The Behaviour of Romanian Tourists Regarding The Attendance at Festivals

Abstract

Despite the importance of the festivals for the culture and the economy of nations, little research has been conducted in order to understand the behaviour of the Romanian tourists regarding the festival attendance and the intention to travel in order to participate in festivals. The originality of this study is highlighted by the analysis of the behaviour of Romanian tourists regarding the attendance at festivals, from the point of view of studying festival tourism as a form of cultural tourism. The article is based on the findings of an exploratory survey–based research carried out in February – May 2014. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the behaviour of the Romanian tourist regarding the participation in festivals, both in his town and also when he is travelling. Our objectives are to: find if Romanian people in general, and Romanian tourists, in particular, are interested in traveling with the purpose of attending a festival, identify the main motivations for attending a festival, the types of festivals that are preferred and the tourists` perception on Bucharest as potential international festival destination. The paper concludes that Romanian tourists tend to participate in one festival per year in average in their country and less than one festival per year in another countries, that music festival is the most appreciated type of festival and also we discovered that the most important motives for attending festivals in tourists’ perception are psychological, cultural and emotional.