Economic & Tourism Roles of Events
Place Marketing
The Singapore Arts Festival definitely helps to market Singapore as a capital hub for the arts, it creates a positive image of Singapore. It markets Singapore as not only a national or regional, but also a global art platform with many internationally-acclaimed artists performing here. It could potentially attract investors to invest in Singapore.
This is especially when there is a large media exposure on the success of an event whereby it will enhance Singapore’s profile as an international vibrant city and in turn improve the long term tourism image of Singapore as well as visitations. This is because the event will definitely stir interest among tourists, they might want to visit Singapore to experience this city for themselves. This will then increase tourism revenue
Tourist Attraction
An event or festival is also a regarded as a temporary attraction as it is able to motivate a large number of people to visit for leisure purposes. This festival is also able to increase visitors’ spending and their length of stay. Tourists that come here because of the arts festival will definitely spend on accommodation and food, hence increasing tourism receipt. On top of that, tourists that are already here may decide to extend their length of stay so that they are able to catch the festival and hence spend another days’ worth of accommodation and food.
Animator
This festival also acts as an animator, it encourages visits to facilities and attractions. For instance, the Marina Barrage probably would not have seen as much first visitors as it would had not the Opening been held there. It also animates Singapore as a destination for repeat visits. Singapore is not just a world-class city for shopping and entertainment, it is also a vibrant city that boasts the worlds’ finest art performances.
Catalyst
The festival also acts as a catalyst that stimulates business, those businesses that are located around the venue of the festival would experience spill-over effects on expenditure. Visitors may visit F&B outlets near the event of the festival for instance. This festival also supports other attraction such as the Marina Barrage, it exaggerates the Marina Barrage’s sceneric night view with the beautiful performance in the Opening of the festival and creates excitement about Marina Barrage.
Impact of festival and events
Political Impact
Touching firstly on the political impact. This festival is able to attract visitors due to media coverage and this creates on its own economic benefits. It also grants the city improved profile as already mentioned before and international prestige for holding an international leading art festival successfully.
Economic and Tourism Impact
Moving on to the economic impact, with the festival being held, visitors length of day will extend as mentioned again and tourism revenue increases due to indirect expenditure as already stated. External visitors are likely to spend money on accommodation, goods and services in the host city and this expenditure can circulate through the local economy. There will also be increased tax revenue for that definite period through GST and airport taxes.
The festival however could lead to community resistance to tourism, especially if they felt their rights compromised. This is especially shared use of a facility. To illustrate this, using the Marina Barrage as the example, if a ticketted performance were to be held at it, it might spark a conflict of interest because there is public ownership of the facility. However, on most occassion, the performances were mostly free, the Opening – Helios, the Red as well as the Closing to name a few. This would probably legitimate the use of this public attraction, one other way was that the Singapore Arts Festival also involved the community through volunteer work.
Social and Cultural Impact
I felt that the festival managed to close the generation gap and bring the different generations together due to the shared entertainment experience. This is especially true as I was at the Closing Ceremony and I conversed with a middle-aged woman although briefly, but I felt that it closed the generation gap between us.
In addition to that, the festival also manage to widen people’s cultural horizon through exposing them to the different performances and contemporary form of art in the festival. This also instilled a greater awareness of the many different cultures and types of art out there to me.
On the other hand, visitors especially tourists may be turned off and have a negative community image of Singapore. This is especially since Singaporean do have the tendency to be a little more picky and demanding, they are also characterized as impatient and “kiasu” at times. This is more applicable to a large and free event such as the Opening and Closing of the Singapore Arts Festival.
Physical and Environmental Impact
This festival has managed to showcase Singapore’s environment as a green, modern and vibrant beautiful city. Located at several venues, the festival has managed to showcase to the visitors, the environment that Singapore has. One example would be the Closing at Marina Barrage, it is a man-made structure that has access to the night view of the Singapore that remains lively amidst the peaceful night. The visitors also get exposed throughout their entire stay in Singapore.
On the other hand, it may cause damage to the environment. The Opening and Closing for example, has performances used pyrotechnics and the Closing in particular used artificial smoke to create the ambience. This causes air pollution as smoke and dust may contain residues of metals and sulphur compounds with low concentration toxic which is still harmful.
Overall Benefit
In overall, I felt that the festival brought tremendous amount of benefit. It strengthens Singapore’s position in Asia as a capital for the arts as well as a key platform for regional Asian talents and international artists. It also enhances Singapore’s image and rekindle interest visitors have towards Singapore.
It also boosted the economy through tourism revenue and creates excitement for Singapore such that it has a sustainable tourism in terms of visitors in the long term. Last but not least, it also played a tremendous role in boosting the sales of businesses that are indirectly involved in tourism such as the retail sector. All of these I felt are tremendous and this festival has far-reaching substantial impact especially on the long run since it is a recurring event.
