Elsevier

Journal of Business Research

Volume 69, Issue 9, September 2016, Pages 3538-3544
Journal of Business Research

Understanding the attendance at cultural venues and events with stochastic preference models

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2016.01.033Get rights and content

Abstract

This study proposes an alternative approach to the usual cognitive investigation of cultural venue and event attendance. This approach is based on stochastic preference theory. Specifically, the study utilises two well-known stochastic models of consumer behaviour: the NBD model and NBD-Dirichlet model to predict attendance behaviour at cultural venues and events. Using data from a large national survey across a range of cultural venues and events in Australia, including art galleries, museums, zoological parks and aquariums, botanic gardens, archives, music concerts, theatre performances, dance performances, musicals and operas, and cinemas, the study shows that stochastic preference theory is able to predict the attendance at cultural venues and events. This theory has important implications for marketers of cultural venues and events, such as which segments of attendees should be targeted, predicting future attendance behaviour, as well as evaluating the effectiveness of marketing activities such as price promotion and advertising.

Introduction

Cultural tourism is an important revenue and employment generator for a tourist destination (Alzua et al., 1998, Silberberg, 1995). Cultural and heritage travellers in the USA spent an average of US$ 1319 per trip and contributed more than US$ 171 billion to the US economy (Hargrove, 2014). In Australia cultural activities attracted approximately AU$ 20 billion of consumer spending annually (Australia Council for the Arts, 2015), and employed approximately 531,000 workers (Creative Australia, 2014). The number of tourists who visit a destination for the purpose of its cultural tourism resources seems to be on the rise. In the USA more than 35 million adults state that their choice of travel destination is influenced by specific arts, cultural or heritage events (PCAH, 2005). Seventy-six per cent of all US leisure travellers participate in various forms of cultural and/or heritage activities each year (Hargrove, 2014).

According to Silberberg (1995, p. 361) cultural tourism is “visits by persons from outside the host community motivated wholly or in part by interest in the historical, artistic, scientific or lifestyle/heritage offerings of a community, region, group or institution.” Cultural tourism products refer to both institutions, and indoor and outdoor events (Silberberg, 1995). They are classified as experience goods and include attendance to museums, arts exhibitions, festivals, theatres, and concerts (Frateschi and Lazzaro, 2008, PCAH, 2005).

The ability of cultural tourism products, such as museums, arts events, and festivals, to attract and prolong the stay of tourists is important to the economy of the host destination (Palma et al., 2013, Silberberg, 1995). Moreover, compared to other travellers in the USA cultural and heritage travellers tend to travel/stay longer and spend more (PCAH, 2005). Festival events contribute to a sense of community (Van Winkle, Woosnam, & Mohammed, 2013), and are frequently employed as major communicators of brand values (Crowther, 2010). Special events are often organised to create a positive image of the host destination and to bring in tourism revenue (Backman, Backman, Uysal, & Sunshine, 1995). On the other hand it is postulated that some cultural festivals, such as fringe and avant garde events, are avoided by the general population (e.g., Walle, 2003). As such, cultural facilities including venues and events need to continuously explore different methods to increase attendance (Silberberg, 1995). However, there is a relative lack of research conducted on the attendance at cultural events (Lee, 2000).

Most of the studies on events and event management (including those on cultural events) focus on the cognitive aspects of venue and event attendance, such as the attendees' motivations to visit events. Andreasen and Belk (1980) investigated key predictors of attendance to performing arts events and found individuals' attitudes towards theatres and their past experiences with arts significantly affect their likelihood of future attendance. An individual's visit to a festival is often triggered by the desire to meet one or more needs/goals. According to Crompton and McKay (1997), these needs include the need for cultural exploration, novelty, and in-group as well as out-group socialisation.

Previous studies have found that an individual's decision to attend an event depends on the characteristics of the event and event's attendees (Louviere & Hensher, 1983). Further studies examined the attributes of large events on visitor satisfaction and repeat visits (e.g., Hall et al., 2010, Crompton and McKay, 1997). Studies on the attendance and repeat attendance of visitors to events are important to the event organisers. Previous literature found that attendees' image of an event sponsor is improved with repeat attendance (Lacey, Sneath, Finney, & Close, 2007).

Several researchers attempted to segment cultural venue and event attendees using various criteria (e.g., Warnick, Bojanic, Mathur, & Ninan, 2011) and to understand their motivations to either attend or not attend events (e.g., Hixson et al., 2011, Kay et al., 2009). Möller and Deckert (2009) categorised cultural tourists into cultural overnight tourists (i.e., those who stay overnight) and cultural excursionists (i.e., the day-trippers). Cuadrado and Mollà (2000) classified visitors of live events based on their attendance goals. A number of researchers have also examined individual and family motivations to attend events (e.g., Backman et al., 1995, Foster and Robinson, 2010). Frateschi and Lazzaro (2008), for example, found that individuals' attendance at cultural events is significantly influenced by their spouse.

The purpose of this study is to examine cultural venue and event attendance using the paradigm of past behaviour. As stated previously, the attendance at cultural events is seldom investigated. Moreover, most studies centred on the cognitive aspect of attendance at cultural venues and events. This study hopes to fill this gap by assuming a process of event participation that is dominated by past behaviour. To do so, two popular stochastic preference models (NBD and NBD-Dirichlet models) are adopted to describe individuals' attendance at cultural venue and events. The next section discusses the underlying principles of these models.

Section snippets

Past behaviour, NBD and NBD-Dirichlet models

Research on past behaviour or habit stems from psychoanalytic concepts (c.f., Luchins & Luchins, 1959). Freud (1928) observed that some human behaviours tend to be rigid and repetitive, following the principles of inertia. This observation altered his original formulation of psychoanalytic theory in human pleasure to one caused by a ‘tendency to repeat’ or ‘repetitive compulsion’. Generally agreed on by psychologists, the frequency of past behaviour equates with habit strength (Jolley, 2002,

Data and method

We use data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2009–10 Multipurpose Household Survey (MPHS). The survey covered all areas of Australia except for people living in very remote parts of the country, due to operational reasons, and people living in special dwellings, such as prisons, hospital and boarding schools. The survey was restricted to 15 years old and above. The final sample consisted of 32,760 private dwellings. One person in each dwelling was randomly selected based on a computer

Results

Fig. 1 shows the fit of the NBD model to frequency of attendance average across the cultural venues and events. It can be seen that the NBD model describes attendance behaviour very well. The observed distribution and the theoretical distribution are almost identical.

Table 1 presents the fit of the NBD model to each type of venue or event. As can be seen from the table, the NBD model is very robust in describing the frequency of attendance at different cultural venues and events. The observed

Discussion and implications

Managing and marketing of events are important areas of research because of the social and financial benefits of large-scale events to a destination (Getz, 2008, Tkaczynski and Rundle-Thiele, 2011). However, many current researchers focus only on the cognitive aspect of attendance at cultural venues and events. In a study of museum visitor behaviour, for example, previous researchers have investigated social and cognitive influences on attendance but not the behavioural aspect (see Goulding,

Limitation and future research

Despite confidence in our current study, it only examines the participation of cultural venues and events in one country. Readers should be cautious of any generalisations to other countries.

The current findings are only preliminary and must be evaluated in light of the sampling method employed to capture the attendance of cultural venues and events. More importantly, the current study had assumed that different cultural venues and events represent a category or competitive set. This may not be

Acknowledgement

The authors thank the editor Arch Woodside, the associate editor Ajay Manrai and two anonymous reviewers for their helpful comments and suggestions that lead to a significantly improved article.

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