Segmenting tourists by direct tourism expenditures at new festivals

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to develop a method for estimating new direct tourism spending resulting from a new event in an existing destination. Design/methodology/approach – Intercept surveys were conducted on site at six of nine festival locations. Of the 308 festival participants approached at random and asked to participate, 264 agreed to participate (86 percent response rate). Upon further inquiry, only 47 percent of those agreeing to participate were found to be from zip codes outside of the Horry/Georgetown County “Grand Strand” tourist area. These 145 festival participants were administered surveys. Findings – Less than 30 percent of total tourist spending at the festival is attributable to new tourists – those who specifically traveled to the destination primarily for the event and have historically attended Myrtle Beach less than one time per year. Consequently, the economic impact of the festival, in terms of new spending, was relatively small compared to the total amount of tourist spending by all tourists at the festival. Originality/value – The study provides an example of an event for which new tourist spending could have been overestimated if all tourist spending had been considered to be new spending.