The Impact of Music Festival Tourism on UK Image and Community

This project delves into the multifaceted impact of music festival tourism on the image and community of the United Kingdom. It begins by establishing the research background, highlighting the significance of music festivals as cultural and economic drivers, particularly in London. The study explores the aims, objectives, and rationale behind the research, emphasizing the festivals' role in attracting tourists and boosting the UK's economy. A comprehensive literature review examines the characteristics of music festivals, their funding, and their influence on the UK's image. It also considers the motivations of tourists and the unique aspects of UK cities. The methodology section outlines the research philosophy, approach, and methods used, including data collection, sampling techniques, and ethical considerations. The project then presents data analysis and discussion, followed by conclusions and recommendations. The research underscores the importance of music festivals in shaping the UK's cultural landscape and their contribution to the tourism sector.

RUNNING HEAD: The Impact of Music Festival Tourism on the Image and Community of United
Kingdom
Project Dissertation
THE IMPACT OF MUSIC FESTIVAL TOURISM ON THE IMAGE AND COMMUNITY
OF UNITED KINGDOM

The Impact of Music Festival Tourism on the Image and Community of United Kingdom 1
Acknowledgement
I am grateful to my teachers who guided me through every step of the project. It was not easy
to analyse the festival tourism environment of UK and the related authorities of the Festival
tourism board helped me by providing the knowledge about the same. I am also thankful to
my friends who supported me in going through tough times because of which my project
completed timely.
This project would have been impossible without the support of my parents who continuously
motivated me to keep up my hard work. Without the support of you all, it would have been
impossible to complete the study successfully and on time.

The Impact of Music Festival Tourism on the Image and Community of United Kingdom 2
Table of Contents
Acknowledgement.................................................................................................................................1
Abstract.................................................................................................................................................2
Chapter 1 Introduction..........................................................................................................................5
1.1 Research background..................................................................................................................5
1.2 Aims and Objectives of the Research...........................................................................................6
1.3 Rationale of the Research............................................................................................................6
1.4 Research structure.......................................................................................................................6
Chapter 2: Literature Review.................................................................................................................8
2.1 Introduction.................................................................................................................................8
2.2 Music Festival..............................................................................................................................8
2.2.1 Music Festival and community in London.............................................................................8
2.2.2 Music Festival tourism in London, United Kingdom..............................................................9
2.3 Various Music Festival tourism across the globe.........................................................................9
2.4 Characteristics of Festival..........................................................................................................10
2.5 Funding of Music Festivals in London........................................................................................11
2.6 Impact of Music Festival Tourism on the Image and Community of United Kingdom...............11
2.7 What motivates tourists to visit music festivals?.......................................................................14
2.8 The cities of United Kingdom.....................................................................................................15
2.9 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................16
Chapter 3: Research Methodology......................................................................................................17
3.1 Introduction...............................................................................................................................17
3.2 Research Philosophy..................................................................................................................17
3.2.1 Pragmatism Research Philosophy.......................................................................................17
3.2.2 Positivism Research Philosophy..........................................................................................17
3.3 Research approach....................................................................................................................18
3.3 Research methods.....................................................................................................................18
3.4 Research Questions...................................................................................................................19
3.5 Collection of data.......................................................................................................................19
3.6 Sampling techniques..................................................................................................................19
3.7 Limitations of Research.............................................................................................................20
3.8 Reliability and Validity of Research............................................................................................20
3.9 Ethical Consideration.................................................................................................................20

The Impact of Music Festival Tourism on the Image and Community of United Kingdom 3
3.10 Analysis of data........................................................................................................................21
3.11 Action Plan and Gantt chart.....................................................................................................21
3.12 Conclusion...............................................................................................................................24
Chapter 4: Data analysis and Discussion..............................................................................................25
4.1 Introduction...............................................................................................................................25
4.2 Background................................................................................................................................25
4.3 Findings......................................................................................................................................25
Chapter 5: Conclusion and Recommendations....................................................................................32
5.1 Conclusion.................................................................................................................................32
5.2 Recommendations.....................................................................................................................32
Reflection............................................................................................................................................34
References...........................................................................................................................................36

