Examining Event Impacts on Destination Marketing and Local Economies

The research explores the multifaceted impact of festivals on local economies, emphasizing their role as catalysts in boosting tourism and engaging communities. Festivals attract diverse audiences, providing opportunities for increased economic activity through spending on accommodation, dining, and entertainment. This paper evaluates how strategic event management can optimize these benefits while fostering sustainable community development. By analyzing case studies and applying theoretical frameworks from event studies literature, the research highlights effective marketing strategies that capitalize on festivals to enhance tourism. Additionally, it considers potential challenges such as resource allocation and environmental impact, proposing solutions for maximizing positive outcomes. The paper underscores the importance of collaborative efforts between local governments, businesses, and communities to create events that not only entertain but also economically empower their locales.

Running head: MANAGING THE ENVIRONMENT FOR TOURISM AND EVENTS
Managing the Environment for Tourism and Events
QRE Wine and Whisky Walk Festival
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Author note

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MANAGING THE ENVIRONMENT FOR TOURISM AND EVENTS
Table of Contents
Introduction......................................................................................................................................2
Discussion........................................................................................................................................3
Recommendation...........................................................................................................................10
Conclusion.....................................................................................................................................10
References......................................................................................................................................12
Bibliography..................................................................................................................................14

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MANAGING THE ENVIRONMENT FOR TOURISM AND EVENTS
Introduction
The QRE Wine and Whisky Walk Festival from Hong Kong’s Wanchai district is a one
of a kind festival. It is hosted by Hopewell and was first launched in the year 2010. It started out
as a form of celebration for the neighborhood people and tenants at Wanchai. The festival is held
with the aim of celebrating the unique lifestyle and culture of the people of Wanchai district. The
festival is even serving as a platform for both the communities and the tourists for mingling and
learning more regarding the latest developments inside Queen's Road East (QRE) and even
enjoying the festival events together. It provides the opportunity of enjoying a whiskey tour of
the finest distilleries of the world, along with some of the best collectables, depleting, award-
winning and vintage whiskies around. There are also other special alcoholic beverages, cocktails
and mocktails. The participants have the freedom of strolling through the charming Lee Tung
Avenue and Queen's Road East, at around 20specialty shops and restaurants, having the favorite
whiskies and the fine wines. The people with no tickets can savor French canapés, and some
other wide variety of entertainments events like bartending, dance performances, live orchestra,
wineglass calligraphy and many more other fun activities. The festival is built on the icon of
QRE, and it continues upholding the message of promoting environmental protection and
advocating the living culture of Wanchai, bringing happiness and delight to the local people. The
festival is a way for promoting the unique culture of Wanchai and driving the leisure
development in the district. The festival not just displays the rich and spirited characteristics of
the district but even reinforces it as a community having diversity (Qre.com.hk 2017). This
report would be looking at the impact of the event and recommend on ways to improve it.

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Discussion
Events and festivals are a powerful platform and when they get planned well, they
positively make a lasting impact. These festivals and events have the potential of doing much
more than just generating profits (Duffy and Mair 2017). Most often festivals and events get
planned and produced in a manner with the main objective of delivering certain impacts on the
society, community, destination, economy, and vice versa. The duration and management also
have an impact on the event or festival. Communities generally look for ways to manage the
unemployment, low income, low consumption with the help of events and festivals. They have
hopes that festivals would drive tourism which would in turn help in coming out of such difficult
situations. The community even has the hope of preserving their unique cultures and making the
people feel proud of their ways (Nieto 2015). In this context, the QRE Wine and Whisky Walk
Festival was planned for increasing the number of visitors, income and relieving the present
situation of the district of Wanchai in Hong Kong.
Socio-cultural impact
Staging of events attract people from all places either as spectators or as participants, or
even just the local people. The event might influence both of these groups based on its nature and
scale, and on the communities that are further afield or are not directly involved with the event.
Simultaneously, people are even involved with events and festivals as its organizers too. What is
important in this case are the interactions and relationships within and between the different
stakeholder groups that might be going into determining the extent and nature of the social and
cultural impact of the festivals or events (Yolal et al. 2016). Hosting of any event or festival - in
this case the QRE Wine and Whisky Walk Festival - brings about different immediate,
predictable and identifiable social consequences that arise from the interaction amongst the local

