Nowadays, as cultural tourism enterpreneur gets more important, and globalization localizes the society, culture & heritage festival has helped to develop local economies and unify the local community members, and it also has supported the developmen...
Nowadays, as cultural tourism enterpreneur gets more important, and globalization localizes the society, culture & heritage festival has helped to develop local economies and unify the local community members, and it also has supported the development of local culture.
As Korean government also started the autonomy of local government, local districts have tried to stimulate their economy, unify community members, develop their culture, and enhance their local images by culture & heritage festival. So, local festivals become very popular concept in these days. With this trend, central government has chosen several local festivals and supported them continuously. For instance, the central government has supported 8 groups in 1996, 10 groups in 1997, 18 groups in 1998, 20 groups in 1999, and 25 groups in 2000. It is shown that the central government increases their supports over local festivals.
So, World Ceramics Expo held in Ich n was selected from the several successful culture & heritage festivals to make hypothesis, why foreigners choose this festival and whether they are satisfied or not, to analyze and survey to foreigners who visited. As a result of it, most of the foreigners were well-educated young adults who are aged 20 to 30, and they visited this festival for the first time.And, most of them planned one-day trip. At this point, the local festival needs a program to connect it to other travel sights.
The motives of visiting this festival are to buy the product and to satisfy their curiosities over it. It proved that ceramics worked well in economic aspect, and the festival was very attractive. However, in order to improve this festival, the advertisement and more participation of programs are required to develop its educational aspect and to unify family members through this festival.
Most of visitors were informed by word of mouth, and got information secondly from pamphlet, and in the order of magazine/newspaper, inter net. Thus, more constant and organized advertisement would be needed to bring more visitors to this festival.
After observing four groups of foreigners characterized by countries and two groups which are foreigners who live in Korea and international tourists, people from Asian countries were not satisfied well comparing with other travelers from the western countries such as America/Canada, Australia/New Zealand, and Europe. Also, foreigners who live in Korea got more satisfied than international travelers.
The reason most of Asian travelers didn't get satisfied is that they have a similar cultural background on ceramics. Also, since Asian travelers were 46% of the total foreign travelers, the satisfactions of the international travelers were recorded lower than foreigners who live in Korea. It is shown that the foreigners who live in Korea, who is familiar with our culture, could get the information about the festival easily than the international travelers. Therefore, more organized and specialized advertisements are needed for those who are from different countries.
As a result of observing satisfaction and positive aspect of this festival, it is required to improve transit system, to develop local unique culture to source of festival, and to bring more staffs and participations of community. It is also needed to organize the program for the foreigners so that they can understand it easily.