Experience and perceived value for participants of cultural and art festivals organized for persons with a disability: A Korean perspective

Song Ee Kim, Purdue University

Abstract

Festivals and other cultural events have been recognized as an essential part of cultural production and consumption. Recently, festivals have continued to grow rapidly as one of the increasingly significant components of destination marketing and as one of the fastest expanding types of tourist attractions. Consequently, festival tourism has been an important subject of inquiry in tourism research. In recent years, festival literature has tended to focus on attendees' experiences in terms of psychological perspectives such as motivation, perceived quality and value, emotions, and benefits. Yet it would be misleading to assume that festival participation has the same significance for all visitors or that all visitors derive same type and level of value from every festival experience. While the existing literature in this area predominantly focuses on the festival tourism experienced by the general traveling public, festival experience related to the tourists with disabilities has received limited research attention. To that end, the current study sought to understand comprehensive festival experience that visitors with disabilities find to be meaningful and significant. This dissertation was mainly divided into two studies, each following a different major objective, to better understand festival experience for people with disabilities. Firstly, it aims specifically to develop a conceptual framework that illustrates major components of festival tourism experience by identifying the experiential dimension of festival tourism. Secondly, it aims to investigate how the identified experiential dimensions lead to certain visitors' perceived functional, emotional, and social values and behavioral intentions (festival loyalty) in festival context. In order to achieve the goals of identifying the underlying structure of festival experience for visitors with disabilities, a survey questionnaire was administered to a sample of 304 visitors with disabilities to a special festival organized for them in Korea. The development of the structured questionnaire was based upon initial qualitative assessments, which were in-depth interviews with 10 mobility-disabled individuals and five families that live with family members with various types of disabilities, and extensive literature review. Results of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses revealed seven distinct experiential dimensions of the festival for people with disabilities. Specifically, three dimensions are transient experiential factors, namely, physical accessibility, staff performance, and core event attributes, while the other four dimensions are transcending experiential factors including intrinsic barriers, personal rewards, meaning of event, and social inclusion. These experiential factors were further analyzed to discover differences based on disability conditions of attendees (e.g. types of disabilities, severity of disabilities). According to the findings of this study, there were statistically significant differences in identified experiential dimensions by both disability-related characteristics. In the second phase of this study, a structural equation modeling was implemented to investigate identified underlying experiential dimensions in relation to multidimensional perceived values and behavioral intentions. Finally, this study provides empirical evidence of different roles of festival experiences (transient and transcending) in relation to visitors' perceived values (functional, emotional, and social) and behavioral intentions. The results of the structural equation modeling revealed the core event attributes and personal rewards as the strongest predictors of multidimensional values. The value-behavioral intentions association was found to be significant for both transient and transcending festival experiences. Of the three perceived values, emotional value was identified as the strongest contributor to behavioral intentions of the festival. Additionally discussed are the theoretical and managerial implications of the findings and recommendations for festival environments more conducive for visitors with disabilities.

Degree

Ph.D.

Advisors

Lehto, Purdue University.

Subject Area

Arts Management|Recreation

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