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people and the tourists, from different development and activities that are related with the event
and from the range of local participation in the event. These kinds of impacts are similar with
those related with tourism development in a more general manner, like the tangible influences of
crime, congestion and anti-socialistic behavior, along with wider transformations that are in the
form of cultural commoditization. These most of the time gets balanced against the economic
consequences of events and can be managed. In some cases, each group of the stakeholders in a
wide-scale festival is distinctive, whereas, in small events all the stakeholders might actually be
members of the local community (Getz and Page 2016).
Destination impact
Events of all forms get increasingly utilized or promoted for enhancement of the identity
of the location, both internally and externally. On an external level, events potentially serve for
position or the market place, for distinguishing them in a situation where the places are turning
similar or homogenous and allowing them competing in a more effective manner among a wide
range of stakeholders, including tourists, investors, policymakers and so on. The idea is
essentially economic – for regeneration or building of the local economy by means of attracting
inward investment, increased tourist visitation, new businesses and expenditure (Folgado-
Fernández, Hernández-Mogollón and Duarte 2017). Festivals like the QRE Wine and Whisky
Walk Festival also leads to a rise in tourism and related economic benefits. The growing
popularity of this festival can be explained by the surged number of tourists who are looking for
authentic experiences, along with the inevitable losses related with tourism development besides
enhancing community identity. Building of the identity of the location is not a given, but is a
function of three elements, which are the physical environment, socially constructed meaning of
locations and people’s experiences of locations. The location of Wanchai only turned into a

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suitable location after it was endowed with value by the QRE Wine and Whisky Walk Festival.
Thus, it is required that the impact of the QRE Wine and Whisky Walk Festival is considered not
just from the perspectives of different stakeholders and non-stakeholders, but also within a place
framework, as the different stakeholders would be having different cultural understanding of
locations and the different reasons for putting them to use (Van Niekerk and Van Niekerk 2017).
In this context, the cultural identity and the meaning of the location might be reflecting the
festival and as a result of that true culture of the QRE festival is replaced by the focus on the
spectacle as the chosen experience of the visitor.
Events today are a way for regeneration of cities. QRE Wine and Whisky Walk Festival
is a way for Wanchai to be creating an image of themselves internationally and attracting internal
and external investment with the goal of promoting long term growth. This festival is crucial in
improving the image of the host country. People enjoy their visit to the city and keep on
returning, which in turn increases the tourism revenue. It has even been able to raise the
awareness of the city, turning it slowly into a travel destination. This phenomenon has
significantly increased the competition between the cities of the adjoining areas in order to
acquire valuable stakeholders, which include investors, consumers and politicians (Lee et al.
2014). QRE Wine and Whisky Walk Festival has been vital in lengthening tourist seasons,
extending peak season in the community.
Economic impact
Much emphasis is put on economic impact of the QRE Wine and Whisky Walk Festival
because of the fact that the organizers of the event and the government needs meeting the budget
targets and for justifying the cost and even due to these impact being easily assessable. After the
QRE Wine and Whisky Walk Festival is over, the cost of substantial contribution to the

