Estimation of the determinants of expenditures by festival visitors

Abstract

A good understanding of the predictors of festival visitor expenditures could serve as a guide for the planning of marketing campaigns for successful festival management. Thus, a main objective of this study is to investigate the effects of the sociodemographic and festival experience-related variables of visitors on the volumes and patterns of their expenditure. Rather than using an OLS (ordinary least squares) regression model, which requires the continuity assumption when several zero expenditures exist in a dependent variable, this study uses a tobit model. The results of the tobit analyses indicate that certain variables seem to be more important than others, and reveal variations in the effects of determinants on the estimates of expenditures. In particular, "overnight versus no overnight stay" was found to be a significant predictor for all six categories of expenditure. It was also found that the role of sociodemographic variables such as age, marital status, occupation, and place of residence was minimal, except in the case of specific expenditure categories.