Digitized Honors Theses (2002-2017)

Date of Award

7-2003

Document Type

Undergraduate Thesis

Degree Name

BS

Faculty Mentor

James Cannon

Abstract

This research project was designed to study community-based events in different American cities across the country. The primary goal was to discover if (a) the number of events held annually in a city and (b) the type of the events held in a city influence the attractiveness of the city. The literature review covers place marketing, the history of events or public spectacles, and a discussion of recent studies in the field of festivals and special events in an attempt to highlight the importance of such research and its place in community-based tourism and community development. Data was amassed regarding city size, attractiveness, buying power index, average home price, the type of events in each city, and the total number of all events in the community. City attractiveness was measured by the rank the city received from Money Magazine's, Best Places to Live. The study attempted to determine causality between city attractiveness and both the number and type of event with regression. Due to the categorical nature of the data this method was unsuccessful. Therefore, chi-square analysis was used to examine city attractiveness in relation to total number of events, as well as city attractiveness in light of the different types of events held in a city. Conclusive results indicated that a city's attractiveness is dependent on the total number and type of events held in a particular area.

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