The Impact of Music Festival Tourism on the Image and Community of United Kingdom 4
Chapter 1 Introduction
1.1 Research background
The project is based on ‘The Impact of Music Festival Tourism on the Image and Community
of United Kingdom’ and the main purpose of the project is to focus on the music Festival
Tourism of UK and how does it impact the communities and culture of the country. The
research will start with the introduction of the research and follows a proper format which
makes it easy for the user to understand. The secondary sources will be used and will be
analysed to get the findings of the study. The project discussions will be made and then
recommendations will be given finally to improve the positive impact on the culture and
communities of UK.
A music festival can be understood as a type of art or culture event which is arranged as per
the theme or a music genre. There are different types of genres according to which the music
festivals are classified as Jazz, Opera, Folk, Pop or any other. The music festivals are held to
draw the attention of music lovers and to attract a huge number of tourists in order to earn
foreign currency (Harootunian, 2011). These festivals show a collection of talent of different
artists which are used as a marketing tool so that the image of the destination can be created.
Festivals impact a lot on the culture and community. Also, the local society has a main role to
play in the image creation of the nation (Hernández-Mogollón, Folgado-Fernández and
Duarte, 2014).
The project is on the topic ‘The Impact of Music Festival Tourism on the image and
community of United Kingdom’. The UK is known for its music festivals especially London.
It is the most saturated festival markets in the world so any tourist visiting UK visit one of
these music festivals to experience the ambiance and entertainment during the festival
(Panfiluk, 2015). The music festivals of UK are renowned across the globe for their
creativity and for the coolest activities. There are many famous music festivals in the country
which includes The Great Escape, Boomtown, Bestival, Download Festival and much more.
Because of these music festivals, the tourism of the country boosts and it makes a good
contribution to the economy of the country. According to UK Music (2016), £3.7 billion
spends is generated by the music festivals in the UK which are contributed from the 10.4

The Impact of Music Festival Tourism on the Image and Community of United Kingdom 5
millions of tourists who visited the UK in 2015. There are around 767,000 tourists from
overseas who visited the UK in 2015 (Arfin, 2017).
The music festivals of UK have proved that they provide happiness to the residents and to the
tourists. From decades, these festivals are adding wealth to the economy and the music
industry is booming with the passage of every year. These are the source of happiness for
people as music relax the mind and soul of the people. Different music festivals have
different impacts on the image and community of the nation (Webster & Mckay, 2010).
Events and festivals play an important role in the tourism. Also, there has been a massive
improvement in the festivals and events held by the countries in recent years because these
festivals are the source of revenue for the economies. This Thesis will be done with an
objective of studying the impacts of Music Festival Tourism on the image and community of
UK. The study will be done with the help of secondary data and many real life examples will
be discussed which shows the interconnection between the two. The study will explain that
how the music festival industry has been improved in the recent years and what cultural
experiences they gain. The secondary data will be collected from different sources like
journals, news articles or web sources. The data will be analysed to get the findings from the
research and the conclusions can be made final.
1.2 Aims and Objectives of the Research
The main aim of the research is to analyse the impact of the music festivals tourism on the
culture and community of United Kingdom. This includes the discussion about various music
festivals and the impact of it on the culture.
The main objectives of the study are:
 To explore the role of music festivals of London, United Kingdom.
 To evaluate the impact of music festivals tourism on the culture of London.
 To critically analyse the impact of music festivals tourism on the community of London.
1.3 Rationale of the Research
This research is been conducted to understand the nature of the music festivals and how they
impact the tourism and culture of the nation. The music festivals held in the UK are famous
across the world for their liveliness and level of entertainment they provide to the visitors
(Fredline, Deery and Jago, 2006). This also has some positive as well as negative impacts on

The Impact of Music Festival Tourism on the Image and Community of United Kingdom 6
the culture and communities. The study is important because the impacts studied are
significant in order to foresee the future of music festivals and to determine its impact on the
culture and communities of UK and in the world. The study is important to reframe the music
festivals and their activities so that the economy, culture, and communities can be supported.
This will be discussed in the research to recommend the strategies which can benefit the
society as a whole.
1.4 Research structure
The Research is structured in a below-given manner:
Chapter 1: Introduction
This chapter is about the Introduction of the study which includes aims and objectives of the
study. It also involves the background of the study which is about the Music Festival Tourism
in the UK.
Chapter 2: Literature Review
This chapter is about the Literature review in which the secondary data is been discussed
about the topic of the study ‘The Impact of Music Festival Tourism on the image and

