Cultural impacts of local events on a destination : Malta

Abstract

This dissertation will analyse the impacts that local events have on a destination, taking Malta as a case study. Although there is a lot of literature about events studies internationally, in Malta there is the need for more research in this segment of tourism. Also, since most research on event studies focuses on their economic impacts, more importance is given to the socio-cultural impacts in this dissertation to fill in some of the gap in literature. Cultural tourism and cultural events are a growing sector in Maltese tourism that are used a diversification tool from mass tourism to more quality tourism. Events can influence a destination in many sectors including the commercial, environmental, socio-cultural, psychological and political sectors. These influences or rather impacts can be either positive or negative to the destination and its community. In this research, a survey is carried out to analyse how the Maltese community perceives local events and their impacts on them and the environment. The aim of the research is to determine whether it is sustainable for a small destination like Malta to invest in cultural events as a tool to generate responsible tourism. This depends a lot on how the Maltese community is affected by such events and whether these events are improving their quality of life or else are impacting their lives in a negative way. Main findings show that although local events have both negative and positive impacts on a destination an its community , the positive impacts are very beneficial to, not only move towards more sustainable tourism, but also to improve the quality of life of the society. Also taking into consideration that, even though the negative impacts cannot be diminished completely these can be controlled for minimum impact. Moreover it is concluded that cultural events are a great tool to generate more sustainable tourism in Malta by focusing on culture as a niche market for quality tourism on the islands, yet currently this segment is not being utilised to its full potential.