practices enhance livelihoods and community survival, while neglect can lead to environmental degradation, resource loss, displacement, and reduced revenues. over the past three decades, cbt has evolved from a niche alternative to a mainstream sustainable development strategy emphasizing local ownership, participatory governance, and equitable benefit-sharing. foundational definitions focused on local participation (murphy, 1985; scheyvens, 1999), while recent studies incorporate social justice, inclusive governance, and resilience-building (lemunge et al., 2025; priatmoko et al., 2021). cbt is now linked to inclusive growth, climate resilience, and community empowerment (abreu et al., 2024; clark et al., 2024). effectiveness depends on mobilizing social capital, negotiating power dynamics, and integrating into competitive tourism value chains (kumar, 2023; lemunge et al., 2025). when https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wang et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 36-51. 38 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 36-51, doi: 10.18060/29458 copyright © 2025 suosheng wang, beatrice imbaya, susan matiku, rita nthiga, and wendy rop this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. supported by capacity building and institutional partnerships, cbt contributes to sustainable development goals such as poverty reduction, food security, gender equality, and responsible consumption (abreu et al., 2024; lemunge et al., 2025). conversely, poor governance, elite capture, and limited managerial capacity undermine equity and authenticity (clark et al., 2024; kumar, 2023). contemporary literature frames cbt as both an alternative to mass tourism and a community-centered development model requiring sustained investment in skills, transparent governance, and equitable benefit-sharing to achieve long-term sustainability. this shift underscores cbt’s growing role as a strategic tool for resilience and inclusive tourism development in africa and other developing regions. global perspectives on community-based tourism globally, community-based tourism (cbt) has been shown to support conservation and cultural revitalization, especially when communities continue to hold meaningful decision-making authority and secure equitable access to benefits. studies from latin america and the pacific confirm the role cbt’s play in strengthening indigenous identity and socio-ecological resilience through locally governed tourism enterprises (ruiz-ballesteros & del campo tejedor, 2020; gascón & mamani, 2021). similarly, other studies point to positive conservation outcomes where cbt aligns with community land rights and participatory governance (kumar et al, 2023; esmail et al., 2023). however, elite capture, corruption, limited digital skills, and donor dependency have been identified as challenges that still continue to undermine local control and divert benefits away from vulnerable households (u4, 2022; wang et al., 2021). additionally, empirical studies from indonesia and nepal show that institutional gaps and weak market linkages frequently leave cbt ventures commercially fragile and overly dependent on external funding or tourism seasonality (wijayanto et al., 2022; savage et al., 2021). consequently, recent research studies recommend that, if cbt is to deliver long-term conservation and cultural outcomes, there is need to have stronger governance structures, to clarify community property rights, and to build capacity that link communities to value chains (suyatna, 2024; jackson, 2025). community-based tourism in africa community-based tourism in africa has been widely linked to community-based environmental conservation, revenue-sharing, cultural preservation, and improved livelihoods, particularly in wildlife-rich and culturally significant landscapes. empirical studies show that, when communities have protected land rights, effective institutions, and transparent benefit-sharing mechanisms, cbt can improve household income, reduce human-wildlife conflict, enhance environmental resilience and strengthen local governance (oduor, 2020; snyman & bricker, 2019; lemunge et al, 2025). in kenya, conservancies such as those in maasai mara and the northern rangelands demonstrate both the potential and challenges of cbt, in that, while they contribute to economic empowerment and biodiversity protection, they continue to face the challenges of uneven benefit distribution, power struggles, limited access to markets and institutional weaknesses (sagana et al., 2023; weldemichel & lein, 2019). capacity building is particularly critical for inclusive outcomes thus according to imbaya et al. (2019), training, skills development, and community engagement significantly improve the commercial viability and equity of cbt initiatives. besides wildlife-focused cbt, cultural heritage and coastal initiatives demonstrate the integration of environmental and cultural conservation into local tourism. for instance, coastal https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wang et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 36-51. 39 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 36-51, doi: 10.18060/29458 copyright © 2025 suosheng wang, beatrice imbaya, susan matiku, rita nthiga, and wendy rop this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. sacred forest programs and swahili cultural tourism enterprises at the kenyan coast support ecosystem protection and cultural revitalization as they generate local income (kibicho, 2004; runya et al, 2023). in addition, trans-boundary initiatives around mt. elgon and lake victoria highlight the potential for regional collaboration, enhanced environmental governance, and tourism competitiveness, though they also underscore the challenges of multi-jurisdictional coordination (omondi & nabanoga, 2020; nyamweya, 2023). collectively, recent african and kenyan research indicates that cbt can be a powerful tool for sustainable development, but its success depends on strong governance, institutional support, capacity building, and equitable benefit-sharing mechanisms. benefits and challenges insights from recent review articles these insights are based on a synthesis of seven recent conceptual and review articles that explore the opportunities, benefits, and challenges associated with community-based tourism development: strydom et al. (2018), kihima and musila (2019), stone & stone (2020), prakoso et al. (2020), afeno-agbe & mensah (2022), velan (2022), and suyatna et al. (2024). based on these review articles, the following is a synthesized summary of the opportunities, benefits, and challenges associated with cbt. opportunities and benefits of cbt: • socio-economic development: cbt generates income, employment, and supports smallscale enterprises; it brings foreign exchange and stimulates local economies. • community empowerment: cbt enhances local capacity, fosters ownership, community control and management and encourages participation in decision-making; it strengthens community pride and identity. • cultural preservation and conservation: cbt promotes safeguarding of traditions, heritage, and local values. • environmental sustainability: encourages responsible tourism and conservation of natural resources. • policy and planning support: cbt provides a framework for inclusive tourism policymaking and long-term planning. challenges of cbt: • limited capacity and skills development: communities often lack the necessary skills, education, and resources to manage cbt effectively. • governance and institutional weaknesses: poor coordination, lack of transparency, and weak institutional support hinder cbt success. • economic leakage and inequity: benefits may not be evenly distributed; local elites may dominate projects, and revenue may not stay within the community. • market access and promotion: difficulty in reaching broader markets and attracting tourists limits growth. • cultural and structural barriers: resistance to change, lack of trust in external stakeholders, and bureaucratic hurdles impede progress. • conflicts and power dynamics: internal disputes and unequal power relations can erode trust and disrupt cbt initiatives. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wang et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 36-51. 40 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 36-51, doi: 10.18060/29458 copyright © 2025 suosheng wang, beatrice imbaya, susan matiku, rita nthiga, and wendy rop this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. • sustainability concerns: cbt must be economically viable and socially inclusive to avoid becoming exploitative or unsustainable. • inadequate infrastructure: basic facilities such as reliable transportation, accommodation, communication network and utilities, which are essential for supporting tourism activities. • limited research: without sufficient research to understand the complexities and unique challenges faced by communities attempting to implement and sustain cbt initiatives, it becomes difficult to identify best practices, measure impacts accurately and develop effective strategies for overcoming obstacles such as limited capacity governance issues and economic inequities. comparative perspectives on cbt development: developing vs. developed nations drawing on a review of 103 location-specific case studies and relevant literature, zielinski et al. (2020) conducted a comparative analysis across multiple thematic categories to investigate how community-based tourism (cbt) and rural tourism are conceptualized and implemented differently in developing and developed nations, despite sharing similar goals and challenges. the key differences are: socioeconomic and cultural factors: developing nations often use cbt as a tool for poverty alleviation, while developed nations focus more on lifestyle and heritage preservation. policy and governance: developed countries tend to have more robust institutional frameworks, whereas developing nations rely heavily on external support and ngos. land ownership: land tenure systems differ significantly, affecting community control and tourism development. community cohesiveness: social cohesion and collective action are more prevalent in some developing contexts, influencing cbt success. external stakeholder assimilation: the role of ngos, donors, and government varies, with developing nations more dependent on external actors. type of visitors: developed nations attract domestic and regional tourists, while developing nations often rely on international visitors. the study argues that the national context rather than objective criteria largely shapes how cbt is perceived and implemented. illustrative case studies table 1 presents selected case studies on community-based tourism, organized according to the key opportunities/benefits and challenges each case reveals. table 1. selected case studies on cbt benefits and challenges destination opportunities/benefits challenges authors ghana modest economic gains through infrastructure and income. conservation incentives promoting sustainable resource use. community empowerment via involvement in tourism planning. apathy toward participation. employment and revenue sharing issues. capacity limitations. human-wildlife conflict affecting livelihoods. mensah (2017) nepal improved individual well-being and psychological health. lack of proper mechanisms and planning. baniya et al. (2018) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wang et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 36-51. 41 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 36-51, doi: 10.18060/29458 copyright © 2025 suosheng wang, beatrice imbaya, susan matiku, rita nthiga, and wendy rop this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. community development through entrepreneurship and cultural preservation. enhanced quality of life (financial and emotional). limited scope and community engagement. kenya participation in decision-making and benefit sharing annual compensation and employment of local communities infrastructure development participation is confined to given consent on land utilisation and benefit sharing community lacks power to ensure that agreements are implemented benefits not evenly distributed kihima & musila (2019) thailand abundant tourism resources improved security and local economy resource ownership conflicts. benefit leakage. financial constraints. low community participation. lo & janta (2020) romania rich natural and cultural resources. entrepreneurial leadership driving cbt success. social and cultural capital. revitalization of rural areas. post-socialist transitions affecting stability. municipal barriers and bureaucracy. weak institutional frameworks threatening sustainability. nagy & segui (2020) vietnam cultural and craft heritage attracting tourists. growth in tourism, especially international visitors. support from government and ngos. community hospitality and interactive experiences. limited human resources and training. space and material constraints. competition from industrial products. infrastructure and marketing gaps. pham et al. (2021) indonesia ecological and cultural assets. strong community engagement potential. positive indicators for sustainability and growth. competitive tourism potential. governance and bureaucratic inefficiencies. limited stakeholder collaboration. weak promotion and visibility. internal and external community conflicts. ahsani et al. (2022) ethiopia positive community attitudes toward tourism. eco-tourism potential with rich resources. existing infrastructure supporting cbt. weak tourism marketing. inadequate accommodation facilities. low community awareness of cbt principles. gebreyesus et al. (2022) malaysia ecotourism entrepreneurship social, cultural capital and networks institutional support environmental awareness cultural preservation improve gender relations lack of trained human resources competition and dominance by outsiders/non-native investors owning community-based ecotourism enterprises kunjuraman (2022) frameworks for assessing cbt in research there are multiple frameworks used in community-based tourism, each focusing on different aspects of development and sustainability. the frameworks used in community-based tourism are primarily conceptual theories, policy guidance, and practical models, centered on community ownership, empowerment, equitable benefit-sharing, and sustainability often informed by participatory development traditions and social-ecological perspectives. in evaluation practice, cbt https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wang et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 36-51. 42 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 36-51, doi: 10.18060/29458 copyright © 2025 suosheng wang, beatrice imbaya, susan matiku, rita nthiga, and wendy rop this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. studies increasingly link local outcomes to livelihoods (via the sustainable livelihoods framework), resident attitudes (via social exchange theory), and multi‑capital community assets (via the community capitals framework). core conceptual frameworks participatory development: this foundational model emphasizes the active and meaningful involvement of local communities at all stages of tourism planning and management, from decisionmaking to implementation and benefit distribution. sustainable livelihoods framework (slf): slf places people at the center and analyzes assets (human, natural, physical, financial, social), vulnerability context, structures/processes, strategies, and outcomes making it useful for assessing how cbt contributes to livelihood resilience and poverty reduction. social exchange theory (set): this theory is often used to understand the local community's perception of tourism impacts. it suggests that residents are more likely to support tourism development if they perceive the benefits (e.g., income, jobs) as outweighing the costs (e.g., cultural dilution, environmental stress). socio-ecological resilience: resilience thinking highlights non‑linear change, thresholds, adaptive capacity, and multi‑level governance increasingly applied to tourism destinations and community systems coping with shocks (e.g., pandemics, climate extremes) and guiding cbt strategies for adaptability. community capitals framework (ccf): ccf assesses seven interconnected capitals: natural, cultural, human, social, political, financial, and built encouraging balanced investment and offering a diagnostic lens for cbt projects and outcomes. global policy and measurement guidance the international union of local authority (alula framework): a global guideline developed by un tourism (formerly unwto) and the g20, which provides a framework for inclusive community development through tourism aligned with the united nations sustainable development goals (sdgs) (yanes et al 2019, prakoso et al 2020; arias et al., 2014). prakoso et al., 2020 reported that this framework focuses on using tourism for inclusive community development. its primary goal is to help achieve the un's sustainable development goals (sdgs), especially regarding poverty reduction and decent work. key aspects include promoting economic growth and job creation within the community, empowering marginalized communities, and ensuring cultural and environmental sustainability. practical implementation models the “6a” framework: this framework entails the major 6 a’s in a destination i.e. attraction, accommodation, accessibility, activities, and amenities, or sometimes available packages/ancillary services (tong et al., 2025): while a general tourism destination model, it is adapted in cbt to ensure these components are developed or managed by the local community to maximize local retention of benefits. integrated ecotourism model (cbet): this model specifically focuses on combining environmental conservation goals with community development objectives, often within protected areas, and involves the community as stewards of their natural resources (raspati et al., 2017) multi-stakeholder approach: many initiatives, such as the campfire initiative in zimbabwe or the tourdure program in south korea, utilize a collaborative approach involving https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wang et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 36-51. 43 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 36-51, doi: 10.18060/29458 copyright © 2025 suosheng wang, beatrice imbaya, susan matiku, rita nthiga, and wendy rop this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. communities, ngos, governments, and private sectors to provide essential support, funding, and market access (stone & stone, 2025; jung, 2022). community-based enterprise (cbe) model: this model treats the cbt initiative as a business owned and operated by the community (formally or informally), with profits shared among members or reinvested into community projects (mtapuri & giampiccoli, 2014). the fundamental goal of these frameworks is to ensure that communities have significant control and ownership over the tourism activities in their areas, moving beyond low-level employment provision to true economic and social empowerment. a typology of cbt assessment frameworks cbt frameworks used in research can be grouped into three overlapping categories: 1. sustainability-focused frameworks (a) holistic sustainability: this approach ensures a balance between the environment, economy, and social aspects of tourism, mainly focusing on the sdg’s (b) livelihoods frameworks: this framework connects cbt with local livelihood improvement by focusing on enhancing job opportunities, creating markets for local products, and leading to improvements in quality of life through investments in health, education, and infrastructure. (c) community capitals framework (ccf): this analytical tool examines seven interconnected capitals (natural, cultural, human, social, political, financial, and built/physical) to assess and advance sustainable tourism development strategies 2. empowerment and participation frameworks (a) ladder of participation: this model illustrates degrees of community involvement, from nonparticipation to full citizen control, to ensure the community has power and influence in decisionmaking. (b) community empowerment: this framework prioritizes the community's ability to own tourism products, make their own decisions, and enjoy the benefits of tourism. 