The Impact of Music Festival Tourism on the Image and Community of United Kingdom 7
Community of United Kingdom’. Different aspects of music Festivals have been discussed in
this section to form a conclusion.
Chapter 3: Methodology
This chapter includes the details about the Research methodology which has been adopted in
the research study. This section will include the techniques, methods, processes and action
plans which will form the whole study.
Chapter 4: Analysis of data and Discussion of Research Findings
This chapter is about the data analysis and findings which are done on the data collected
through secondary sources. The chapter will discuss the findings in details so that the
conclusions can be formed.
Chapter 5: Conclusion and Recommendations
This chapter is about the conclusions and recommendations. In this chapter, the conclusion of
the whole study will be made and at last, recommendations will be given on the basis of the
conclusion.

The Impact of Music Festival Tourism on the Image and Community of United Kingdom 8
Chapter 2: Literature Review
2.1 Introduction
In this section of the thesis, the discussions about secondary data will be done. The data
collected from various sources like Journals, articles, newspapers and various other internet
sources have been referred in order to understand the thesis and complete the same
successfully. The research is about ‘The impact of Music Festival Tourism on the Image and
community of United Kingdom’ and to make the study further understandable different
concepts related to the topic will be discussed.
2.2 Music Festival
2.2.1 Music Festival and community in London
As per Getz and Page (2016), every country is interesting to share its culture and environment
with the tourists with the help of promotion of festivals. According to Cudny (2013),
Festivals are developing rapidly and they are getting renowned in different parts of the world
with the advent of globalisation and internet. Festivals play a major role in the development
of tourism of the countries. Nowadays people are traveling to visit and experience a festival
because of which a separate field of tourism has developed known as Festival Tourism
(Sriramesh and Verčič, 2012). It has a very significant impact on the tourism of a certain
place. These impacts can be negative as well as positive in the Image and community of the
country. Festivals attract people and then festival tourism grows. The tourists get attracted by
many elements which include culture and society. The tourists generally want to meet new
people and experience new culture to learn a lot about the world (Packer and Ballantyne,
2011). The festivals are significantly raising the importance of the festival tourism which
does not only promote the culture of the place but also contributes economically. The
festivals provide opportunities to sustainably develop the economy. Festival can be
understood as an event which aims at providing entertainment by promoting art, culture or
other programs (Getz and Page, 2016).

The Impact of Music Festival Tourism on the Image and Community of United Kingdom 9
2.2.2 Music Festival tourism in London, United Kingdom
London is rich in culture and heritage. The festivals of London are famous for their grand
experience and how they attract a number of visitors from different countries (Delanty,
Giorgi and Sassatelli, 2011). These festivals are important on the national and international
level. As per Singh (2006), London plays a host to most of the music festivals and it attracts
millions of visitors. Also, the government has undertaken a major campaign of ‘Visit
London’ which aims at building a good image of the country and also to promote the culture
across the world.
Some of the festivals in the UK which are famous across the globe are Notting Hill Carnival
in London, Robin Hood Festival in Sherwood Forest, Bestival Music Festival, Edinburgh
Fringe, Chinese New Year Liverpool and much more. Among these festivals, there are some
which are themed on music. These music festivals of London are the ones which promote the
culture of UK and attract thousands of tourists from different countries (Small, 2007). It's like
a tradition now in London to attract millions of visitors across the globe. There are famous
music festivals like Lovebox, Wireless festival, Citadel Festival, Field day, Open air music
festivals and others which let the music lovers and tourists enjoy the ambiance.
2.3 Various Music Festival tourism across the globe
Music festivals can be understood as the festivals which are based on music and are based on
a special genre. These festivals include the performance by different artists, food, markets,
and performances. The motive of these festivals can be profit or non-profit. In the 21st
century, the music festivals have gained much importance in the UK and some of these
involve Edinburgh International Festival, English Music Festival, Creamfields, Mood Indigo,
Hop Farm Festival and much more (Wong, 2011).
According to Sherwin (2017), there is a 76% rise in the music tourism in the UK. The music
tourists from the UK and other countries increased by 20% in the year 2016. The number of
tourists increased to 12.5 million which was 11.6 million in 2015. The reason for this was the
live music events held around the year. But the results also show that the larger venues are
attracting more visitors and the smaller ones are still fighting for the survival. Also, BREXIT
makes the visas and other processes of traveling costly (Pegg and Patterson, 2010). Also, the
increase in music festival tourism brought an employment boost in the country. The music
artists who perform are like the brand ambassadors who represent the culture of the country

