Festivals and destination marketing: An application from Izmir City

Festivals are among the growing global city and destination attraction factors and they are very trendy. Studies indicate that there is a direct relationship between the successful organizations of festivals and the number of visitors and tourism income of a city destination. Thus, festival marketing efforts usually have a direct impact on city marketing efforts. Due to this fact, the study tries to figure out the festival marketing potential of Izmir city that seems to lag behind the general tourism development pattern of Turkey contrary to the great potential it has. The study comprises of two main sections, first one being a literature review on festival marketing, followed by the second section on a qualitative research on Izmir's festivals and their marketing potential. It tries to determine the positive impacts of Izmir's festivals on destination marketing and by grouping and categorizing them under similar characteristics figuring out the most promising ones. The research consists of four open-ended interview questions on festivals held in Izmir city. As practical implications, Destination Management Organizations, Destination Marketing Organizations, destination and city marketers, festival managers and destination tourism developers may benefit from the findings of this study.