3. business and operational frameworks (a) business plan approach framework this framework emphasizes treating cbt as a business with a solid plan, market strategy, and commercial mindset to ensure profitability and sustainability. (b) operational frameworks such as monitoring and evaluation this component includes establishing baseline assessments, setting performance indicators, and using feedback mechanisms like surveys and community meetings to track progress and make necessary adjustments. (c) value proposition this framework involves understanding what travelers want and creating a compelling value proposition that goes beyond just supporting the community, ensuring the product is attractive to tour operators and travelers. integrated and hybrid frameworks (a) community-based ecotourism: this framework combines cbt principles with ecotourism to foster ecological and cultural awareness, based on social equity and leading to the long-term wellbeing of local people. (b) integrated models: these frameworks bring together multiple elements, such as public and private sector collaboration, regional coordination, and a focus on sustainability, to create a more comprehensive approach to tourism development. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://www.google.com/search?q=livelihoods+framework&sca_esv=fbce5c1644a5d5c8&source=hp&ei=vtqeay2tcvefhbipty_uoqs&iflsig=aow8s4iaaaaaaqtiziim1eobjbxsnz4jqnw6mixlg5vn&ved=2ahukewjfjq6w386qaxuzz0eahyljnksqgk4qegqiaxac&uact=5&oq=frameworks+used+in+community+based+tourism& &sclient=gws-wiz&mstk=autexfc3ffkvjiozeffaoygd6satz-cms5y7oebvrqsgsofnl4ldzgi_qh6uij0uet4uwwqdnvlzki9fnfqml8qu6ouhim-msy5uhj5qfotiitl6fp22irnmqf8hlr__rcavpcw&csui=3 https://www.google.com/search?q=ladder+of+participation&sca_esv=fbce5c1644a5d5c8&source=hp&ei=vtqeay2tcvefhbipty_uoqs&iflsig=aow8s4iaaaaaaqtiziim1eobjbxsnz4jqnw6mixlg5vn&ved=2ahukewjfjq6w386qaxuzz0eahyljnksqgk4qegqibrab&uact=5&oq=frameworks+used+in+community+based+tourism& &sclient=gws-wiz&mstk=autexfc3ffkvjiozeffaoygd6satz-cms5y7oebvrqsgsofnl4ldzgi_qh6uij0uet4uwwqdnvlzki9fnfqml8qu6ouhim-msy5uhj5qfotiitl6fp22irnmqf8hlr__rcavpcw&csui=3 https://www.google.com/search?q=community+empowerment&sca_esv=fbce5c1644a5d5c8&source=hp&ei=vtqeay2tcvefhbipty_uoqs&iflsig=aow8s4iaaaaaaqtiziim1eobjbxsnz4jqnw6mixlg5vn&ved=2ahukewjfjq6w386qaxuzz0eahyljnksqgk4qegqibrad&uact=5&oq=frameworks+used+in+community+based+tourism& &sclient=gws-wiz&mstk=autexfc3ffkvjiozeffaoygd6satz-cms5y7oebvrqsgsofnl4ldzgi_qh6uij0uet4uwwqdnvlzki9fnfqml8qu6ouhim-msy5uhj5qfotiitl6fp22irnmqf8hlr__rcavpcw&csui=3 https://www.google.com/search?q=value+proposition&sca_esv=fbce5c1644a5d5c8&source=hp&ei=vtqeay2tcvefhbipty_uoqs&iflsig=aow8s4iaaaaaaqtiziim1eobjbxsnz4jqnw6mixlg5vn&ved=2ahukewjfjq6w386qaxuzz0eahyljnksqgk4qegqibxae&uact=5&oq=frameworks+used+in+community+based+tourism& &sclient=gws-wiz&mstk=autexfc3ffkvjiozeffaoygd6satz-cms5y7oebvrqsgsofnl4ldzgi_qh6uij0uet4uwwqdnvlzki9fnfqml8qu6ouhim-msy5uhj5qfotiitl6fp22irnmqf8hlr__rcavpcw&csui=3 https://www.google.com/search?q=community-based+ecotourism&sca_esv=fbce5c1644a5d5c8&source=hp&ei=vtqeay2tcvefhbipty_uoqs&iflsig=aow8s4iaaaaaaqtiziim1eobjbxsnz4jqnw6mixlg5vn&ved=2ahukewjfjq6w386qaxuzz0eahyljnksqgk4qegqicxab&uact=5&oq=frameworks+used+in+community+based+tourism& &sclient=gws-wiz&mstk=autexfc3ffkvjiozeffaoygd6satz-cms5y7oebvrqsgsofnl4ldzgi_qh6uij0uet4uwwqdnvlzki9fnfqml8qu6ouhim-msy5uhj5qfotiitl6fp22irnmqf8hlr__rcavpcw&csui=3 https://www.google.com/search?q=integrated+models&sca_esv=fbce5c1644a5d5c8&source=hp&ei=vtqeay2tcvefhbipty_uoqs&iflsig=aow8s4iaaaaaaqtiziim1eobjbxsnz4jqnw6mixlg5vn&ved=2ahukewjfjq6w386qaxuzz0eahyljnksqgk4qegqicxad&uact=5&oq=frameworks+used+in+community+based+tourism& &sclient=gws-wiz&mstk=autexfc3ffkvjiozeffaoygd6satz-cms5y7oebvrqsgsofnl4ldzgi_qh6uij0uet4uwwqdnvlzki9fnfqml8qu6ouhim-msy5uhj5qfotiitl6fp22irnmqf8hlr__rcavpcw&csui=3 wang et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 36-51. 44 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 36-51, doi: 10.18060/29458 copyright © 2025 suosheng wang, beatrice imbaya, susan matiku, rita nthiga, and wendy rop this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. community-based tourism (cbt) extends far beyond tourism it intersects with livelihoods, culture, governance, and sustainability. frameworks such as the sustainable livelihoods framework (slf) and the community capitals framework (ccf) provide structured approaches to capture these diverse dimensions systematically, rather than focusing solely on economic indicators. by applying these frameworks, researchers and practitioners can gain deeper insights into community perceptions and power dynamics, evaluate livelihood and multi-capital outcomes, understand resident support for tourism, and measure sustainability consistently and comprehensively. compared to set and ccf, the sustainable livelihoods framework (slf) has been applied less frequently in evaluating tourism’s impacts on communities. the following section provides an expanded review of slf and its application in assessing community-based tourism. sustainable livelihoods framework (slf) in cbt the sustainable livelihoods framework origin and application the origin of sustainable livelihoods as a concept is widely attributed to a 1992 discussion paper by chambers and conway. chambers and conway defined a livelihood, to comprise of the capabilities, assets (stores, resources, claims and access) and activities required for a means of living; a livelihood is sustainable which can cope with and recover from stress and shocks, maintain or enhance its capabilities and assets, and provide sustainable livelihood opportunities for the next generation; and which contributes net benefits to other livelihoods at the local and global levels and in the short and long-term (chambers & conway, 1992: 7). the sustainable livelihoods framework (slf) has its origin in the development circles in the 1980s and 1990s. the focus on livelihoods as argued by solesbury (2003) was necessitated by wider shifts in approaches to development from economic growth to human wellbeing and sustainability. the initial application in policy was in 1999 as the sustainable livelihoods approach by the uk’s department for international development dfid (dfid 1999). in 1998, the institute of development studies (ids) through a white paper, developed the sustainable rural livelihoods framework, a framework for analyzing rural development interventions. the framework highlighted five interacting elements: contexts (policy settings, politics, history, agro-ecology, socio-economic conditions); resources (capital assets); institutions (formal and informal institutions and organizations); strategies (agricultural intensification/ extensification, livelihood diversification and migration); and outcomes (scoones, 1998; ellis & allison, 2004; dfid, 1999; solesburry, 2003; natarajan et al., 2022; gkartzios et al. 2022; kumar et al. 2023; yang 2024). serrat (2017) argues the following about the sustainable livelihoods approach. first it improves understanding of the livelihoods of the poor. second it organizes the factors that constrain or enhance livelihood opportunities and shows how they relate. finally, it can help plan development activities and assess the contribution that existing activities have made to sustaining livelihoods. strengths and critiques of slf the main support of the livelihoods approach was its strength as opposed to earlier analysis of development measures which ‘do not fit or capture the complex and diverse realities of most rural life’ (chambers & conway, 1992: 4). the concept of sustainable livelihoods also linked the three extant concepts of capability, equity and sustainability (solesbury 2003). natarajan et al., (2022) noted that the popularity of the slf among development practitioners emerged both from its https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wang et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 36-51. 45 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 36-51, doi: 10.18060/29458 copyright © 2025 suosheng wang, beatrice imbaya, susan matiku, rita nthiga, and wendy rop this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. practical focus, and its de-politicization of wider shifts in the development landscape. the slf also values local knowledge, engages with local people and, in robert chambers (1983) term, seeks to ‘put the last first’. solesbury (2003) argued that livelihoods approaches are overly mechanical and fail to account for time and chance. scoones (2013) identified four major gaps: lack of engagement with economic globalization; insufficient attention to power, politics, and governance; inadequate treatment of long-term environmental changes such as climate change; and neglect of broader agrarian transitions. natarajan et al. (2022) highlighted weaknesses in theory, method, scale, historical conceptualization, politics, and decolonizing knowledge debates, proposing a reformulated slf for the 21st century—structural, spatially disaggregated, dynamic, and ecologically coherent. yang (2024) supports this updated framework, emphasizing: (i) “livelihoods in flux” to reflect dynamic and unpredictable strategies; (ii) reduced emphasis on assets, focusing instead on nested relationships among assets, power, and environmental contexts; (iii) inclusion of livelihood characteristics, vulnerability, and opportunity to balance negative connotations; and (iv) greater attention to macro factors (policy, markets, societal shifts) and microelements (cultural traditions, collective governance). sustainable livelihoods framework for tourism (slft) the sustainable livelihoods framework for tourism (slft) is an adaptation of the broader sustainable livelihoods framework, specifically tailored to the tourism context. it provides a holistic approach to analyzing how tourism affects the livelihoods of local communities. slft is increasingly used to guide and evaluate community-based tourism initiatives, especially in rural and developing areas. the framework helps assess tourism’s impact on local livelihoods, design sustainable tourism projects that deliver community benefits, and inform governments and ngos on strategies to reduce poverty and enhance resilience. it does so by examining five key forms of capital: 1. human capital skills, knowledge, health, and the ability to work in tourism-related jobs. example: training locals as guides or hospitality staff. 2. social capital social networks, relationships, and institutions that foster cooperation and trust. example: community-based tourism initiatives or cooperatives. 3. natural capital natural resources such as land, water, and biodiversity that tourism depends on. example: ecotourism in protected areas or scenic landscapes. 4. physical capital infrastructure and tools needed for tourism, including roads, buildings, and technology. example: lodges, transportation systems, and communication networks. 5. financial capital income, savings, credit, and other economic assets. example: revenue from tourism reinvested into the community. application of slft in assessing community-based tourism evaluating livelihood outcomes: slft offers a systematic approach to assessing how cbt projects influence the economic, social, and environmental well-being of local communities. for example, a study in sabah, malaysia, applied slft to examine tourism’s impact on local employment, skill development, and access to resources (kunjuraman, 2023). identifying gaps and vulnerabilities: the framework helps identify weaknesses in tourism planning, such as over-reliance on external funding, seasonal income fluctuations, and limited local autonomy. a case study of the aangan project in goa, india, revealed that cbt initiatives often https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/s0305750x22000882#b0070 wang et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 36-51. 46 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 36-51, doi: 10.18060/29458 copyright © 2025 suosheng wang, beatrice imbaya, susan matiku, rita nthiga, and wendy rop this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. struggle when institutional support is withdrawn, underscoring the need for community empowerment and capacity building (mahatme et al., 2025). integrating socio-cultural capital: recent adaptations of slft incorporate socio-cultural capital into the original framework, acknowledging the role of cultural identity, traditions, and community cohesion in tourism success. this addition enhances slft’s relevance to cbt, where cultural experiences are central to the tourism product (kunjuraman, 2023). promoting resilience and sustainability: slft encourages the design of cbt projects that build resilience by diversifying income sources, strengthening local governance, and fostering longterm capacity. it supports strategies such as equitable profit-sharing, inclusive decision-making, and sustainable resource use (mahatme et al., 2025). guiding policy and practice: policymakers and ngos use slft to design, monitor, and evaluate tourism interventions. the framework ensures that tourism development aligns with broader goals, including poverty reduction, gender equity, and environmental conservation (paiano et al., 2024). limitations of slft in evaluating community-based tourism when applying slft to assess cbt, the literature highlights several key limitations: an overemphasis on economic capital, limited integration of power dynamics and governance, a static representation of livelihoods, insufficient attention to cultural and emotional capital, and a lack of tools for measuring subjective well-being. overemphasis on economic capital: slft often prioritizes financial and economic outcomes, which can overshadow non-economic values such as cultural preservation, emotional well-being, and community identity. this narrow focus may lead to tourism models that prioritize profit over sustainability or equity (kunjuraman, 2023). for example, in the aangan cbt project in goa, india, economic dependency on external funding created vulnerability when institutional support was withdrawn (mahatme et al., 2025). limited integration of power dynamics and governance: the framework tends to underrepresent power relations, political structures, and governance issues that influence tourism outcomes. it may not fully capture how elite capture, external control, or lack of community autonomy affect cbt success (kunjuraman, 2023). local empowerment and self-sufficiency are critical, yet slft does not adequately address these dimensions. static representation of livelihoods: slft can be overly static, failing to reflect the dynamic and evolving nature of tourism livelihoods. seasonal tourism, shifting visitor preferences, and changing community roles are often not well captured (kunjuraman, 2023). for instance, seasonal fluctuations in tourism income posed major challenges in the goa case study, affecting long-term sustainability (mahatme et al., 2025). insufficient attention to cultural and emotional capital: traditional slft focuses on five types of capital—human, social, natural, physical, and financial—but often overlooks socio-cultural capital, including traditions, identity, and emotional ties. this omission weakens its ability to assess cbt projects that rely heavily on cultural experiences (mahatme et al., 2025). expanding slft to include socio-cultural capital has been proposed to better reflect cbt realities. lack of measurement tools for subjective well-being: slft does not provide robust tools for measuring subjective well-being, such as community satisfaction, pride, or perceived quality of life. these indicators are crucial in cbt, where success is not only economic but also social and emotional (paiano et al., 2024). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ wang et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 36-51. 47 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 36-51, doi: 10.18060/29458 copyright © 2025 suosheng wang, beatrice imbaya, susan matiku, rita nthiga, and wendy rop this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. conclusion community-based tourism represents a powerful tool for achieving sustainable development goals, fostering local empowerment, and promoting cultural and environmental stewardship. drawing on recent literature, this paper examines the concept of community-based tourism, highlighting its opportunities and benefits as well as the persistent challenges it faces. the review analyzes key research frameworks used in cbt assessment, including social exchange theory (set) and the community capitals framework (ccf). particular attention is given to the sustainable livelihoods framework (slf) and its adaptation for tourism (slft). the review paper indicates that research frameworks like slf, set, and ccf provide valuable lenses for assessing cbt impacts, yet each has inherent limitations that call for more dynamic, context-sensitive, and multi-dimensional approaches. integrating socio-cultural and emotional dimensions, power dynamics, and resilience thinking into existing frameworks can enhance their relevance and effectiveness. future research should consider all these major research frameworks, paying attention to each model’s strengths, applications, and limitations. the paper concludes by emphasizing the need for integrated, participatory, and resilience-oriented frameworks to ensure cbt delivers inclusive and sustainable outcomes. references abreu, l. a., de lima, j. r. s., & dos santos, m. r. 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(2020). why community-based tourism and rural tourism in developing and developed nations are treated differently? a review. sustainability, 12(15), 5938. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://doi.org/10.1177/25166026241228717 https://doi.org/10.1177/25166026241228717 https://www.u4.no/api/publications/corruption-in-community-based-conservation/pdf https://doi.org/10.3390/su13052455 events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26117 copyright © 2022 thi kim anh luong and jennifer hussey this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review june 2022 volume 5 no. 1 customer satisfaction with food quality in buffet restaurants in vietnam thi kim anh luong jennifer hussey technological university dublin, ireland correspondence: jennifer.hussey@tudublin.ie (j. hussey) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation luong, t. k. a & hussey, j. (2022). customer satisfaction with food quality in buffet restaurants in vietnam. events and tourism review, 5(1), 1-15. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:jennifer.hussey@tudublin.ie http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr luong, t. k. a. & hussey, j. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 1-15. 2 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26117 copyright © 2022 thi kim anh luong and jennifer hussey this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract food quality (fq) has been recognized as one of the fundamental factors that affects customer satisfaction in restaurant operations, yet research on buffet restaurants is still underdeveloped. this study focused on diners’ perceptions of buffet restaurants in vietnam to (1) determine the most important dimensions of fq, (2) identify the relationship between fq dimensions and customer satisfaction, and (3) identify the relationship between the overall fq and customer satisfaction. a total of 143 valid responses to a self-administered online survey were obtained. this study found that according to these respondents, food freshness is the most important variable followed by food taste, food presentation, menu variety, food temperature, and healthy food options. the results of regression and correlation analysis reveal that among the six dimensions of fq measured, food temperature is the only attribute that is significantly related to customer satisfaction. nevertheless, the overall fq significantly contributed to customer satisfaction. it implied that restauranteurs operating this style of restaurant, should not only pay attention to fq but especially food temperature, which is often overlooked in other forms of restaurants. keywords: food quality perceptions; buffet restaurants; food quality attributes; customer satisfaction analysis food quality (fq) has been gaining researchers’ attention due to its importance to customer satisfaction (sulek & hensley, 2004; ha & jang, 2010; rozekhi et al., 2016), yet more research about fq attributes in the form of buffet restaurants is required (ramanathan et al., 2016; bilog, 2017). therefore, this study contributes to the literature on fq dimensions in the buffet restaurants sector in vietnam. customers, nowadays, have more options in restaurant choices due to the variety of cuisines, styles of service and prices (liu & tse, 2018), leading to heightened competition among restauranteurs seeking competitive advantage (raab & mayer, 2007). hence, understanding the important attributes that consumers consider when selecting a restaurant is essential for restaurant operators (liu & tse, 2018) and building customer satisfaction is a key priority for success in such highly competitive markets (hanaysha, 2016). food has and will continue to have a substantial impact on customer satisfaction (kannan, 2017). many studies have found that food quality (fq) is the factor that positively affects customers’ satisfaction in diverse forms of restaurants (namkung & jang, 2007; al-tit, 2015; rozekhi et al., 2016; almohaimmeed, 2017). the buffet form of restaurant has been expanding, where people pay a fixed amount of money for unlimited food (lucas & santos, 2003; raab et al., 2009). however, unlike in other service sectors, where multiple scales and methods have been applied to evaluate service quality (oyewole, 2013b), little research has been carried out to measure the performance and critical factors present in the buffet sector (ramanathan et al., 2016; bilog, 2017). customer satisfaction with food quality (fq) customer satisfaction in services has been defined as the degree to which the service https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ luong, t. k. a. & hussey, j. