Analysis of repeat visitation to a university festival

抄録

Recently, local events and festivals are being increasingly used as destination marketing tools to enhance tourism. One such local event, the gakuensai (university festival) attracts visitors from both the university and its environs and as such visitors to the gakuensai should be considered as event tourists. There is however a lack of research into the gakuensai as part of the event tourism genre. Using an empirical questionnaire survey administered at a university in Chiba, this paper therefore attempts to fill this paucity in knowledge by measuring how gakuensai visitors evaluate the festival as an event, and in doing so examine any possible factors that encourage repeat visitation. Results show that attending gakuensai is a satisfying experience and moreover show that repeat visitation is related in part to festival food. The relevance of the study to other local area festivals is discussed.