The Impact of Music Festival Tourism on the Image and Community of United Kingdom
10
in front of visitors. The statistics show that the total audience who attend live music events
are 30.9 million and around £4 billion was spent on the same. Festivals are like the heart of
British music and they clearly impact the culture, communities, and economies. With the
advent of 21st century, the music festivals in the UK experienced a boom (Shuker, 2016).
The music festivals have an interesting history. The first major festival was the Monterey Pop
Festival which was first held in the year 1967. After that, many music festivals begin to
attract visitors in different parts of the world. Some of them include Coachella in the USA,
Tomorrowland in Belgium, Splendour in the Grass in Australia, Fuji Rock in Japan, Rock in
Rio and much more. The Coachella Valley Music and Art Festival is a three-day festival I the
USA which features Madonna, Phoenix, and other famous artists. Fuji is considered as the
biggest outdoor music festival in Japan and features electronic music. Splendour in the Grass
is an annual music festival in Australia which features indie rock, hip hop, and electronic
music. These music festivals attract tourists for the countries which also support their
economies and affects their culture and communities (Singh, 2006).
2.4 Characteristics of Festival
There are different characteristics of a festival which are needed to be discussed in order to
understand the actual meaning of festivals. There are different characteristics of festivals
which include the spirit of festivals, tangibility, Tradition, flexibility, authenticity and much
more. Different characteristics reflect different sides of festivals (Leenders, 2010). One of the
factors is satisfaction which means that the festivals are meant to satisfy the basic needs of
the visitors. These needs can be social, psychological or social. The other factor is the spirit
of the festival which means that the visitors have values which reflect their interest in
attending the festival. Every festival has a unique theme which makes each one different from
others. Every festival has different image and way of providing entertainment to people.
Every festival is a different experience for the visitors (Gibson and Connell, 2012).
Authenticity is also a factor which means that the festival event should be real and it should
have genuine hosts, participants, performers and the sponsors. The festival events should be
flexible where different arrangements could be done to please a different kind of people. This
shows that with these characteristics the event of festival creates a true experience for the
visitors (Cloonan, 2016).

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11
2.5 Funding of Music Festivals in London
As per the British Council, there are many public bodies which support the music festivals in
London. These bodies include Arts Council England, Creative Scotland, Department for
International Trade and much more. Music festivals in London are famous worldwide and
they attract massive tourists from overseas. London has a long list of strengths which makes
it different from the other countries in terms of music festivals. Tourism is a big business and
it is also an important sector of the economy of UK. It is counted under the six biggest
industries of UK (Jones, 2010). When Music is such a strong pillar of the economy, the
government is adding the funds to promote the industry and to add the image of the country.
The music is also promoted during the Great Britain campaign to promote the tourism of the
country. The government has spent £40 million more on Discover England so that different
geographical areas can be promoted (Wilks, 2011). Also, there are some charities like Youth
Music, PRS Foundation and more which help the music festivals to face challenges and to
grow in the UK and overseas.
2.6 Arguments for the positive and negative impacts of the music festivals
in London
It has been already discussed that what is festival music tourism and how does it get
promoted by the government. In the opinion of Getz and Page (2016), the festival music
tourism plays a very crucial role in forming the image of the nation in front of visitors. It also
depends on how the particular people perceive the image of the tourism of country (Ridpath,
et al., 2014). This is how the visitors also play the main role in setting an image of the
destinations. There may be short term impacts as well as long term impacts (Dinaburgskaya
and Ekner, 2010). The image which is tourists have about the country determines their choice
for the music festivals. The image of the destinations is also influenced by the resources and
attractions it has. These influence tourists to visit the particular place. The events and the
festivals have a significant impact on the image of the places. The festivals may inspire
people to visit it again and again (Hudson and Hudson, 2013). The festivals may have some
negative or positive effects on the destination’s image or community (Raj and Vignali, 2010).
A music festival advances the tourism of the nation. It also makes people able to share their
experiences with each other which enhances their knowledge and helps in revitalizing the
traditions of the nations. By promoting the culture of UK, it builds up the pride of the nation
in front of millions of people coming from different areas. It also involves everyone and