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 1-15. 3 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26117 copyright © 2022 thi kim anh luong and jennifer hussey this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. performance can encounter or surpass the customer expectations (pakurar et al. 2019). satisfaction represents the driving force for customers to return and repay, as well as triggering word-of-mouth after experiencing the service (ramanathan, 2016). the mainstream research has focused on factors like food quality, service quality and setting of restaurants in relation to customer satisfaction (kivela et al., 2000; ha & jang, 2010); yet fq frequently appeared as the most significant factor that impacted on dining fulfilment and return patronage (arora & singer, 2006; kim et al., 2009; jung et al., 2015; filimonau & krivcova, 2017). fq has a positive influence on customer satisfaction, which in turn positively affects customer revisit intention (namkung & jang, 2007; altit, 2015; rozekhi et al., 2016; almohaimmeed, 2017). meanwhile, the form of all-you-can-eat buffet has been growing globally; however, there are still very few studies on this field (oyewole, 2013b), especially investigating individual fq dimensions (lee & whaley, 2019). food quality (fq) dimensions prior research has recognized fq as a key element contributing to customers’ expectations (sulek & hensley, 2004; jeong & jang, 2011; zhong & moon, 2020). rhee et al.’s (2016) research on several types of restaurants, found that factors that link with food (food attributes) have a profound impact on customer choices. the conceptual model employed by kivela et al. (1999b) and namkung and jang (2007) focused on six dimensions of fq, listed as: “food presentation, menu item variety, healthy options, taste, freshness, and temperature”. food taste lee and whaley (2019) revealed that food taste is the most important factor in diners’ satisfaction with their dining experience. notably, scott (2005) claimed that the hedonic pleasure of food would be developed by human’s sense of taste. additionally, for garcia-bailo et al. (2009), individual perceptions of food taste can significantly influence their dining habits. food presentation food presentation is described as the colour, display and decorating of food in order to make food be more appealing (alhelaili et al., 2015). food appearance is often the first of diners’ senses stimulated, before they can smell and taste the food; hence, it is an important determinant of perceptions of fq (namkung & jang, 2007). healthy food options sulek and hensley (2004) reported that restaurants that offer more healthy items witnessed an increase in customers’ interest. similarly, johns and tyas’s (1996) research, found that customer perceptions and evaluation of a restaurant may strongly be linked with healthy food. previously, kivela et al.’s (1999b) findings, showed that one of the core attributes mentioned that impacted customer satisfaction was nutritious food. indeed, the offer of nutritious food has been shown to be positively related to dining satisfaction and repeated patronage (kim et al., 2013; prinsen et al., 2013). variety of food (menu variety) the diversity of foods or menu variety embraces a wide range of different food items displayed on the menu. to increase the engagement of customers, restaurant operators incessantly launch new menus that offer diverse foods and drinks (bashir et al., 2013). ramanathan et al.’s (2016) research in fine dining restaurants mentioned that customer satisfaction is directly affected https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ luong, t. k. a. & hussey, j. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 1-15. 4 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26117 copyright © 2022 thi kim anh luong and jennifer hussey this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. by the diversity of menus, whereas others discovered that a weekly changeable menu creates chances for chefs to innovate and develop more food items, which resulted in more customer involvement (rozekhi et al., 2016). freshness of food péneau et al. (2006) defined freshness as the fresh state of food that includes the following characteristics such as “crispness, juiciness, and aroma”. johns & tyas (1996), kivela et al. (1999a), and acebrón and dopico (2000) agreed that freshness of food is one of the most significant quality requirements. furthermore, the finished dish should be served as soon as possible (oyewole, 2013a).for rozekhi et al. (2016), malaysian diners paid more attention to the freshness of dishes, as they believed it could provide more benefits for their physical health. food temperature food temperature could be considered as a feature to evaluate the quality of food (johns & tyas, 1996; kivela et al., 1999a). delwiche (2004) highlighted the relationship between temperature and customers’ evaluation of food flavor, as the temperature of food strongly relates to other sensory aspects such as smell, taste, and sight. food should be served and maintained at an appropriate temperature, as the customers’ hedonic enjoyment and satisfaction is affected by the food temperature (kahkonen et al., 1995; kannan, 2017). few studies had divided fq into its dimensions for an in-depth investigation (rhee et al., 2016; bilog, 2017). accordingly, this study sought to explore the following three objectives: objective 1: to determine which dimensions of fq are most important to customers in buffet restaurants. objective 2: to identify the effect of different fq dimensions on customer satisfaction in buffet restaurants. objective 3: to identify the effect of overall fq on customer satisfaction in buffet restaurants. methodology the target population of interest for this study was people aged over 18 years who visit buffet restaurants in vietnam. non-probability sampling was applied in the form of convenience sampling, allowing access to a wide sample despite the difficulties associated with geography and the current covid-19 circumstances (zikmund, 2003). primary data was collected by using online self-administered questionnaires. gunter et al. (2002) argued as online questionnaires basically are answered while no interviewer present, the pressure to provide social desire responses is reduced. as a result, by eliminating the interviewer’s presence, both participant and interviewer bias were removed. the survey questionnaire was adapted from past research items, with each dimension of food quality captured through 3 sub-items that required a response on 7-point likert-type scales, to capture levels of agreement or disagreement with research related statements. the 7-point likert scale was adapted from the research of oliver (1997), indicating the level of agreement ranged from 1 “strongly disagree” to 7 “strongly agree”. using an online google form the survey was conducted in vietnamese and the data was translated into english. the questionnaires were delivered online within one month (september 2021) via facebook, email, and zalo. there were 143 valid questionnaires obtained after eliminating all incomplete responses. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ luong, t. k. a. & hussey, j. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 1-15. 5 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26117 copyright © 2022 thi kim anh luong and jennifer hussey this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. limitations this study is limited in the sample size achieved (n=143) and the convenience sampling approach undertaken, meaning the results are not generalizable. data analysis data was statistically analyzed by using a descriptive test to generate the general information of respondents (aaker et al., 2007), a simple regression to assess the relationship between one dependent variable and one independent variable (freund et al., 2006) (in this case, the overall fq and customer satisfaction), and using correlation and multiple regression analysis to examine the effect of different fq dimensions on customer satisfaction (rozekhi, 2016; kannan, 2017), to assess the strength of relationships between pairs of variables (saunders et al., 2009), so as to determine which variable was most important to customers. results as shown in figure 1, 2 and 3, there were three questions included in the questionnaire aiming to develop the participants’ profile including: age, gender and frequency of using buffet restaurant. the gender distribution was 69.2% females and 29.4% males. the majority of respondents were aged between 18 and 25 years old (63.6%), and frequented buffet restaurants less than once a month (68.5%, n = 98). figure 1: age breakdown (n=143) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ luong, t. k. a. & hussey, j. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 1-15. 6 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26117 copyright © 2022 thi kim anh luong and jennifer hussey this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. figure 2: gender breakdown of the participants (n=143) figure 3: frequency of visits to buffet restaurants (n=143) analysis in addition to customer satisfaction, each dimension of fq was examined in respect of their mean, standard deviation, minimum and maximum value (table 1). table 1: descriptive statistics food quality fq attributes items n mean sd min max food freshness (f5) 1/ i do not notice whether the food looks fresh, succulent and juicy f5.1 143 6.52 0.71 3.67 7.00 2/ no off-flavor or off-colour food is essential for me f5.2 3/ i like food that is freshly prepared (no reuse) f5.3 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ luong, t. k. a. & hussey, j. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 1-15. 7 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26117 copyright © 2022 thi kim anh luong and jennifer hussey this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. food taste (f2) 1/ i am happy with perfectly tasting food (salinity, sweetness, sourness, etc.) f2.1 143 6.44 0.64 3.33 7.00 2/ i do not care about food texture (tenderness, crispiness, etc.) f2.2 3/ i am happy with food that feel nice in my mouth (the overall taste, texture and smell) f2.3 food presentation (f1) 1/ i do not mind about food decoration f1.1 143 6.21 0.75 3.33 7.00 2/ i am happy with food that is neatly organized f1.2 3/ i am happy with food presented on an attractive/special plate f1.3 menu variety (f4) 1/ i like the menu with wide variety of choices for main dishes f4.1 143 6.21 0.84 3.67 7.00 2/ i prefer the restaurant to offer a wide variety of side dishes f4.2 3/ i am happy with the restaurant that offers a wide variety of drinks f4.3 food temperature (f6) 1/ food that is not served at an appropriate temperature does not bother me f6.1 143 5.70 1.08 2.00 7.00 2/ i feel happy with ready-to-serve food that is kept warm at selfservice buffets f6.2 3/ i am happy with raw food that is kept at a cold temperature for being fresh at self-service buffets f6.3 healthy food option (f3) 1/ i like the restaurant that offers many types of salads and vegetables. f3.1 143 5.55 1.04 1.67 7.00 2/i do not notice much about nutritious food in restaurants f3.2 3/ i do not like oily food (food that contains too much fat) f3.3 customer satisfaction overall satisfaction (os) i am satisfied with fq at my last buffet restaurant experience in hcmc. s1 143 5.69 0.97 2.33 7 i gave a high rating for that buffet restaurant s2 i am pleased to have visited buffet restaurants s3 i will recommend buffet restaurants to my friends/family s4 table 1 shows that the mean scores were all above neutral (level of agreement = 4) and they varied from 5.55 to 6.52, which indicated the range of agreement of respondents stays within “slightly agree” to “strongly agree” meaning all six factors of fq are important to customers when choosing the buffet service. particularly, the freshness of food got the highest mean score (6.52 ± https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ luong, t. k. a. & hussey, j. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 1-15. 8 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26117 copyright © 2022 thi kim anh luong and jennifer hussey this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 0.71), which means that the respondents agreed that this is the most important factor when using buffet restaurants. food taste also received a very high score, at 6.44 ± 0.64. the importance of the healthy food option (mean of 5.55 ± 1.04) has the lowest score among the six dimensions. the descriptive analysis also displayed the results of overall customer satisfaction, and it showed the mean equal 5.69 ± 0.97, which is moderately high. correlation testing reporting the pearson correlation coefficient ranges from –1 to 1, correlation testing was used to determine the relationship between two or more variables (hair et al., 2010). in this study, it was used together with the multiple regression analysis to show the relationship between each dimension with the overall satisfaction, following the research of ramanathan (2016). table 2: correlation matrix food presentati on food taste healthy food option menu variety food freshness temperat ure of food ov eral l sati sfa ctio n food presentation 1 food taste 0.3 1 healthy food option 0.2 0.2 1 menu variety 0.4 0.3 0.3 1 food freshness 0.3 0.4 0.01 0.193 1 temperature of food 0.4 0.4 0.2 0.4 0.4 1 overall satisfaction 0.10 0.15 0.17 0.19 0.20 0.30 1 table 2 indicates that all six dimension of food quality are positively related to overall customer satisfaction. the food temperature has the highest correlation coefficient (0.3), which indicated that the temperature of food has a medium association with customer satisfaction. the other 5 variables have less of a correlation with overall satisfaction, but they are still on the positive side. multiple regression the multiple regression analysis was carried out to assess the relationship between the independent variables (fq dimensions) and dependent variable (customer satisfaction) by using an equation to predict customer satisfaction based on changes in the fq dimensions (zikmund, 2003; namkung & jang, 2007). table 3: multiple regression results of fq attributes and customer satisfaction anova significance f 0.02 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ luong, t. k. a. & hussey, j. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 1-15. 9 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26117 copyright © 2022 thi kim anh luong and jennifer hussey this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. coefficient t stat p-value food presentation -0.07 -0.58 0.56 food taste 0.00 -0.02 0.98 healthy food option 0.10 1.27 0.20 menu variety 0.08 0.78 0.43 food freshness 0.16 1.30 0.20 food temperature 0.17 1.97 0.05 adjusted r square 0.0646 observations 143 table 3 displays the results of the regression analysis to show which dimensions of fq are significantly related to customer satisfaction. the significant f = 0.02 < 0.05, thus, the data is appropriate for factor analysis (zhong & moon, 2020). the p-values in table 3 indicate that the temperature of food is the only attribute that significantly influences customer satisfaction (p = 0.05) which corresponds to the results showed previously in the correlation analysis. the other five attributes are not significant as they all have p-values > 0.05. hence, five variables are not significant predictors for customer satisfaction in buffet restaurants in vietnam. the adjusted r square equals 0.0646, which means just 6.46% of the variation in customer satisfaction is explained by fq dimensions. as only food temperature is the predictor for customer satisfaction, the multiple regression model would become a simple regression model showed as ŷ = 2.96 + 0.17x, which predicts the customer satisfaction based on the change of food temperature attribute. simple regression the simple regression analysis was applied to assess the relationship between overall fq and customer satisfaction to see whether the overall fq is a predictor for customer satisfaction. the overall fq rating was obtained from the mean score of the six fq dimensions. table 4: simple regression results of overall food quality and customer satisfaction. anova significance f 0.0004 coefficients t stat p-value food quality 0.509 3.606 0.00043 r square 0.0844 observations 143 table 4 indicates that the coefficient is 0.509 and p is significant at 0.00043 < 0.05, implying that the overall customer satisfaction is positively influenced by the fq. the r square equals 0.0844, which means that 8.44% of variability of the customer satisfaction (ŷ) is explained by the fq (x). from the analyzed results, the estimated model for predicting customer satisfaction can be https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ luong, t. k. a. & hussey, j. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 1-15. 10 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26117 copyright © 2022 thi kim anh luong and jennifer hussey this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. presented as ŷ = 2.515 + 0.509x. discussion and conclusion all six fq dimensions had relatively high to very high mean scores which indicated that fq is accepted as an important dimension by the participants. the respondents’ highest level of agreement was for the freshness of food (6.52 ± 0.71) when dining in buffet restaurants. this is similar to a previous us study that revealed that the freshness of food is the most important dimension in buffet restaurants in that customers desire food always to look and taste fresh (oyewole, 2013a). this result is reasonable as in buffet restaurants, food is normally left out on the serving tables for a certain time, even a long period of time. in addition, perhaps, people in vietnam are highly aware of the freshness of food because, in 2015, there was a serious scandal regarding turning rotten meat into fresh meat using potassium nitrate, which is harmful if it is used in high doses (maguire et al., 2017). therefore, people will be looking for food that is authentically fresh, newly prepared and frequently replaced or replenished. ensuring the freshness of food can result in generating flavor-related value as well as maintaining a long-term profit bond with customers (rozekhi et al., 2016). the importance of food freshness was followed by the importance of food taste, which had a mean score of 6.44 ± 0.64. food taste is undoubtedly a factor that will be looked at by the customers when searching for any kind of restaurant not only buffet (ramanathan, 2016) but also fine dining (namkung & jang, 2007), fast food (min & min, 2013), as the secondary results indicate customers feel happy with food that has perfect taste, good texture, and good mouthfeel (oyewole, 2013a). the current study found that customers expect food to be neatly displayed, that concurred with oyewole’s (2013a) results, as it positively affects customers’ perceptions about food (namkung & jang, 2007). additionally, a menu that offers a wide variety of choice is essential to people who visit buffet restaurants, which confirms oyewole’s research (2013a) suggesting that people visiting buffet restaurants seek extensive options on the menu. food temperature scored a mean of 5.70 ± 1.08, which is quite similar to the descriptive results shown in the study of ramanathan (2016) in chinese buffet restaurants in the uk, indicating that food temperature received a lower ranking compared to other fq attributes such as food presentation, food freshness, or food variety. however, this is still a moderately high score on the 7point likert scale. the final attribute in this study is the healthy food options (mean score of 5.55 ± 1.04), which confirms the findings of rozekhi et al. (2016) in the context of buffet restaurants in malaysia. in contrast to the research by ramanathan (2016) in the uk, when respondents tended to give higher scores to the importance of low-calories and vegetarian dishes. this may be explained by the difference in respondents’ age groups. the research with younger aged respondents paid less attention to healthy food, compared to the one with more elderly participants. arguably, different living standards may account for these differences, as in a developed country respondents are more health aware. indeed, the studies in the us (sulek & hensley, 2004), and in korea (kim et al., 2013), where consumers have higher living standards were inclined to emphasize the importance of nutritious and healthy food. in contrast, in developing countries such as malaysia and vietnam, people might seek for hedonic fulfilment. the relationship between individual fq dimensions and customer satisfaction the correlation statistics (table 2) indicated that all six dimensions have positive correlations with customer satisfaction; however, it must be emphasized that the relationships are https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ luong, t. k. a. & hussey, j. