Aplicación de los subsidios en el Ecuador

An issue that needs to be resolved at the outset of this analysis is whether special events should be regarded as part of the leisure field in general, or restricted to the tourism sector. Roche (1994) described special events as “multi-dimensional and

multi-purpose phenomena with diverse impacts, [but] it is nonetheless conventional to see them particularly in relation to tourism” (p. 3). This view was supported by a perusal of academic journals in various disciplines which indicated that the majority of research and publication on special events that has occurred in recent years, has come from researchers associated with the tourism industry. Much of the attention that has been accorded special events has also been tourism based, as regions come to recognise the power of special events to attract visitors from outside the region. This no doubt explains the fact that the special event divisions that have been established by many cities generally fall within the tourism departments. It is suggested that the focus on the tourism aspects of special events is a result of the economic injection that tourists attending a special event have and the chance to profile the community to people outside the region.

One should be careful with this focus as it ignores the importance of the local community’s role in special events, as special events usually depend heavily on the patronage of the local market for their success (Getz 1997). Indeed, Crompton and McKay (1997) suggested that for most special events, patrons are “overwhelmingly local” (p. 437). The percentage of special event patrons that could be classed as visitors to the area varies greatly from event to event. Tourism Canada conducted a survey of patrons at 21 major festivals and found that between five per cent and 15 per cent were foreign to the area (Getz 1991a). For some smaller community events, patronage from people residing outside the region would be close to zero. One must, therefore, be careful not to overlook the importance of local residents given that they generally make up the majority of patrons at special events (Crompton and McKay 1997). Some Australian examples to demonstrate the importance of local patronage, even for large scale special events are: 65 per cent local residents at the 1993 Melbourne Van Gogh Exhibition (The Centre for Hospitality and Tourism Research 1994), 56 per cent locals at the 1991 Tooheys Australian Motorcycle Grand Prix at Eastern Creek (Dignam 1991), 83 per cent locals at the 1990 Ford Australian Open Tennis (NIEIR 1990), and 70 per cent locals at the 1992 Formula One Grand Prix (Price Waterhouse 1993).

Getz and Cheyne (1997) suggested that patronage at special events was predominantly a leisure experience. Therefore, a special event should be regarded primarily as providing a leisure activity that has the potential to attract tourists. In other words, it should be regarded as something that is usually done as part of one’s normal leisure time which can also be done as part of a tourism experience. Tourism in general can be considered as a subset of the more general leisure market (Smith and Godbey 1991; Leiper 1995), although the business tourism segment does not fit readily into a definition of leisure.

According to Gunn (1994), there is a growing sense of cooperation between the recreation and tourism fields despite the fact that they have substantially different origins. Special events provide an excellent bridge between these two sectors as they provide attractions for residents and tourists alike (Getz and Frisby 1990). In discussing the meaning of the term ‘leisure’, Lynch and Veal (1996) referred to the Olympic Games as being an important leisure activity from the classical Greek era. They also suggested that the ‘carnival’ was an important leisure activity in Medieval Europe involving a range of street theatre and other events. Both of these examples demonstrate the strong leisure based origins of special events.

Deciding whether to classify special events as a tourism or a leisure experience depends largely on the definition of tourism that is adopted. More traditional definitions of tourism, such as that proposed by the World Tourism Organisation, state that “tourism comprises the activities of persons travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes. The term usual environment is intended to exclude trips within the area of usual residence…” (McIntosh, Goeldner and Ritchie 1995, p. 11). On this basis, therefore, special event attendance would be classed largely as a leisure experience since the vast majority of patrons for most special events come from the local area, as has already been discussed. However, other definitions of tourism have taken a significantly more inclusive perspective and have included many ‘day trip’ activities as part of tourism. For example, The Australian Government Committee of Inquiry into Tourism conducted in 1987 included “all overnight and certain day trips” (Hall 1995, p. 7). Although some of the day trips

included in this definition required a return trip travel distance of at least 50 kilometres, trips to most attractions were exempt from the distance requirement. Adoption of this definition would result in special event attendance being classed as part of tourism.

Increasingly, tourism literature and research includes day trip activities under the definition of tourism as the economic activities associated with day trips are so closely aligned with those of overnight trips (see, for example, Tourism Victoria 1996). Pragmatism has likely played a part in this trend as it is difficult to distinguish between the two groups in terms of activities and impacts, with the requirement for overnight accommodation being the only obvious difference.

Therefore, special event attendance is regarded as part of tourism in this study.