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economic impact assessment occurs. The fraction of the cost spent is specifically important and
even provides opportunities and advantages for the communities that live in Wanchai. Economic
benefits justify hosting of this festival, but it is difficult to predict and thus is a bit difficult
justification (Diedering and Kwiatkowski 2015). In many cities, regions and countries, these
kinds of events and festivals are extremely sought after all over the world. Even the government
is prepared for offering huge funding initiatives for attracting events and for allocating large
expenditure for upgrading the facilities required for these events. Event tourism development
which is using existing attributes most of the time brings a range of benefits for the host
communities, in this case Wanchai (Yeoman et al. 2014). The better infrastructure, services,
access and new investments for QRE Wine and Whisky Walk Festival have helped strengthen
community life in Wanchai.
Events are also crucial in attracting more visitors and investments and therefore creating
new jobs and contributing to the economic growth of the region or city. However, stress must be
given on the quality and duration of these workplaces as these generally create jobs that are most
of the time part-time, short lived and poorly paid. Festivals like QRE Wine and Whisky Walk
Festival even generate extended economic intangible costs and benefits. These kind of intangible
resources are hard to be quantify as objectively and accurately like the financial impacts.
However, they need to be taken into account while assessing the complete economic influence
on the local people (Davies, Coleman and Ramchandani 2013).
Community impact
Apart from the other event consequences, the QRE Wine and Whisky Walk Festival also
have some positive and negative effects on the host communities. It revives the social and
cultural life of the local people, building community pride, offering sense of identity, increasing

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community participation and pride of the location or developing the image of the destination
(Jepson and Clarke 2014). The long term success of QRE Wine and Whisky Walk Festival is at
times threatening the long term success of the festival and therefore it is important that the locals
are accepting the activities of the event. Tourism that upsurges because of this festival
encourages community pride as the visitors are choosing to visit the place for a specific reason
(Ziakas 2016). The well-presented Wanchai district helps the visitors feel welcome and even
contributes to the community pride sense. QRE Wine and Whisky Walk Festival has provided
the communities at Wanchai an opportunity for cultural development and bringing a sense of
sharing and belonging to the community, with excitement, spectacle and self-esteem called about
by being the center of international attention. The negative influence of QRE Wine and Whisky
Walk Festival on the community can include anti-social behavior, congestion, crime, crowding,
community life disruption, and community alienation and displacement, vandalism, noise and
littering. Due to the effect of alcohol, uncontrolled activities occur, which possesses potential
threats to the people and the natural and man-made locations in the district of Wanchai. These
kinds of interruptions have increased pressure and forced local population to be competing for
the use of the required resources with tourists (Moufakkir and Pernecky 2014).
Duration impact
The period for which an event is carried out has a role to play in its quality, success and
failure. Events that go on for a long time can bring about a lot of negative influence on the event.
It uses up more resources, which makes the situation difficult for both the tourists and the local
people. Events that are going on for a long time can make the participants lose out on interest.
Moreover, long running events bring social disruptions, increases expenditure, and creates
different kinds of pollution, congestion. On the other hand, events that are compact have the

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capability of engaging the public, both local and the tourists with multiple types of activities
included in a shorter span of time. Moreover, most of the time compact events display creativity,
which helps attract more visitors (Hamilton, Tee and Prideaux 2015). The QRE Wine and
Whisky Walk Festival includes multiple activities and is comparatively short spanned, which is
why the event attracts so many people from all across the world and is quite popular in the
region.
Organization and management of events
The QRE Wine and Whisky Walk Festival is probably the biggest festival of the Wanchai
district. With the help of this festival, the district is put on the world map, gets the opportunity of
reviving the economy, boosting tourism, modernizing and increasing the situations of
infrastructure, and finally completely transforming the area that continues living the legacy of the
festival even after it is over. This legacy, both in terms of management and infrastructure
experience is a huge introduction for future festivals and events (Hussenot and Missonier 2016).
An alcoholic festival might not seem like an attractive event for some, but QRE Wine and
Whisky Walk Festival has the potential of hosting great shows that can largely attract the
sponsors and the media. The whiskey and wine distilleries find this festival to be a great
promotional platform that can help their business attract the interest of a larger number of public.
The main focus of the organizers of this festival rests on the essence of the distrsict and the
distilleries, which is basically getting the best results out of this festival and achieves excellence.
QRE Wine and Whisky Walk Festival make use of technological means and some exceptional
facilities that they constantly strive to improve. The next thing in its organization is televising the
event, as without that there would be no impact on the wider audience (Nickson 2013). The most
important part of the management of this festival is satisfying the sponsors, who provide the