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 1-15. 11 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26117 copyright © 2022 thi kim anh luong and jennifer hussey this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. weak. the food temperature presented the strongest association with customer satisfaction in this study, and this corresponds to the results displayed in the multiple linear regression analysis. table 3 indicates that only food temperature was a significant contributor to customer satisfaction. similarly, research of namkung and jang (2007) and kannan (2017) suggested that food temperature is also one of the characteristics of fq enhancing the pleasure of the dining experience, thus, affecting customer satisfaction. this result was surprising as food temperature was only ranked in fifth place in the descriptive analysis; however, as it received a moderately high score, this dimension has been identified as a determinant variable of customer satisfaction. the respondents expressed their satisfaction with food that is served at an appropriate temperature. it means a hot dish should be served at a hot temperature and vice versa (oyewole, 2013a). this is understandable as the temperature has been associated with other features such as food flavor and food appearance (delwiche, 2004). the correlation coefficients (table 2) between food temperature and food taste, and between food temperature and food presentation are both high (at 0.4 for both), which confirmed the observations of delwiche’s (2004) study. furthermore, in the context of buffet restaurants, food is normally prepared in advance and left out for a short or long period of time; therefore, it is difficult to keep the food at an appropriate temperature consistently. in vietnam, the hot pot buffet is popular and prevalent, often consisting of raw vegetables, uncooked meatballs, even raw meat and seafood, which are easily damaged at normal temperatures. hence, this could explain the importance of food freshness which had the highest level of importance, also correlation between food temperature and food freshness (table 2) equals 0.4, which showed a high correlation compared to other pairs of variables. therefore, to establish customer satisfaction during their dining experience, the restaurant operators need to focus on maintaining the appropriate temperature of the food during the serving time (namkung & jang, 2007; oyewole, 2013a). also, vietnam is known for a tropical monsoon climate with an average temperature of 27oc, thus, food will spoil if left at ambient temperatures without food plates to maintain correct food temperatures (oyewole, 2013a). on the other hand, food presentation and food taste, which were indicated to be significant to customer satisfaction in fine dining restaurants (namkung & jang, 2007), full-service restaurants (bashir et al., 2013), and fast-food restaurants (tama, 2015), are not significant in this study. although these two elements were important to customers when utilising the buffet services, they are not contributors to customer satisfaction. similarly, healthy food options, menu variety, and food freshness, are not significant to customer satisfaction in buffet restaurants in vietnam. these primary results support the prior research of namkung and jang (2007), implying that those attributes are not significant. yet, these findings contrast with the study of rozekhi et al. (2016), who indicated that food freshness and variety of food were significantly related to customer satisfaction, and kim et al. (2013), who suggested that healthy food was positively associated with customer satisfaction. this difference may be due to the demographics of the participants, as namkung and jang’s (2007) study shared similarities in the gender-breakdown (more than 60% were female), and a similar age profile. in contrast, in kim et al. (2013) and rozekhi et al.’s (2016) studies, had a more equal gender-split, and the age of 40s and 50s were dominant among the respondents. this may mean that people at older ages pay more attention to healthy food options, menu variety, and possibly food freshness. another possible reason why they are not significant to customer satisfaction is that they might contribute to customer behavior or revisit intention as they showed their importance in the descriptive test. for instance, the healthy food options, which was not significant to customer satisfaction but significantly related to customer behavioral intention (namkung & jang, 2007). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ luong, t. k. a. & hussey, j. (2022) / events and tourism review, 5(1), 1-15. 12 events and tourism review vol. 5 no. 1 (2022), 1-15, doi: 10.18060/26117 copyright © 2022 thi kim anh luong and jennifer hussey this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. therefore, future studies should explore these attributes in relation to customer behavior, revisit intention, or even customer loyalty, and further explore the role of demographics. the influence of overall food quality on customer satisfaction finally, the current study employed regression (table 4) to reveal a strong relationship between fq and customer satisfaction. the findings added evidence to previous research demonstrating fq is a significant contributor to customer satisfaction. specifically, in ramanathan’s (2016) investigation of 11 food-related attributes which found that fq is the most significant factor. furthermore, fq was also recognized as a crucial factor in satisfying customers when dining in fastfood, fine-dining, full-service, mid-scale, and up-scale restaurants (joeng & jang, 2011; kannan, 2017; liu & tse, 2018; rhee et al., 2016; susskind & chan, 2000; zhong & moon, 2020). in contrast, some research studies, such as zhong and moon (2020), perceived price is the most significant factor that affects customer satisfaction because price can drive the diners’ perceptions directly to a restaurant’s quality. additionally, in ha and jang’s (2010) study, the researchers found that not only fq but also service quality has a positive influence on customer satisfaction. therefore, further research may investigate different aspects of restaurant operations. although individual fq dimensions when examined in isolation had a weak relationship to customer satisfaction, once combined as overall fq, it becomes an essential factor contributing to customer satisfaction. therefore, in order to achieve a high level of performance, as well as fulfil customers’ desire, the operators and managers in buffet restaurants always need to pay attention to fq and its variables, especially the food temperature, when operating this type of restaurant. given the literature indicates food taste is the most important factor in diners’ satisfaction which was not echoed by this study, this may indicate that vietnamese buffet restaurants represent a special case, not generalizable to other dining experiences, raising the need for further research. moreover, the explained variances in the regression models are relatively low, indicating more important factors remain unidentified necessitating further study. the influence of the age profile of respondents may also be worth exploring further. in terms of future research, more research should be carried out to understand customer satisfaction since in restaurant operations as the perceptions and demands of customers will always change over time (lockyer, 2005; harrington et al., 2012). additionally, further sets of restaurant variables also need to be examined to respond to the dynamic demands of consumers over time, for example, food safety could be an important dimension in the current context of covid-19 (de freitas & stedefeldt, 2020; olaimat et al., 2020). moreover, the service quality, price, and atmospheric factors all were highlighted to be important factors in past studies, and the interrelationships between these elements is worthy of further study (khan & shaikh, 2011; ramanathan, 2016). references aaker, d. a., kumar, v., day, g. s., & lawley, m. d. stewart (2007). marketing research: the second pasific rim edition. avusturalya: job wiley and sons. acebrón, l. b., & dopico, d. c. 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(2003). business research method, (7th ed), ohio: thomson south-western. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=ramakrishnan%20ramanathan https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=yun%20di https://www.emerald.com/insight/search?q=usha%20ramanathan https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/1463-5771 https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/1463-5771 events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 15-35, doi: 10.18060/28905 copyright © 2025 yen-soon kim, natalie hudson, rhonda montgomery, ashok singh and soyeon jung this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2025 volume 8 no. 1 aggregating travel destination sustainability rankings using principal component analysis (pca) yen-soon kim natalie hudson rhonda montgomery ashok singh soyeon jung university of nevada, las vegas correspondence: yen-soon.kim@unlv.edu (y. kim) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation kim, y., hudson, n., montgomery, r., singh, a., and jung, s. (2025). aggregating travel destination sustainability rankings using principal component analysis (pca). events and tourism review, 8(1), 15-35. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:yen-soon.kim@unlv.edu http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr kim et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 15-35. 16 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 15-35, doi: 10.18060/28905 copyright © 2025 yen-soon kim, natalie hudson, rhonda montgomery, ashok singh and soyeon jung this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract tourism destinations are ranked by multiple sustainability indices that differ in scope and weighting, producing inconsistent standings that hinder benchmarking and management. we propose a transparent aggregation of travel destination sustainability indices (tdsis) using principal component analysis (pca). using six published indices for 136 destinations, we standardize ranks and apply pca to the correlation matrix. the first two components explain 91% of total variance: pc1 captures a common efficiency/competitiveness dimension, whereas pc2 reflects methodological emphases, clarifying why prior rankings diverge. we construct a varianceweighted composite from the retained components to yield a reproducible meta-ranking with interpretable loadings. results identify stable leaders and reveal meaningful re-orderings where sub-dimensions differ. practically, the composite enables managers to prioritize interventions, allocate resources toward high-leverage indicators, and communicate performance with a single auditable score that can be recalibrated as benchmarks evolve. the approach is software-light, scalable, and readily updated with new indicators and years. keywords: principal component analysis (pca); travel destination sustainability; tourism benchmarking; composite index; sustainable tourism management introduction the onset of the first industrial revolution in 1765 marked a transformative era characterized by significant developments such as the extensive extraction of coal, the advent of the steam engine, and mechanization of various industries. the second industrial revolution, commencing in 1870, introduced new sources of energy including electricity, gas, and oil, and was notable for the emergence of groundbreaking technologies, particularly automobiles and airplanes. subsequently, the third industrial revolution in 1969 ushered in the era of nuclear energy. currently, we are witnessing the fourth industrial revolution, which is distinguished by the pervasive influence of the internet and large web-based corporations (ied team, 2019). to clarify the research gap, we explicitly define the study’s problem as the lack of a transparent, endogenously weighted method to synthesize heterogeneous destination sustainability rankings into a reproducible meta‑ranking suitable for policy and management. amidst these technological advancements, the concept of sustainability emerged during the second industrial revolution (popular mechanics, 1912). this period, now recognized as a pivotal juncture in history, gave rise to growing concerns about global warming and its profound implications for the planet. the concept of sustainability evolved as a response to the increasing awareness of the finite nature of natural resources and the environmental impact of industrial activities. we emphasize the study’s significance by arguing that a common, auditable signal extracted from multiple indices reduces noise for decision makers and enables defensible prioritization, progress tracking, and cross‑destination communication. early popular media explicitly linked fossil-fuel combustion to greenhouse warming. a widely circulated 1912 caption explained that burning ~2 billion tons of coal annually would add ~7 billion tons of co₂, “making the air a more effective blanket for the earth,” with effects https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kim et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 15-35. 17 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 15-35, doi: 10.18060/28905 copyright © 2025 yen-soon kim, natalie hudson, rhonda montgomery, ashok singh and soyeon jung this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. “considerable in a few centuries” (popular mechanics, 1912). the same text appeared as “coal consumption affecting climate” in australian and new zealand newspapers weeks later, indicating transnational diffusion of this understanding (coal consumption affecting climate, 1912a, 1912b) as the discourse on sustainability has matured, it has expanded to encompass a holistic approach that integrates environmental, economic, and social dimensions (scoones, 2016). this tripartite approach aims to achieve a balance between development and the health of our planetary ecosystems. the challenges posed by global warming and environmental degradation have intensified the urgency for sustainable practices and have catalyzed a global movement towards more responsible stewardship of the earth’s resources. tourism destinations are increasingly evaluated by multiple sustainability indices that differ in scope, indicator selection, and weighting logic. as a result, the same destination can occupy markedly different positions across indices, obscuring performance signals for managers and policymakers. this methodological fragmentation complicates benchmarking, impedes longitudinal monitoring, and can undermine stakeholder trust in sustainability claims. the research problem addressed here is the lack of a transparent, data‑driven method to synthesize heterogeneous destination sustainability rankings into a single, interpretable composite that preserves information contained across indices. prior studies have advanced destination sustainability measurement using composite indicators, efficiency‑based approaches, or index‑specific frameworks; however, limited work has focused on aggregating multiple published rankings into a coherent, reproducible meta‑ranking that explicitly accounts for the shared variance among indices. in particular, the field lacks an open, endogenously weighted method that (i) reduces dimensionality, (ii) avoids purely subjective weighting, and (iii) is easy to implement with standard statistical software. we introduce and illustrate a principal component analysis (pca) aggregation procedure that treats published sustainability rankings as observed manifestations of an underlying latent construct—destination sustainability. the proposed method yields a composite ranking by forming a weighted sum of the first principal components, where weights equal the proportion of variance explained by each retained component. contributions are threefold: (1) a transparent and replicable aggregation procedure; (2) an empirical meta‑ranking of 136 destinations based on six widely cited indices; and (3) managerial guidance on how such a composite can inform benchmarking and resource allocation. literature review sustainability and destination measurement extending prior evidence that composite rankings are highly sensitive to indicator selection and weights, we frame sustainability as a latent construct only partially observed by existing indices; accordingly, we apply pca to recover their common signal and reduce reliance on subjective weighting. sustainability research emphasizes balancing environmental, economic, and social dimensions and has motivated destination‑level indicators and benchmarking frameworks (torresdelgado & saarinen, 2014; punzo et al., 2022). within tourism, scholars have proposed holistic measurement systems and composite indices to support policy and management decisions (pérez et al., 2013; giambona et al., 2024). several studies deploy data‑reduction or weighting strategies— pca, regression‑based scoring, and entropy or non‑compensatory schemes—to consolidate multidimensional information (pérez et al., 2013; lozano‑oyola et al., 2019; punzo et al., 2022), https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kim et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 15-35. 18 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 15-35, doi: 10.18060/28905 copyright © 2025 yen-soon kim, natalie hudson, rhonda montgomery, ashok singh and soyeon jung this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. while others critique the sensitivity of composite rankings to indicator selection and weighting rules and call for transparent, auditable methodology (greco et al., 2019; kelemen et al., 2024; kármán‑tamus & gárdos, 2025). we further explain how the cited works guided our objectives: dimensionality reduction without ad‑hoc weights, retention of shared information across indices, and generation of a reproducible meta‑ranking that can be audited and updated as methodologies evolve. work linking sustainability to destination competitiveness highlights both conceptual alignment and empirical challenges: sustainability indicators covary with broader competitiveness measures, and methodological choices (e.g., efficiency‑frontier models vs. composite indices) can change destination standings (cracolici & nijkamp, 2009; rodríguez‑díaz et al., 2020; assaf & josiassen, 2016; gonzález‑rodríguez et al., 2023). recent critiques of market‑oriented benchmarking urge careful interpretation of rankings and triangulation across measures when communicating results to stakeholders (miller & crabolu, 2023). building on this body of work, we treat six published indices as correlated indicators of a single latent sustainability construct and use pca to extract the dominant common signal. unlike equal‑weight averaging or judgement‑based multi‑criteria methods, pca endogenously determines weights from the covariance structure, facilitating reproducibility and reducing origins and evolution of sustainability research the word sustainability, nachhaltigkeit in german, appeared in 1713 in europe in a book written by german scientist and forester hans carl von carlowitz, after which the practice of planting trees became a path to “sustained-yield forestry” among french and british foresters (heinberg, 2010). in january 1972, a series of articles called “blueprint for survival,” laying out the facts of the global situation at the time regarding world population, resources, and environmental problems, were published in the ecologist; the articles were contributed by more than 30 scientists. these articles later appeared as a british book blueprint for survival, and over 750,000 copies of this book were sold (goldsmith et al., 1972). the ideas presented in blueprint for survival were not supported by all researchers at the time, as can be inferred from two letters which appeared in the correspondence section of the magazine nature (nature, 1972). the term “sustainability” later appeared (kidd, 1992) in the united states in 1974, in a united nations document in 1978, and in a meeting of g7 countries held in 1989 in paris, france (g7 summit, 1989). principal components analysis and tourism corral, hernández, navarro ibáñez, and ceballos collaborated with spanish authorities and tourism related businesses and organizations to develop a strategy for renovating mature tourist destinations (corral et al., 2016). muresan, oroian, harun, arion, porutiu, chiciudean, todea, and lile (muresan et al., 2016) used 22 measures of residents’ perceptions toward tourism, and eight measures of support for tourism; data was collected from the nord-vest region in romania and principal components analysis (pca) of data yielded four perception components and two support components. harun, chiciudean, sirwan, arion, and muresan (harun et al., 2018) collected 320 responses from a survey of residents of sulaimani and halabja governorates in the northern region of iraq and used pca for data analysis; increase in local pollution emerged as a negative aspect of tourism, but strong support for the development of tourism was also found. garrigos-simon, narangajavana-kaosiri, and lengua-lengua (garrigos-simon et al., 2018) conducted a bibliometric investigation of research in tourism and sustainability (ts) to identify research patterns in ts and presented results visually. pulido-fernández and lópez-sánchez used https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kim et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 15-35. 