Why Do People Attend Events: A Comparative Analysis of Visitor Motivations at Four South Island Events

Abstract

The comparative analysis of the motivations of visitors at four South Island, New Zealand, events—two food and beverage festivals, an air show, and a country and music festival—highlights the diversity in motives that are to be found from event to event. Event-specific factors are especially important; there is little evidence yet of generic event motivations. In contrast to earlier case studies, the comparative approach employed here gives more weight and greater visibility to events per se as a distinctive phenomenon.