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financial resources for making it possible. QRE Wine and Whisky Walk Festival attempts at
maintaining a balance between these three elements, along with making sure enough public
sector support is generated.
The management makes sure to avoid unnecessary focus on elements like who is
providing the resources or who is making such festivals visible. What actually matters is what
the distilleries are offering, what the people are enjoying and what is attracting more participants.
Moreover the management also takes care of making sure the locations are equipped with
knowledge, availability and expertise, for ensuring the granting agency would be having the
confidence on the city of having all the ideal qualities related to environment, facilities and
climate. The management makes sure they are returning the events to the owner with added
value and the best thing the destination can offer (Rojek 2014).
Theories and practices
Taking help from different theories inside event and festival studies, more can be
understood regarding the organization and management of the festival. The social exchange
theory states that different social actions are dissimilar to straightforward economic actions.
People who are benefitting from this festival would most likely show a positive attitude towards
it, in comparison to the critical attitude shown by those with none perceived (Cook et al. 2013).
Inside the learning theory, active involvement is asked from the learner (Harasim 2017). Four
kinds of learning can be discerned at festivals like the QRE Wine and Whisky Walk Festival:
visual, verbal, written and experiential. The self determination theory states that intrinsically
motivated behavior takes place in the absence of external reward or if the people are having a
free choice. The participants of this festival choose to be a part of it out of interest and not
because they would be getting rewards from attending it (Adams, Little and Ryan 2017). In this

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context, the anthropological exchange theory states that the main focus is on the symbolic
value of the events in a cultural context (Chagnon 2017). Inside the QRE Wine and Whisky
Walk Festival one form of modern symbolism can be seen – branding of the event which actually
gives meaning to it.
Recommendation
As discussed, it has been understood that different festivals, including the QRE Wine and
Whisky Walk Festival has managed diversifying their strategies for regaining the market shares.
The festival at times loses its momentum and the public interest decrease. The challenge of
enhancing the customer experience at this festival comes up in front of the organizer group. They
can take up a lot of options for solving this issue. The first thing that the organizers can do for
QRE Wine and Whisky Walk Festival participants are making the whole registration and ticket
collecting process online so that no one has to stand in line for hours. Hopewell can use the
mobile connection of the attendees for delivering up-to-the-minute event details, schedule
changes, reminders, and much more. The attendees must also be provided with easy and instant
access to the event materials for them to share, download and recommend. One important
recommendation that the organizers can implement is providing the attendees with the
opportunity of expressing their opinion with the help of online survey tools, which get delivered
and reported real-time. The ability of reaching the attendees in the moment and even being able
to make alterations while the event is going on is the biggest positive of event management.
Conclusion
The QRE Wine and Whisky Walk Festival from Hong Kong’s Wanchai district is a one
of a kind festival. The festival is held with the aim of celebrating the unique lifestyle and culture
of the people of Wanchai district. The festival is even serving as a platform for both the

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communities and the tourists for mingling and learning more. It provides the opportunity of
enjoying a whiskey tour of the finest distilleries of the world, along with some of the best
collectables, depleting, award-winning and vintage whiskies around. This report looked at the
different impacts of the event and recommended ways to improve it. Festivals and events by their
own nature get conducted inside spatial and temporal boundaries. Events and festivals are a
powerful platform and when they get planned well, they positively make a lasting impact. Most
often festivals and events get planned and produced in a manner with the main objective of
delivering certain impacts on the society, community, destination, economy, and vice versa. The
duration, background, and management also have an impact on the event or festival. This study
has been able to encapsulate a number of them, clarifying specific impact of the festival and the
elements that in turn influence it.