19 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 15-35, doi: 10.18060/28905 copyright © 2025 yen-soon kim, natalie hudson, rhonda montgomery, ashok singh and soyeon jung this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. the method of logistic regression on data collected from 1,118 responses of western costa del sol (andalusia, spain) visitors and determined that the tourists with knowledge of sustainability were willing to pay to visit destinations that were sustainable but were not willing to pay for the increased cost of sustainable tourism (pulido-fernández & lópez-sánchez, 2016). sun, wandelt and zhang (2022) considered the impact of covid-19 on global air traffic based on approximately 200 research publications on this topic (sun et al., 2022). palacios-florencio, santos-roldán, berbel-pineda and castillo-canalejo (2021) show that one way to maintain the tourism industry in challenging times such as covid-19 is the development of sustainable tourism (palacios-florencio et al., 2021). deri, chiti, and ciuffoletti (deri et al., 2023) called for understanding a cultural tourism destination well and argued for promoting slow tourism in order to preserve the distinguishing features of an inland tourist destination. lyon (lyon, 2023) suggested that approaches and perspectives must be integrated when developing the science of sustainability. mastria, vezzil, and de cesarei (mastria et al., 2023), after reviewing results from 40 publications, suggested that tourists’ preferences and sustainable choices were impacted by perceived value of green products and services. the emergence of sustainable wine tourism in the post covid-19 years was considered by santorinaios, kosma, and skalkos (santorinaios et al., 2023); a statistical analysis of 595 survey responses revealed that wine consumption and winery visitations had increased after covid-19. jiang, cai, chen, zhang, wang, xie, and yu (jiang et al., 2022) applied spatiotemporal methods for assessment of sustainability of shandong province’s cultural heritage. tourism destination sustainability indices cracolici, cuffaro & nijkamp (cracolici et al., 2009) developed a statistical method for evaluating tourism sustainability. castellani and sala (castellani & sala, 2010) proposed a holistic method for evaluating sustainability by defining measures for evaluating effects of policies. the initial idea for the scandinavian destination sustainability index was born in 2010 in gothenburg in a joint meeting of icca’s scandinavian chapter and mci, leading to the first scandinavian benchmark (global destination sustainability movement, 2017). the global destination sustainability index (gds-index) was subsequently created through an mou among the icca scandinavian chapter, icca, imex, and mci in 2015 (global destination sustainability movement, 2023, 2025). the gds-index reached 50 destinations by 2019 (global destination sustainability movement, 2023) and now covers around/over 100 audited destinations worldwide (bordeaux tourism & conventions, 2024). in parallel, the gds-academy launched in june 2021, offering an open-enrolment gds-icca-citydna certificate in regenerative destination management (icca, 2021; global destination sustainability movement, 2025; city destinations alliance, 2025). tourism destinations increasingly use such destination sustainability indices to attract visitors and communicate their sustainability performance (global destination sustainability movement, 2025). crouch (crouch, 2011) used an online survey of tourism researchers and tourism destination managers to evaluate 36 competitiveness attributes to develop determinance measures, statistically analyzing these measures. a total of 10 of the 36 attributes had statistically significant measures. angelkova, koteski, jakovleva, and mitrevska (angelkova et al., 2013) discussed the importance of cooperation among various stakeholders such as national and regional authorities, tourism companies and destinations for achieving true sustainability. pérez, guerrero, gonzález, pérez, and caballero (pérez et al., 2013) developed a principal component analysis (pca)-based composite tourism destination index. mikulić, kožić, and krešić (mikulić et al., 2015) pointed out potential issues with commonly used methods for combining sustainability indices. carrillo and jorge https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kim et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 15-35. 20 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 15-35, doi: 10.18060/28905 copyright © 2025 yen-soon kim, natalie hudson, rhonda montgomery, ashok singh and soyeon jung this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. (carrillo & jorge, 2017) developed a composite index for tourism sustainability of spanish regions via weighting of simple indicators. martin and assenov discussed the importance of developing tourism sustainability indices for surf sites and developed a surf resource sustainability index (srsi) for surfing-based tourism destinations (martin & assenov, 2015) rodríguez-díaz and pulido-fernández (rodríguez-díaz & pulido-fernández, 2020) investigated the relationship between sustainability and tourism competitiveness for various regions and developed a synthetic sustainability index at global and regional levels. a systematic literature review of sustainability is provided by streimikiene, svagzdiene, jasinskas, and simanavicius (streimikiene et al., 2021). wang, nie, jeronen, xu, and chen (wang et al., 2023) combined value belief-norm theory with environmental awareness on a dataset of 301 students from a university in eastern china; their results point to an important role university can play in promoting sustainable tourism. nguyen, kuo, lu, and nhan (nguyen et al., 2024) developed a two-stage network to benchmark 111 global tourist destinations; their empirical results show that inefficiency in sustainability primarily comes from technology gaps among the tourist destinations. companies such as mabrian (mabrian, n.d.) and s & p global (s & p global, n.d.) provide a range of sustainability indices. jørgensen (jørgensen, 2023) argues for a deep investigation into various sustainability indices and destination rankings obtained from these indices. asmelash and kumar (asmelash & kumar, 2019) used exploratory factor analysis (efa) and structural equation modeling (sem) on data collected from a three-round delphi method involving evaluation of indicators using 6 well-accepted indicator selection criteria in order to obtain an alternative travel sustainability index. gómez-vega and picazo-tadeo (gómez-vega & picazo-tadeo, 2019) used data from the 2017 travel & tourism competitiveness report of the world economic forum (wef) and determined weights to rank 136 tourist destinations; the weighted indicator rankings were found to be quite similar to the unweighted wef rankings. methodology pca is a statistical method which is typically used for reducing the number of variables in a correlated dataset. pca uses eigen analysis of the covariance matrix or the correlation matrix and yields uncorrelated principal component scores (pc scores) and pc loadings of each variable of the pcs. pc scores are used as inputs to further statistical analyses such as multiple linear regression (mlr). in this article, we will develop an aggregating method for several tdsi rankings into a single ranking via the dimensionality reduction method of principal components analysis (pca) (jolliffe, 2002) and will illustrate the proposed method using the tdsi rankings data given in appendix 2 of gómez-vega and picazo-tadeo (gómez-vega & picazo-tadeo, 2019). we compiled six published index variables for each of 136 destinations (see table 1), verified directionality so that lower ranks denote better performance, and standardized variables (z‑scores) to ensure commensurability before pca. we compiled rankings for 136 destinations across six sustainability‑related indices reported in the tourism competitiveness literature: four index variants (a–d), a data envelopment analysis‑based composite (dea), and the world economic forum’s travel & tourism competitiveness components (wef). all six are available for the same set of destinations, yielding a balanced 136×6 matrix (see table 1). for transparency and reproducibility, we detail the pipeline: data screening for completeness, z-standardization, pca on the correlation matrix, component retention via scree and cumulativehttps://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kim et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 15-35. 21 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 15-35, doi: 10.18060/28905 copyright © 2025 yen-soon kim, natalie hudson, rhonda montgomery, ashok singh and soyeon jung this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. variance criteria, and construction of the composite as a variance-weighted sum of retained components; software and parameters are listed in the online appendix. rankings were encoded such that lower numeric values denote better performance in all six indices. to place indices on a common scale, variables were standardized to zero mean and unit variance prior to pca (z‑scores). because variables represent ordinal ranks, we verified results using the correlation matrix (equivalent to pca on standardized variables). no imputation was required because the dataset is complete for the 136 destinations. we applied pca to the 6 standardized variables using the correlation matrix and extracted component scores and loadings with the prcomp routine in r. component retention followed the scree‑plot and cumulative variance criteria: the first two components explained 91% of total variance. we constructed a composite sustainability score s as a weighted sum of the first two component scores: s = w₁·pc1 + w₂·pc2, where weights equal the proportion of variance explained (w₁ = 0.79, w₂ = 0.12, normalized to sum to 0.91). destinations were ranked by s (descending sustainability). code was executed in r (version current at analysis time). we provide figure descriptions (scree plot; biplots of scores/loadings; correlation heatmaps) to support interpretation. figures and the full ranking table remain unchanged in substance but are referenced in the revised narrative for clarity. all computations in this article were done in the statistical software environment r (r core team, 2023). the function “prcomp” of r was used to run pca on the data file with 136 rows and 6 columns shown in table 1. results and discussion figure 1 (scree plot) shows the percent variance explained by the six pcs, with the first two cumulatively explaining 91%, and first three cumulatively explaining almost all (98%) of the total variation in the data. the first principal component captures the dominant common variance across indices, consistent with an overarching efficiency/competitiveness construct for destinations, whereas the second component loads on methodological emphases specific to individual indices. together, these dimensions clarify why prior rankings sometimes diverge and provide a coherent basis for reconciling results across benchmarking systems. figure 2 is a plot showing the correlations among the pcs and the original variables. it can be seen from this plot that the tdsi rankings wef and dea load very heavily on pc1, followed by the rankings c, a, b, and then d. the rankings d and a load heavily on pc2, and the third pc is just the ranking b. figure 3, which is a plot of the pc scores and pc loadings, confirms the conclusions drawn from figure 2. we will next show how the results of the pca can be used to average the six tdsi rankings into a single ranking via the results of pca. practically, managers can apply the pca‑informed ranking to identify leverage points (e.g., indicators with high loadings), allocate resources toward dimensions with outsized influence, and benchmark progress as input indices update; we also contrast our results with equal‑weight, entropy‑weighted, and efficiency‑frontier approaches to highlight when each may be preferred. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kim et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 15-35. 22 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 15-35, doi: 10.18060/28905 copyright © 2025 yen-soon kim, natalie hudson, rhonda montgomery, ashok singh and soyeon jung this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. figure 1. percentage of variation explained by the pc’s (scree plot) figure 2. correlation plot of the pc’s and raw variables https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kim et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 15-35. 23 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 15-35, doi: 10.18060/28905 copyright © 2025 yen-soon kim, natalie hudson, rhonda montgomery, ashok singh and soyeon jung this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. figure 3. plot of pc scores and loadings for the first two pc’s figure 3 displays the principal component (pc) scores and loadings for the first two components derived from the pca of tdsi rankings. each data point represents a country or region, plotted in relation to its position along the pc1 and pc2 axes, which together explain a significant portion of variance. the loadings indicate the contribution of each original variable to the components, allowing for visual interpretation of how strongly each ranking index influences the new composite dimensions. figure 4. correlation plot of the 6 rankings and the pca-based ranking https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kim et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 15-35. 24 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 15-35, doi: 10.18060/28905 copyright © 2025 yen-soon kim, natalie hudson, rhonda montgomery, ashok singh and soyeon jung this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. figure 4 is the correlation plot of the six original rankings given in brackets along with the proposed pca loadings weighted rankings. it can be seen that the ranking obtained by the proposed method is highly correlated with the rankings c, dea, and wef. table 1 shows the original ranking data and the ranking obtained by the proposed method of computing the weighted average of the first two pc scores using the pca loadings of 0.79 for pc1 and 0.12 for pc2 (see figure 3). table 1. rankings of tourist destinations – last column is ranking by the proposed method country/ region a b c d dea wef weighted rank spain 27 9 10 3 3 1 1 germany 16 19 3 6 5 3 2 france 23 20 7 4 4 2 3 japan 4 22 12 8 6 4 4 united states 21 61 1 1 1 6 5 austria 22 15 9 20 10 12 6 united kingdom 15 60 4 9 7 5 7 portugal 32 3 21 18 13 14 8 hong kong 2 14 16 36 16 11 9 switzerland 1 41 8 29 14 10 10 australia 19 45 20 12 9 7 11 italy 48 47 17 5 8 8 12 republic of korea 14 51 19 13 11 19 13 canada 25 74 5 14 12 9 14 greece 46 10 23 22 17 24 15 iceland 10 12 2 67 15 25 16 belgium 20 42 15 27 19 21 17 netherlands 12 25 14 51 22 17 18 singapore 7 1 11 89 18 13 19 norway 5 46 26 33 23 18 20 new zealand 13 17 32 42 28 16 21 sweden 6 35 31 35 25 20 22 china 60 83 18 2 2 15 23 croatia 40 31 33 17 21 32 24 ireland 24 11 22 58 27 23 25 denmark 8 34 29 55 31 31 26 finland 3 30 35 60 33 33 27 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kim et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 15-35. 25 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 15-35, doi: 10.18060/28905 copyright © 2025 yen-soon kim, natalie hudson, rhonda montgomery, ashok singh and soyeon jung this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. czech republic 30 29 24 48 30 39 28 malaysia 39 26 41 37 36 26 29 united arab emirates 18 68 6 62 26 29 30 taiwan 28 38 40 39 35 30 31 mexico 73 55 51 11 20 22 32 malta 29 4 27 84 34 36 33 luxembourg 9 32 13 111 32 28 34 thailand 66 48 39 25 38 34 35 panama 65 23 34 50 40 35 36 bulgaria 41 28 49 40 41 45 37 estonia 17 8 45 88 39 37 38 slovenia 35 24 46 63 44 41 39 brazil 72 92 64 7 24 27 40 costa rica 59 36 62 30 47 38 41 turkey 68 73 44 16 37 44 42 hungary 49 16 47 57 46 49 43 indonesia 94 7 77 21 43 42 44 chile 55 13 65 44 49 48 45 poland 52 27 60 43 48 46 46 cyprus 51 21 36 70 42 52 47 india 109 62 61 10 29 40 48 russian federation 54 100 43 24 45 43 49 slovak republic 37 44 55 61 52 59 50 mauritius 57 5 48 104 51 55 51 peru 84 72 81 15 50 51 52 latvia 36 18 56 105 56 54 53 lithuania 31 33 53 102 55 56 54 south africa 85 86 52 28 57 53 55 ecuador 87 67 63 32 61 57 56 romania 58 57 68 49 62 68 57 qatar 11 90 28 123 54 47 58 barbados 44 52 25 122 53 58 59 argentina 69 102 74 23 65 50 60 jamaica 82 6 57 91 60 69 61 morocco 74 78 67 34 64 65 62 colombia 91 66 93 19 58 62 63 oman 42 104 58 47 66 66 64 sri lanka 80 49 73 53 67 64 65 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kim et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 15-35. 26 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 15-35, doi: 10.18060/28905 copyright © 2025 yen-soon kim, natalie hudson, rhonda montgomery, ashok singh and soyeon jung this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. dominican republic 102 2 59 82 59 76 66 israel 33 108 37 85 63 61 67 azerbaijan 43 80 71 65 70 71 68 vietnam 77 81 96 26 69 67 69 saudi arabia 34 110 54 80 71 63 70 bahrain 26 96 38 134 68 60 71 georgia 50 71 69 96 72 70 72 uruguay 38 76 82 83 76 77 73 kenya 116 54 86 41 77 80 74 jordan 53 58 70 113 75 75 75 guatemala 99 43 91 59 79 86 76 namibia 86 82 66 71 80 82 77 montenegro 63 84 50 114 78 72 78 philippines 97 64 97 52 82 79 79 trinidad & tobago 70 105 30 119 74 73 80 tanzania 123 37 104 46 83 91 81 tunisia 75 59 76 95 81 87 82 bhutan 76 53 98 87 84 78 83 kazakhstan 47 97 89 79 87 81 84 cape verde 90 63 42 129 73 83 85 egypt 95 70 85 81 88 74 86 honduras 113 40 87 77 85 90 87 armenia 61 93 80 93 86 84 88 cambodia 105 39 106 66 91 101 89 iran 89 115 101 31 92 93 90 ukraine 83 89 72 94 89 88 91 botswana 88 98 88 74 98 85 92 nicaragua 112 50 94 86 94 92 93 macedonia 56 91 75 120 90 89 94 mongolia 64 103 112 54 96 102 95 lebanon 71 77 83 115 93 96 96 lao pdr 98 65 92 103 95 94 97 serbia 62 107 79 108 97 95 98 bolivia 108 116 103 45 101 99 99 albania 79 87 84 121 99 98 100 nepal 114 69 127 64 102 103 101 uganda 119 88 116 56 103 106 102 el salvador 103 56 100 124 100 105 103 kuwait 45 122 78 136 104 100 104 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kim et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 15-35. 27 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 15-35, doi: 10.18060/28905 copyright © 2025 yen-soon kim, natalie hudson, rhonda montgomery, ashok singh and soyeon jung this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. rwanda 81 94 107 110 105 97 105 venezuela 125 129 113 38 113 104 106 zambia 115 99 118 75 107 108 107 zimbabwe 126 101 110 68 109 114 108 senegal 107 128 99 72 112 111 109 ethiopia 117 106 114 73 111 116 110 cote d'ivoire 111 120 90 92 114 109 111 paraguay 101 75 111 127 106 110 112 bosniaherzegovina 78 109 95 130 108 113 113 gambia 110 85 108 117 110 112 114 tajikistan 93 117 115 100 118 107 115 kyrgyz republic 92 118 129 78 120 115 116 algeria 96 132 120 76 121 118 117 moldova 67 114 102 135 116 117 118 madagascar 131 79 124 98 115 121 119 mozambique 120 95 119 99 117 122 120 pakistan 127 113 105 101 119 124 121 ghana 104 123 109 112 122 120 122 mali 130 127 123 69 124 130 123 gabon 100 126 117 118 123 119 124 malawi 122 112 131 97 125 123 125 bangladesh 118 121 122 109 126 125 126 nigeria 128 124 121 107 127 129 127 cameroon 124 133 126 106 129 126 128 lesotho 106 111 133 131 128 128 129 benin 121 131 125 116 130 127 130 democratic republic of congo 134 136 135 90 133 133 131 mauritania 132 119 128 126 131 132 132 sierra leone 129 125 134 128 132 131 133 chad 136 130 132 125 134 135 134 yemen 135 135 130 132 136 136 135 burundi 133 134 136 133 135 134 136 table 1 compiles the rankings of 136 tourist destinations across six sustainability indices (a, b, c, d, dea, wef) and presents the final weighted ranking derived via a pca-based aggregation method. notably, top destinations such as spain, germany, and france rank high across multiple indices and likewise lead the aggregated pca ranking. the table underscores how pca effectively consolidates diverse sustainability metrics into a single composite rank, supporting the article’s methodology and validating its conclusions https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kim et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 15-35. 