Improvisation Of Destination Awareness Through Festivals and Events: Special Reference To India

As travelers become more sophisticated, destinations need to become more originative in capturing those tourists. A potential tourist destination needs to create a brand image to compete in the global tourism marketplace. India, a land of vast cultural and regional diversities, has multi-faceted festivals. One can immediately draw a long list of religious festivals associated with various gods and goddesses, regions and traditions like holi, diwali, christmas, id (ul-fitr; ul-zuha), GurPurab, etc. The study focuses to examine the awareness of Indian festivals and their intent to travel. However, here the purpose is not to discuss the common religious festivals. It is an initiative to scrutinize upon only those festivals which are the main centers of tourist attraction. This study based upon several theories as theory of Reasoned Action, Theory of Planned Behavior, and marketing theories related to Awareness – Interest – Desire – Action (AIDA) sequence.

The research is positivistic, quantitative research paradigm in which consumer behavior approaches prevail. The study postulates there is significant relationship between promotions of festivals, events and awareness of destinations. The study reveals some promotional aspects which may help in transforming the attitude of tourist towards festivals and events in India.

‘Festivals are the features of cultural diversity’