FINAL CALL FOR PAPERS
Building on the established collaboration between the Centre for Tourism and Cultural Change (CTCC) and the International Festivals and Events Association (IFEA), this conference will again bring together international researchers with policy makers and practitioners in the festivals and cultural events sector.

The conference will discuss the complex relationships between tourism and festivals, focusing in particular on achieving balance between social, artistic and commercial aspects of festivals. The conference will take place in Bratislava, Slovakia and will form the research stream at the 18th Annual Conference of IFEA.

Conference Aims
Festivals and cultural events of all kinds are of growing interest to policy makers and practitioners in the arts, community development, regeneration, and tourism sectors. This interest and involvement gives rise to a number of critical questions concerning the relationships between these sectors in the development, management and evaluation of festivals and cultural events alongside tourism. The conference aims to share the latest research findings and debates in these areas of critical concern for researchers, policy makers and practitioners alike.

Themes of Interest
Key themes of interest to the conference include:

Economic development policy and regeneration dimensions of festivals and cultural events
Partnerships and collaborations in festival planning, management and performance
Festivals as product and packaging opportunities for the tourism sector
The contribution of festivals and cultural events to place images
The re-structuring, re-shaping and re-animation of city spaces and new communities through festivals and cultural events
Festival and event 'legacies'
Emerging tourist market trends and their implications for festivals and cultural events
Service quality management at festivals and cultural events
Economic assessments of festivals and cultural events
Managing risk and visitor behaviour at festivals and cultural events
 

Please send your abstract of no more than 300 words with full address details as an electronic file to Dr. Philip Long ([email protected]) as soon as possible but by February 13th 2009 at the latest. Selected papers will be considered for publication in a special edition of the journal Event Management.