28 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 15-35, doi: 10.18060/28905 copyright © 2025 yen-soon kim, natalie hudson, rhonda montgomery, ashok singh and soyeon jung this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. the scree plot indicates steep decline after the first component and an elbow after the second, with pc1 and pc2 jointly capturing 91% of variation. biplots show that wef and dea load most strongly on pc1, with additional contribution from indices c and a, while index d contributes more prominently to pc2. this pattern suggests a dominant common dimension aligned with broad competitiveness and efficiency, and a secondary dimension capturing index‑specific emphases. the pca‑weighted score consolidates the six indices into a single ordering. consistent top performers include spain, germany, and france; large, diversified destinations such as the united states and japan also rank highly. the composite is highly correlated with several source indices, yet notable re‑ordering occurs where individual indices emphasize distinct sub‑dimensions of sustainability. see table 1 for the complete list of destinations and the final composite rank. recent discourse surrounding the fourth industrial revolution (4ir) has further emphasized the role of digital transformation in sustainability. technological convergence, including artificial intelligence, big data, and the internet of things (iot), is now increasingly viewed as both a challenge and a solution in managing sustainable tourism (gretzel et al., 2015; li et al., 2018). as urbanization and mobility grow, there is a renewed focus on balancing economic growth with ecological and social responsibilities (unwto, 2020). consequently, the urgency of incorporating sustainability into tourism planning has intensified, leading to a greater reliance on analytical methods that can consolidate multidimensional sustainability metrics into meaningful insights. more recently, studies have highlighted the role of digital ecosystems and governance frameworks in managing sustainable destinations. for example, baggio and sainaghi (2016) applied network theory to tourism systems, revealing structural imbalances in how sustainability efforts are distributed. similarly, becken and scott (2020) emphasized the importance of climate resilience in tourism infrastructure and its influence on long-term sustainability. researchers have argued for integrating esg (environmental, social, and governance) principles into tourism sustainability indices, signaling a convergence with corporate sustainability reporting standards. this shift reflects the increasingly complex, esg-driven data environment in which tdsi evaluations now operate (guix et al., 2025; bonilla-priego et al., 2014; un tourism esg framework, 2024) to enhance robustness, researchers are combining pca with other dimensionality-reduction and weighting techniques such as factor analysis and entropy weighting (liang, 2018; wu et al., 2022). for example, hybrid pca–entropy models reduce indicator subjectivity (liang, 2018; wu et al., 2022). these integrative approaches offer greater reliability and are gaining traction in sustainability benchmarking across sectors, including tourism (palacios-florencio et al., 2021) furthermore, widely used r and python ecosystems—exemplified by factominer for multivariate analysis and scikit-learn for machine learning—enable researchers to implement and compare multiple dimensionality-reduction strategies within reproducible workflows, and largescale benchmarks now guide method selection across contexts (lê et al., 2008; pedregosa et al., 2011; cantini et al., 2021). in this context, our use of pca remains a foundational and reproducible choice, especially for benchmarking exercises like tdsi. pca loadings indicate that indices such as dea and wef contribute most strongly to the first component, while regional discrepancies likely reflect differences in how each index defines and weights sustainability. this interpretation aligns with nguyen et al. (2024), whose benchmarking of 111 global destinations showed that environmental metrics can diverge substantially from economic or social indicators this nuance is important when designing unified indices, as shown in table 1, which presents notable rank shifts. additionally, temporal shifts in sustainability-related destination https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kim et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 15-35. 29 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 15-35, doi: 10.18060/28905 copyright © 2025 yen-soon kim, natalie hudson, rhonda montgomery, ashok singh and soyeon jung this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. rankings are evident in leading benchmarking systems: the world economic forum’s ttdi 2024 updated its indicator set and methodology—recalculating components and limiting direct comparability with earlier editions—while the gds-index 2024 introduced new and refined criteria that produced measurable rank and score changes. these ongoing methodology updates and data refreshes underscore the need for periodic recalibration of tdsi tools to reflect current trends. therefore, our pca-based averaging approach offers a statistically grounded and adaptive solution for monitoring tourism sustainability. our findings suggest that pca is not only effective in aggregating multidimensional sustainability rankings but also adaptable for real-world policy use. as tourism destinations increasingly adopt regenerative and climate-smart strategies (becken & kaur, 2021; becken, whittlesea, loehr, & scott, 2020), the need for integrated indices becomes critical. policymakers and destination managers can utilize pca-informed rankings to prioritize interventions, allocate resources more efficiently, and communicate performance to stakeholders. future work could explore dynamic tdsi modeling through machine learning and predictive analytics to anticipate performance trajectories and policy trade-offs (font et al., 2023). as global sustainability frameworks continue to evolve, maintaining methodological transparency and flexibility will be essential to ensure the relevance and credibility of destination rankings. theoretical and practical implications treating multiple published indices as noisy indicators of a latent sustainability construct provides a conceptual bridge between measurement and theory. the strong first component suggests substantial shared variance across indices, supporting the use of a common composite for benchmarking. the presence of a meaningful second component cautions that destinations can differ along secondary dimensions (e.g., policy/regulation vs. environmental efficiency), reinforcing the value of examining loadings and score plots alongside ranks. for destination management organizations, the pca‑based composite offers a transparent yardstick for (i) prioritizing interventions, (ii) tracking progress over time, and (iii) communicating outcomes to stakeholders who face multiple, sometimes conflicting rankings. because weights arise from the data, the approach reduces the perception of arbitrariness associated with judgment‑based weighting and can be re‑estimated annually as new indices or indicators become available. equal‑weight averaging ignores covariance among indices and can dilute salient signals. multi‑criteria methods such as ahp depend on expert judgments and can be difficult to audit at scale. entropy weighting exploits indicator dispersion but may overweight noisy measures. efficiency‑frontier techniques (e.g., dea) identify relative best practice but can be sensitive to outliers and model specification. pca balances parsimony and transparency by extracting the common structure and producing orthogonal components with clear variance‑explained diagnostics. in contexts with many correlated indices, this offers a replicable baseline against which more complex models can be compared. in this article, we proposed a novel method of averaging tdsi rankings via pca, wherein pc-scores and pc-loadings are computed from a dataset of tourist destination rankings. the pcscores are then averaged using pc-loadings as weights to obtain a consolidated ranking for all destinations in the dataset. this method was illustrated using a dataset from the tourism literature. this pca-based approach offers a robust solution for synthesizing multidimensional sustainability data into a single, interpretable index. unlike simple averaging or unweighted aggregation methods, pca accounts for inherent correlations among indicators and objectively identifies the most influential components driving destination performance. our analysis revealed https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kim et al. (2025) / events and tourism review, 8(1), 15-35. 30 events and tourism review vol. 8 no. 1 (2025), 15-35, doi: 10.18060/28905 copyright © 2025 yen-soon kim, natalie hudson, rhonda montgomery, ashok singh and soyeon jung this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. that high loadings on the first principal components reflect dominant sustainability metrics— particularly those related to economic performance and environmental efficiency—validating the value of weighting dimensions through principal components rather than subjective judgment. the implications for policymakers and destination management organizations are significant. by applying pca in this manner, decision-makers can benchmark destinations more equitably, detect underlying structural patterns, and prioritize interventions based on data-driven insights. this method is adaptable to incorporate new indicators such as resilience, climate risk, or local stakeholder participation. moreover, our model supports longitudinal comparisons, enabling institutions to monitor sustainability improvements or regressions over time and evaluate the impact of strategic initiatives. recent studies have further emphasized the importance of integrating renewable energy sources into tourism infrastructure to enhance sustainability. for instance, guo and chai (2025) investigated bimstec countries and found that renewable energy consumption improves environmental quality as measured by the load capacity factor (lcf), and can moderate tourism’s environmental pressures. this underscores the potential for destinations to improve their sustainability rankings by investing in renewable energy solutions. additionally, the role of environmental policies as attractors for tourists has been explored in recent research. serio et al. (2024) examined international tourism flows across italian provinces using a gravity framework and found a positive association between tourism demand and sustainable labels, suggesting that eco-certifications can influence destination choice. this is consistent with capacci, scorcu, and vici (2015), who showed that blue flag eco-labels significantly increase future foreign tourist inflows to italian coastal destinations. incorporating such policy-driven indicators into pca can therefore provide a more comprehensive assessment of destination sustainability. furthermore, the integration of advanced technologies into tourism planning has gained attention. banerjee et al. (2025) introduced a composite sustainability indicator for tourism recommender systems, combining co₂ emissions, destination popularity, and seasonality. their work demonstrates the feasibility of using complex, multidimensional data to guide sustainable travel decisions, reinforcing the applicability of pca in processing and interpreting such data for destination ranking purposes. in conclusion, our findings suggest that pca is not only effective in aggregating multidimensional sustainability rankings but also adaptable for real-world policy applications. as tourism destinations increasingly adopt regenerative and climate-smart strategies, the need for integrated indices becomes critical. policymakers and destination managers can utilize pcainformed rankings to prioritize interventions, allocate resources more efficiently, and communicate performance to stakeholders. future research could explore dynamic tdsi modeling through machine learning and predictive analytics. as global sustainability frameworks continue to evolve, maintaining methodological transparency and flexibility will be essential in ensuring the relevance and credibility of destination rankings. limitations and future research pca assumes linear relationships and focuses on variance rather than causality; future work could combine pca with confirmatory factor analysis, explore dynamic updates as new indicators emerge, or test robustness to alternative standardizations (e.g., rank‑based normal scores). extending the framework to include resilience, climate risk, or stakeholder participation metrics would further enhance decision relevance. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ kim et al. 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(2022). a comparative analysis of the principal component analysis and entropy weight methods to establish the indexing measurement. plos one, 17(1), e0262261. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262261 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ events and tourism review events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 11-32, doi: 10.18060/27602 copyright © 2023 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. events and tourism review december 2023 volume 6 social entrepreneurship in black-majority neighborhoods: the case of indianapolis sotiris hji-avgoustis ball state university, muncie, indiana suosheng wang indiana university, indianapolis correspondence: shjiavgousti@bsu.edu (s. hji-avgoustis) for authors interested in submitting to this journal? we recommend that you review the about the journal page for the journal's section policies, as well as the author guidelines. authors need to register with the journal prior to submitting or, if already registered, can simply log in and begin the five-step process. for reviewers if you are interested in serving as a peer reviewer, please register with the journal. make sure to select that you would like to be contacted to review submissions for this journal. also, be sure to include your reviewing interests, separated by a comma. about events and tourism review (etr) etr aims to advance the delivery of events, tourism and hospitality products and services by stimulating the submission of papers from both industry and academic practitioners and researchers. for more information about etr visit the events and tourism review. recommended citation hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s. (2023). social entrepreneurship in black-majority neighborhoods: the case of indianapolis. events and tourism review, 6, 11-32. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ mailto:shjiavgousti@bsu.edu http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/about/submissions#authorguidelines http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/jet/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/index/login https://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr/user/register http://journals.iupui.edu/index.php/etr hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 11-32. 12 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 11-32, doi: 10.18060/27602 copyright © 2023 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. abstract the study explores how social entrepreneurship is shaped by its environment and particular institutional arrangements and contextual factors by focusing on the nature of engagement and participation by business owners in indianapolis’ fourteen black-majority neighborhoods. the study seeks to answer the following two research questions: a) in what ways can these small business entrepreneurs be considered social entrepreneurs, and b) how do these small business entrepreneurs overcome existing barriers to contribute to the revitalization of their neighborhoods? the study uses an exploratory research design involving an online structured questionnaire and informal conversations with study participants. selected participants met three criteria: a) geographic sampling, b) institutional context, and c) different business typologies. findings from the survey and the informal conversations point to the daily struggles many small businesses face as they struggle to survive, including access to financial and human capital, generating low revenue, and operating with few employees. keywords: black-majority neighborhoods; social entrepreneurship; motivators; barriers; small business introduction this study explores the motivations of owners of small to medium-sized enterprises (smes) in indianapolis's fourteen black-majority neighborhoods to create social value while maximizing profits. social entrepreneurship began drawing the attention of academic researchers in the 1990s (boschee, 1995; bornstein, 1998; dees, 1998a, b; leadbeater, 1997; thompson et al., 2000). the early definitions discussed the roles of mainly nonprofit organizations and their executives as agents of social change. dees (1998 a, b) refers to a social mission carried out with the discipline, innovation, and determination to run a business. thompson et al. (2000) discuss improvements to meet social needs that the state welfare system has not met. recent definitions have added the term commercial entrepreneurship to explore the role of business ventures as agents of social change (austin et al., 2006). other authors refer to sustainable ventures that combine "business principles with a passion for social impact" (wolk, 2008, p. 1) and a desire to change the social equilibrium to reach a better state (light, 2008). social entrepreneurs are individuals who strive to create social value by employing business concepts in new and "entrepreneurial" ways that improve the lives of marginalized segments of a population who are unable or incapable of improving their conditions (peredo & mclean, 2006; seelos & mair, 2005; thompson, 2002). martin and osberg (2007) define a social entrepreneur as someone who "targets an unfortunate but stable equilibrium that causes the neglect, marginalization, or suffering of a segment of humanity, which brings to bear on this situation his or her inspiration, direct action, creativity, courage, and fortitude; and who aims for and ultimately affects the establishment of a new stable equilibrium that secures permanent benefit for the targeted group and society at large" (p. 39). the discrimination experienced by black entrepreneurs in this country has deprived them of https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 11-32. 