Small-scale cultural festivals in Southern Europe: a motivation-based segmentation study

This research deals with small-scale festivals based on local cultural traditions in a European setting. These festivals have at present been poorly studied in literature, although they may play an important role in tourist attractiveness and local development. The context of the study is the Maiorchino Festival, a community-based festival which takes place annually in Novara di Sicilia, a small rural-mountain town in Sicily (Italy). The research aims to segment festival attendees, based on motivations, and to understand the differences between clusters with regard to sociodemographic and behavioural variables. Data were collected through a survey conducted on the participants of the 2019 edition of the Maiorchino Festival. The analysis allowed four motivational factors to be identified, namely Novelty, Local culture experience, Festival attractiveness, Socialization, and to detect four clusters, based on attendee motivations, namely Escapers, Socialization lovers, Loyalists, Passionate about local traditions. The specific features of each cluster are described, satisfaction and intention to return measured. Finally, the findings, theoretical contributions and managerial implications of the paper are discussed.