13 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 11-32, doi: 10.18060/27602 copyright © 2023 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. access to capital while impoverishing their customer base (unger et al., 2011; waldinger et al.,1990) and is strongly related to closures and low levels of profitability (bates & robb, 2014). rather than recognizing the actual impacts of discrimination, scholars in the 1960s and 1970s attempted to explain the lack of a robust black business ecosystem by using social and cultural reasons. one reason offered is the lack of unique home country cultural needs that might generate entrepreneurs in the black community (glazer & moynihan, 1963). a second reason is that black communities are too individualistic and lack the supporting network and solidarity that other thriving ethnic groups enjoy (light, 1972). light goes a step further by suggesting that black cultural values do not foster entrepreneurial activity. black entrepreneurs began pursuing their dreams of owning businesses soon after the abolition of slavery. one notable example is black wall street of tulsa, oklahoma (messer et al., 2018). walker (2009) calls the period from 1900 to 1930 the "golden age of black business," where "leading black capitalists . . . reflected their success within a black economy, which developed in response to the nation's rise of two worlds of race." (p.183). walker observed that black entrepreneurs served mainly black customers in a country divided along racial boundaries. prieto (2019) notes that many early black business entrepreneurs realized the importance of supporting and strengthening the people they serve, including their employees, customers, and local communities. indianapolis' own madame c. j. walker is one such example. walker built a hair products empire and is considered one of the twentieth century's most successful, self-made women entrepreneurs, philanthropists, and activists (bundles, 2020). racial discrimination, including the adverse effects of jim crow laws, contributed to the steady decline of the black entrepreneurial ecosystem in the 1940s. over four decades, black business ownership began to grow again (feldman, 2017). nevertheless, black entrepreneurs continue to experience the impacts of structural and institutional racism. fischer and massey (2000) and fairchild (2009) found that residential segregation depresses black self-employment. sixty-five percent of black people live in sixteen states that score poorly on the us economic opportunity index (rackers et al., 2020), the majority residing in poor neighborhoods. the index is a composite measure made up of indicators in four dimensions that include economy, education, health, and community. black homeowners also experience discrimination in lending. homeownership is a vehicle for creating generational wealth, giving oneself independence, and pursuing dreams of owning a business. however, black people have historically not been given the same access to homeownership as people in the majority. a report by the congressional black caucus foundation (howard, 2019) explains that segregationist policies, such as redlining, zoning laws, and discriminatory lending policies, prevented black families from building wealth throughout the 20th century. the results of these discriminatory practices are striking. according to the federal reserve's survey of consumer finances (bhutta et al., 2020), the median wealth of white families was $188,200, compared with $24,100 for black families. the lack of generational wealth significantly impacts black business owners' ability to secure loans based on current loan scoring models. such models consider credit score, personal debt, annual income, and the home's physical location and assessed value. collins et al. (2016) concluded that it would take a couple of centuries for the average black family to earn the same wealth as the average white family. shapiro et al. (2013) found that each increase of one dollar in average income that black households saw between 1984 and 2009 yielded $0.69 in additional wealth. for similarly situated white households, the same increase in income created $5.19 in wealth. this gap will never close if the country stays on its current economic path. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 11-32. 14 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 11-32, doi: 10.18060/27602 copyright © 2023 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. from this context, the study explores the following two research questions: 1. how can business owners of smes in the city's black-majority neighborhoods be considered social entrepreneurs? 2. how do business owners overcome existing barriers to owning a business to improve lives in their neighborhoods? literature review business owners in black-majority neighborhoods the widely held stereotype that black-majority neighborhoods are poor and dangerous places is misleading. black-majority neighborhoods are diverse and changing like other neighborhoods, but poverty and unemployment remain a reality (berube & frey, 2005). a review of the available literature points to conflicting strategies to address these issues. for example, porter (1995, 1997) argues against investing in minority supplier development programs because blackowned businesses are too small to contribute significantly to neighborhood revitalization. on the other hand, sawicki and moody (1997) argue that black-owned businesses in depressed neighborhoods contribute to regeneration by offering employment opportunities to a disadvantaged labor force. several studies explored the challenges minority business owners face in accessing capital compared to equally credit-worthy white-owned businesses (bates, 1973; bates, 2010; casey et al., 2011; chetty et al., 2020; derenoncourt & montialoux, 2021). moreover, among the minority community, black-owned businesses with similar credit scores as other minority-owned businesses are the least likely to access the financing they need (small business credit survey, 2021). several studies of firm-level data document this disparity (bates, 1997; fairlie et al., 2020; robb & fairlie, 2007; fairlie & robb, 2007). for example, a mystery shopping study (bone et al., 2017) concluded that white borrowers were more likely to be offered follow-up appointments with bankers than better-qualified black borrowers. the authors concluded that a central challenge to black entrepreneurs is not a lack of assets but access to capital and credit needed to grow their businesses. thompson cochran et al. (2002) argued that passing the community reinvestment act (cra), revised in 2020, remains one of the more promising strategies for helping underserved populations and communities accumulate savings and access credit. cra pressured commercial banks and thrifts to consider the credit needs of all borrowers, including those in low-income neighborhoods (immergluck, 2004). the pressure applied to banks resulted in a net increase in minority owners seeking financing to start or expand businesses in these neighborhoods (bates & robb, 2015). the average level of startup capital for black entrepreneurs is around $35,000, a third of their white counterparts (baboolall et al., 2020). perry (2020) reports that almost 40 percent of black business owners feel discouraged from applying for business loans. less than a fifth of them say receiving assistance from loan officers in completing business loan applications. according to the network journal (2021, july 9), 80 percent of black-owned businesses fail within the first 18 months. common reasons cited include poorly designed business plans, lack of market research, poor management, and no access to capital. black-owned businesses in black-majority neighborhoods are essential to the financial backbone of their communities. in addition, black-owned businesses are more likely to hire black workers (boston, 2005). according to maxwell et al. (2020), black americans own less than 20 percent of small businesses with employees. that translates to just over 2.6 million black-owned https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 11-32. 15 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 11-32, doi: 10.18060/27602 copyright © 2023 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. businesses. their numbers have risen by more than 30 percent in the past decade, but many are struggling to survive, generating revenues of less than $100,000 annually and having few employees. a brookings report (perry & romer, 2020) points out that black-owned businesses create an average of ten jobs, while non-black businesses create twice as many jobs. if black-owned businesses were to match their white counterparts in job creation, they would start over 1.6 million jobs. the average pay for a non-black-owned business is around $51,000 per year. if black-owned businesses matched that, their employees would earn a combined $24 billion per year. moreover, if black-owned businesses earned the same revenue as non-black-owned businesses, total revenue would increase by $5.9 trillion. investments at these levels would go a long way to reducing social disparities in black-majority neighborhoods. there are encouraging signs that point to a rise in the number of black business owners across the nation since the recent pandemic. revised estimates from the university of california, santa cruz (2022), reported initially by fairlie (2020), point to an increase of 38% in black-owned businesses between february 2020 and august 2021. in indianapolis, the indy black chamber of commerce reported a 33% increase in membership, adding eighty-two new small businesses to their organization in 2021 (drenon, 2022, january 6). theoretical framework shane and venkataraman (2000) define commercial entrepreneurs as those who can mobilize resources to turn opportunities into businesses. another important consideration is the social context's influence on commercial entrepreneurs' behavior (jack & mouzas, 2007). sarason et al. (2006) describe commercial entrepreneurship as a "social undertaking" only explained within the context of social systems. as commercial entrepreneurship increasingly becomes more socially aware (burchell & cooke, 2006), society's expectations of businesses' social outcomes will continue to rise (jack & anderson, 2002; berglund johansson, 2007). like their commercial counterparts, social entrepreneurs' interests also lie in identifying and pursuing opportunities through creating and operating new businesses, often to reduce customer needs. in many instances, their interests are even more ambitious than those of commercial entrepreneurs (clark et al., 2017; dees & anderson, 2003) as they seek to address societal challenges, such as poverty and social exclusion, within the context of social value creation (mair & martí, 2006; sharir & lerner, 2006). perrini (2006) describes that social value can improve social conditions, such as working conditions, employment opportunities, or integration and participation within the community. for this paper, we define the term social entrepreneurship as an entrepreneurial activity with a social purpose in either the for-profit sector (dees & anderson, 2003), corporate social entrepreneurship (wei-skillern, 2002), or the nonprofit sector (dees, 1998b). the underlying desire is to create social value (weitzel et al., 2010; zadek & thake, 1997). seelos and mair (2005) discuss the creation of businesses to serve the disadvantaged by creating innovative solutions to solve existing problems. social entrepreneurs value profit generation and an opportunity to create change by providing community value (dees, 1998b; johnson, 2002; teakle, 2000) towards building a sustainable community (johnson, 2002). this definition supports the broader understanding that social entrepreneurs aim to improve their communities' well-being through actions (agafonow, 2014). choi and majumdar (2014), driver (2012), and porter and kramer (2011) go a step further and praise the benefits of integrating economic benefits with social value creation. this integration becomes the main characteristic of social entrepreneurship (doherty et al., 2014; pache & santos, 2013; tracey et al., 2011). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 11-32. 16 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 11-32, doi: 10.18060/27602 copyright © 2023 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. several recent academic case studies address the impact of social entrepreneurship in and for marginalized communities, often in developing countries (biddulph, 2017; laeis & lemke, 2016). however, very few studies investigate the impact of smes as agents of social change in underserved communities in developed countries, particularly in the united states. furthermore, the few studies available focus on the challenges faced by ethnic minority and women-owned businesses (bates et al., 2018; fairlie & robb, 2008; wang, 2018a), while a few others focus on the role of cultural entrepreneurship in underserved urban areas (wang et al., 2021; wang & richardson, 2021). from the above theoretical position, we use an adapted framework proposed initially by kimbu and ngoasong (2016) to investigate whether business owners in black majority neighborhoods can be social entrepreneurs. in doing so, we explore how they overcome existing barriers to owning a business while improving the lives of people around them. kimbu and ngoasong proposed the original framework to illustrate how women tourism entrepreneurs in cameroon could meet their own commercial and social transformation goals while contributing to meeting the needs of the very poor and underprivileged in their communities. research context and methods the context of business owners in black-majority neighborhoods most of the literature on minority entrepreneurship or entrepreneurship in disadvantaged communities has focused primarily on the entrepreneurial activities of immigrant groups. entrepreneurial activity in black-majority neighborhoods has received little attention in the academic literature. according to the center for research on inclusion and social policy (2020), 48% of black marion county residents live in a black-majority neighborhood where 88% of the homes are valued less than the county's median home value. our research setting is indianapolis, the capital of the state of indiana and the seat of marion county. indianapolis has a population of almost 900,000; 29% of the population is black or african american (us census bureau, 2021). the fourteen black-majority neighborhoods that comprise the study's population are identified using indy vitals (2022). this online community information system relies on population data from the us census bureau's 2020 decennial census (table 1). indianapolis presents a stark contrast between socioeconomic statuses, and this study aims to identify social entrepreneurial activity in some of the city's most depressed neighborhoods. we identified fourteen black-majority neighborhoods whose demographic indicators, such as median household income and poverty rates, trail other neighborhoods in the city. zip codes are only utilized to define targeted neighborhoods. therefore, some neighborhoods cross over multiple zip codes. in this project, the data is organized mainly by the 2019 census data gleaned from indy vitals and the savi database run through the polis center in indianapolis. in terms of institutional context, the devaluation of the housing market in the city's blackmajority neighborhoods points to the lasting effects of past racist policies. these policies prevent black families from building wealth and make it much harder for business owners to open and maintain a business than their counterparts in other neighborhoods. a recent savi report (townsley et al., 2021) studied over a million loan applications filed in central indiana between 2007 and 2020. it concluded that there are still racial and geographic differences in loan denial rates. the loan denial rates tended to be higher in low-income neighborhoods and neighborhoods of color. a reason for this disparity is that the applicant's income and creditworthiness are not the only criteria considered. lenders consider a neighborhood penalty when approving or denying home purchase and refinance loan applications (steiner & nowlin, 2022). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 11-32. 17 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 11-32, doi: 10.18060/27602 copyright © 2023 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. research design and data collection more research is needed about smes' contributions to neighborhood development, their characteristics, and their owners' motivations (seidman, 2002). these business owners face challenges ranging from higher crime rates, poor infrastructure, and poor employee skills to difficulty accessing capital to sustain and grow their businesses (gartner & bhat, 2000). for example, a study by morland et al. (2002) found that wealthier neighborhoods have four times as many supermarkets as black-majority neighborhoods, and the stores in black-majority neighborhoods are much smaller. kugler et al. (2017) reported that businesses in low-income areas have fewer employees, lower average payrolls, and are more likely to have no paid employees than businesses in other neighborhoods. moreover, most businesses in low-income areas are blackowned (boston, 1997; simms & allen, 1997; williams, 1994). we adopted a mixed methods research design consisting of online structured questionnaires and informal observations from the study's participants. this approach is considered suitable for studying sme owner-operator goals and the performances of their firms (newby et al., 2014). study participants were selected using purposive samplings, a non-probability sampling in which researchers rely on their judgments when choosing members of the population to participate in a study (etikan, 2016). the selection of participants was based on three criteria: • geographic sampling (14 black-majority neighborhoods) • institutional context (business owners of diverse racial backgrounds) • smes with assets not to exceed $1 million table 1. neighborhood demographics neighborhood/corresponding zip code(s) people of color (2019) black (2019) median household income (2019) poverty rate (2019) population (2020) total neighborhood jobs (2016) * arlington woods (46226) 78% 59.71% $27,700 29% 8,291 10,410 brendonwood (46226) 67% 56.21% $44,600 26% 3,264 185 crown hill (46208) 74% 68.03% $28,500 37% 4,506 3,944 devington (46226) 85% 73.07% $40,400 25% 11,925 798 devon (46226) 61% 50.43% $47,400 16% 1,951 22 far eastside (46219, 46225, 46235) 75% 57.56% $36,700 27% 40,647 11,594 forrest manor (46218) 89% 83.20% $37,600 27% 3,497 71 international marketplace (46254) 91% 59.42% $32,100 37% 720 3,631 mapleton/fall creek (46205, 46208, 46218) 69% 63.19% $42,900 24% 6,829 1,664 marian-cold springs (46222) 82% 63.13% $40,900 32% 3,242 1,696 martindale-brightwood (46218) 91% 84.34% $24,200 30% 12,578 3,950 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 11-32. 18 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 11-32, doi: 10.18060/27602 copyright © 2023 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. meadows (46205) 92% 81.29% $25,600 39% 6,561 2,184 near nw-riverside (46208) 78% 63.99% $29,100 35% 7,856 3.356 snacks/guion road (46254) 77% 54.52% $55,000 12% 29,592 8,381 *https://www.savi.org/2016/08/09/indy-vitals-blog-series-economic-profile-of-indianapolis-which-job-sectors-arepresent-in-your-neighborhood/ table 2. community gatekeepers community gatekeepers organization websites community alliance of the far eastside https://www.cafeindy.org/ councilwoman la keisha jackson/district 14 https://www.jackson4indy.com/meet-ms-jackson edna martin christian center https://ednamartincc.org/ far eastside community council https://www.feccindy.org/ fervent prayer church https://fpcindy.com/ finish line youth foundation https://www.finishline.com/ hispanic business council https://www.hispanicbusinesscouncil.com/ indiana black expo https://www.indianablackexpo.com/ indianapolis neighborhood resource center http://www.inrc.org/ innopower https://innopowerindy.com/ international marketplace coalition https://www.imcoalition.org/ kheprw institute https://kheprw.org/ la plaza https://www.laplazaindy.org/ lisc indianapolis https://www.lisc.org/indianapolis/ mapleton fall creek development corporation https://mfcdc.org/ martindale-brightwood community development corporation https://mbcdc.org/ moorhead community resource center https://hawthorne.warren.k12.in.us/ mt. carmel church https://mtcarmelindy.org/ pace indy https://www.paceindy.org/ the alliance for northeast unification https://www.anuimpact.org/ the indianapolis recorder https://indianapolisrecorder.com/ the ross foundation http://therossfoundation.org/ in collaboration with twenty-two community gatekeepers (table 2) operating within the geographic boundaries of the fourteen neighborhoods, the lead author recruited the study participants and offered instructions on how to take the self-administered qualtrics questionnaire https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 11-32. 19 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 11-32, doi: 10.18060/27602 copyright © 2023 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. online. these community gatekeepers represent organizations that have already earned the trust of their respective communities (kay, 2019), and their involvement in promoting the study allowed the researchers to gain trust, establish rapport, and form empathetic, non-hierarchical relationships with neighborhood business owners. this phase of the study lasted between august 2021 and may 2022. since some business owners spoke spanish, the questionnaires were available in spanish and english. during the recruitment phase, the lead author discussed the study and offered to answer questions. these informal conversations led to valuable data that complemented and added to the data generated through the questionnaires. a review of contemporary qualitative research literature shows that researchers are using informal conversations as part of participant observation (simpson et al., 2014; thompson & trigwell, 2018). as swain and king (2022) point out, informal conversations in specific settings may be the best and sometimes the only way to generate good data. the use of these conversations as a secondary data collection method met the following criteria to avoid participant identification: a) notes were not to be organized in a way to allow for the attribution of comments to a particular participant; b) no direct quotes were to be used, and c) no audio or video recording to document the conversations. a total of 94 completed and valid surveys were collected. the data were exported from qualtrics to spss for quantitative data analyses, including descriptive statistics, independent samples t-tests, and multiple regression analyses. specifically, respondents' demographic profiles and business backgrounds were explored with frequency analysis. the mean ratings of all perceptual items were reported. the independent samples t-tests were employed to understand how people in different demographic and business groups perceived the items differently. finally, multiple regression analyses were conducted to identify the significant factors in predicting the social entrepreneurs' motivation, challenge, business success, and community involvement. findings respondents’ demographic profiles as shown in table 3, male and female respondents are equally distributed, with male respondents accounting for 55.3% of the total sample. the mode age group is the 50s' (50-59 years old), representing 44.1% of the total. respondents over 50 represent 72.1% of the sample. while those between 30 and 49 years of age make up 26.9% of the sample, only one participant is younger than 30. among the respondents, 38.3% are college graduates or have post-graduate education. around a quarter of the respondents (23.4%) are singles, 42.6% are married, and the others are widowed, divorced, or separated. concerning race, over half of the respondents are black or african american (58%), 27.3% are white, and the rest are asian or of other races. table 3. respondents’ demographic profiles freq. % freq. % age below 40 8 8.6 gender male 52 55.3 40 to 49 18 19.4 female 42 44.7 50 to 59 41 44.1 single 22 23.4 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 11-32. 20 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 11-32, doi: 10.18060/27602 copyright © 2023 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 60 or older 26 28.0 marital status married or in a cohabiting relationship 40 42.6 education high school or less 44 46.8 widowed/ divorced/ separated 32 34 some college 14 14.9 race asian 10 11.4 college/ university 28 29.8 black or african american 51 58.0 postgraduate 8 8.5 white 24 27.3 other 3 3.4 respondents’ business backgrounds about half (45.7%) of the respondents have owned the current business for more than ten years, nearly 30% for 6-10 years, and the others (24.3%) for five years or less. regarding business size measured by total assets, 41.3% of the businesses are worth $100,000 to $500,000, 33.7% are worth less than $100,0,00, while the other businesses (25%) are worth more than $500,000. none of the businesses exceed $1 million in assets. participants operate a diverse group of neighborhood businesses; a fifth of these businesses are restaurants and coffee shops. regarding business lifecycles, 39.1% are at the growth stage and 38% at the maturity stage. only 12% are startups. a tenth (10.8%) of the businesses employ only one person, half (49.5%) employ 2-5 people, and around a quarter (28%) employ 6-10 people. only one business employs more than 50 people. regarding sources of capital, the vast majority (n=83) report some form of self-financing followed by financing from family and friends (n=53). commercial banks make up the third most prevalent source of financing (n=32). ratings of the perceptual items the perceptual items include motivation for starting a business, barriers to starting and running a business, factors affecting business success, and benefits to community involvement. based on the mean values, the top-rated business motivations include: 1. to gain economic independence/advancement and to be my own boss (4.20) 2. to improve the quality of life in the neighborhood ( 4.18) 3. to contribute something useful to society (4.12) the primary business barriers and challenges based on the mean values include: 1. minority business owners encounter more significant difficulties than others in creating a new business (4.35) 2. minority business owners find less support in society to create a new business than the majority group (4.35) 3. availability of capital (4.25). the top three business success factors include: 1. ability to manage the business successfully (4.20) 2. ability to identify business opportunities (4.15) 3. ability to solve problems facing the business (4.05) the top community involvement benefits include: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 11-32. 21 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 11-32, doi: 10.18060/27602 copyright © 2023 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. 1. makes my community stronger (4.58) 2. helps me build business relationships (4.52) 3. increases sales for my business (4.49) 4. broadens my business network (4.49) 5. preserves the culture and traditions of the community (4.47). results of independent samples t-test independent samples t-tests were conducted to understand better how people with different backgrounds perceived these items. the independent variables include gender (male vs. female), education (some college or less vs. college or more), race (non-black vs. black), business age (10 years or less vs. more than ten years), business status (startup/growth stages vs. maturity/survival stages), business size (5 people or less vs. more than 5) and years of experience (9 years or less vs. more than nine years), respectively. as illustrated in table 4, the different groups perceived many significant items differently. all items in table 4 are significant at the threshold p-value of 0.05; the positive t-values indicate that, for a grouping variable, the mean ratings of the first group are significantly more significant than the second group. the negative t-values indicate the reverse result. specific patterns of the perceptual differences of the items between the groups are notable. for example, regarding motivation for starting a business, males find the listed items more important in motivating them to start a business than females. in terms of barriers and challenges encountered, the listed barriers and challenges are more critical to the success of businesses by males, the relatively less educated black americans than non-black americans, businesses in operation five years or less, businesses at the maturity and survival stages, and the ones with relatively more people employed. regarding the success factors, male businesspeople and those with higher education attainment levels perceived these abilities as more important in contributing to the success of a business than the other groups (i.e., females and the less educated). finally, concerning the benefits of community involvement, males, the more educated, businesses with more than five years in operation, businesses at the maturity/survival stages, and business owners with longer years of business experience view community involvement as a significant contributor to the success of their businesses. table 4. items with significant different perceptions between the groups between males and females: motivation for starting a business to take on the challenges and risks that go with owning/running a business (t=2.03); to seek greater recognition and social prestige (t=3.00) barriers to starting and running a business lack of qualified employees (t=3.89); too much competition (t=4.31); availability of capital (t=1.66); too much state interference/bureaucracy (t=1.80); weak economy (t=2.68); racial discrimination (t=2.89); unsafe surroundings (t=2.68); overall business challenge (2.00) factors affecting business success ability to act in uncertain environments (t=2.55); ability to develop new products and services (t=1.87); overall business success (t=1.80) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 11-32. 22 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 11-32, doi: 10.18060/27602 copyright © 2023 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. benefits to community involvement increases sales for my business (t=2.76); helps with my personal and professional development (t=2.02); helps me build business relationships (t=3.94); helps me to model positive values for employees and applicants (2.51); provides opportunities for feedback from customers (t=2.73); broadens my business network (t=2.65); makes my community stronger (t=2.27); preserves the culture and traditions of the community (t=2.90); overall community involvement (t=3.56) between some college or less and college or more: motivation for starting a business to take on the challenges and risks that go with owning/running a business (t=2.55); to seek greater recognition and social prestige (t=2.14); to have my own business so that my children will inherit it (2.49); to advance further professionally rather than working for others (t=-1.82); to leave a previous job (t=3.06); overall motivation (t=-3.15) barriers to starting and running a business lack of qualified employees (t=4.5); too much competition (t=5.13); availability of capital (2.82) too much state interference/bureaucracy (2.50); weak economy (t=3.71); absence of positive business role models (t=2.02); racial discrimination (4.32); minority business owners encounter greater difficulties than others in creating a new business (t=1.87); minority business owners find less support in society to start a new business than the majority group (t=2.01); unsafe surroundings (t=4.33); balancing family and work life (t=-2.43); overall business challenge (t=3.81) factors affecting business success ability to identify business opportunities (t=-2.20); ability to use creativity in producing and/or selling something new (t=-3.03); ability to solve problems facing the business (t=-2.15); ability to manage the business successfully (t=-3.18) benefits to community involvement increases sales for my business (t=2.38); helps me build business relationships (t=2.55); helps me to model positive values for employees and applicants (t=2.06); provides opportunities for feedback from customers (t=2.34); makes my community stronger (t=1.89); preserves the culture and traditions of the community (t=1.95); overall community involvement (t=3.23) between non-black and black americans barriers to starting and running a business too much competition (t=2.00); racial discrimination (t=-1.72); minority business owners encounter greater difficulties than others in creating a new business (t=-3.20); minority business owners find less support in society to create a new business than the majority group (t=-2.56) benefits to community involvement overall community involvement (t=2.05) between 10 years or less and more than ten years of business age: motivation for starting a business to gain economic independence/advancement and to be my own boss (t=1.69) barriers to starting and running a business lack of marketing training (t=2.38); overall challenge (t=2.01) factors affecting business success ability to identify business opportunities (t=1.99) https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 11-32. 23 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 11-32, doi: 10.18060/27602 copyright © 2023 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. factors affecting business success helps with my personal and professional development (t=-2.99); provides opportunities for feedback from customers (t=-1.71); helps me maintain work-life balance (t=-2.51); makes me a better leader (t=-1.75) between start-up/growth stages and maturity/survival stages of business: motivation for starting a business to gain economic independence/advancement and to be my own boss (t=1.76) barriers to starting and running a business lack of qualified employees (t=-2.55); too much state interference/bureaucracy (t=1.95); racial discrimination (t=-1.66); minority business owners encounter greater difficulties than others in creating a new business (t=-2.17); minority business owners find less support in society to create a new business than the majority group (t=-1.87) factors affecting business success ability to identify business opportunities (t=1.99) factors affecting business success helps with my personal and professional development (t=-1.778); makes me a better leader (t=-1.67); makes my community stronger (t=-2.22); preserves the culture and traditions of the community (t=-1.93); overall community involvement (t=-1.86) between 5 people or less and more than five people of business size barriers to starting and running a business lack of qualified employees (t=-2.89); too much competition (t=-3.29); weak economy (t=-2.31) benefits to community involvement overall community involvement (t=-1.96) between 9 years or less and more than nine years of business experience barriers to starting and running a business minority business owners find less support in society to create a new business than the majority group (t=1.68) factors affecting business success ability to identify business opportunities (t=2.02); overall business success (t=-2.56) benefits to community involvement helps with my personal and professional development (t=-2.54); provides opportunities for feedback from customers (t=-1.92); makes me a better leader (t=-2.39); preserves the culture and traditions of the community (t=-1.71); overall community involvement (t=-2.77) determinants in predicting the overall motivation, business challenge, business success, and community involvement multiple regression analyses were conducted to identify the significant variables in predicting: a) overall, how motivated are you to start/run a business? b) overall, how challenging is it to start/run a business? c) overall, how successful do you think you have been starting/running a business? https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 11-32. 24 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 11-32, doi: 10.18060/27602 copyright © 2023 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. d) overall, how successful has your business been with community development? as indicated in table 5, the adjusted r2 shows the total variance explained by the independent variables remaining in the models, ranging from .168 to .385. the f-ratios are all significant (f values range from 2.50 to 13.66, prob. < 0.01), indicating that these results could hardly occur by chance. furthermore, the t-values of the independent variables remaining in the models range from 2.681 to 4.449, meaning that all the partial correlations are statistically significant at 0.05. the results show that one determining variable (to gain economic independence/ advancement and to be my own boss) remains in the model of "overall, how motivated are you in starting a business. two significant variables (too much competition and lack of training in management skills) remain in the model "overall, how challenging is it to start/run a business. one determinant (ability to develop new products and services) is significant in predicting "overall, how successful do you think you have been starting/running a business. finally, two variables (providing opportunities for customer feedback and increasing sales for my business) are significant predictors of "overall, how successful has your business been with community development." table 5. results of multiple regression analyses dependent variable independent variable(s) remaining in the model b β t sig. overall motivations (adj. r2 = .168, f=2.50, sig.=0.01) “to gain economic independence/ advancement and to be my own boss.” .297 .396 3.333 0.001 overall challenge (adj. r2 = .385, f=13.7, sig.=0.001) “too much competition.” .178 .275 2.857 0.005 “lack of training in management skills.” .185 .250 2.681 0.009 overall business success (adj. r2 = .168, f=3.17, sig.=0.004) “ability to develop new products and services.” .463 .493 3.048 0.03 overall community involvement (adj. r2 = .329, f=3.21, sig.=0.002) “provides opportunities for feedback from customers.” .482 .457 4.449 0.001 “increases sales for my business.” .353 .329 3.208 0.002 discussion and conclusion the challenges faced by business owners in black-majority neighborhoods persist today. for example, a fair housing center of central indiana (2022) report found that two-thirds of white families own their homes, while only a third of black families are homeowners. in addition, a brookings institute report (perry et al., 2018) estimated that houses in black-majority neighborhoods in the greater indianapolis metropolitan statistical area are valued at $18,000 on average less than similar houses in non-black-majority neighborhoods. the report also pointed out that homes in black-majority neighborhoods are valued at $48,000 on average less than similar https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s. (2023) / events and tourism review, 6, 11-32. 25 events and tourism review vol. 6 (2023), 11-32, doi: 10.18060/27602 copyright © 2023 sotiris hji-avgoustis and suosheng wang this work is licensed under a creative commons attribution 4.0 international license. houses in non-black-majority areas. finally, a different report compiled by the indiana university's center for research on inclusion and social policy (2020) estimated the 2018 median value of houses in indianapolis' black-majority neighborhoods to be $87,821, two-thirds of the city's median home values that same year. progress in overcoming such challenges is slow, and recent news stories highlight the lasting impacts of past discriminatory practices, including redlining in cities across the country. for example, in october 2021, trustmark national bank in tennessee agreed to invest $3.85 million in loan subsidies and to open one loan production office in a majority-black and hispanic neighborhood in memphis, tennessee (us department of justice, 2021). in addition, old national bank in indianapolis has agreed to settle a federal complaint filed by the fair housing center of central indiana (2021) by agreeing to expand mortgage lending opportunities to black borrowers in majority-black neighborhoods in indianapolis. as a result of past and current obstacles to business ownership, only 4% of businesses in indianapolis are owned by black business owners. this is based on data compiled by common future and next street (2021). however, according to our study, black business ownership is 58% in the city's black-majority neighborhoods. the national trends are similar, where only 2.3% of all businesses are black-owned, even though black people comprise 14.2% of the population (perry et al., 2022). by applying the principles of social entrepreneurship, the study highlights the critical role of business owners of small to medium-sized enterprises (smes) in indianapolis's fourteen blackmajority neighborhoods to create social value while maximizing profits. as the results of our study point out, the top three motivators for starting a business in black majority neighborhoods include: gaining economic independence/advancement and being my own boss, improving the neighborhood's quality of life, and contributing something useful to society. these three motivators align with the foundation of the kimbu (2016) theoretical framework. social transformation goals, commercial goals, and community needs are the three motivators of women tourism entrepreneurs in cameroon. in our study, the social transformation goals of these entrepreneurs include their valuable contributions to society, such as offering employment opportunities to their neighbors. their commercial goals include their efforts to gain economic independence by becoming their own boss. in doing so, these entrepreneurs forge their opportunities to build wealth and legacy. lastly, in terms of meeting neighborhood needs, these entrepreneurs are improving the quality of life of their fellow citizens by filling gaps for black consumers and providing goods and services that reflect everyday needs and interests. in doing so, they help keep dollars circulating within these neighborhoods rather than supporting businesses owned by outsiders with no apparent ties to the neighborhood. the informal conversations with study participants reaffirmed the existence of many barriers to starting and running a business. black entrepreneurs face significant inequities in the business world with direct consequences on the communities they serve, especially in black-majority poor neighborhoods. they include lost job opportunities and inadequate access to essential goods and services that other communities take for granted, all contributing to declining quality of life. at the macro level, these inequities undercut the potential of millions of people of color to bolster the country's economic system and address many injustices. the informal conversations also reaffirmed the study's findings regarding what these business owners need to overcome these barriers. they include technical assistance in creating new businesses, including access to resources and business opportunities. participants also identified the need to join robust business networks that offer them representation and participation in networking, mentorship, and sponsorship programs to help them overcome some sociocultural barriers. thirdly, https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ hji-avgoustis, s. & wang, s. 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