Music Tourism

Music tourism is a significant and growing sector of tourism . In the U.S. alone, music based tourism constitutes approximately 17 percent of the tourism industry and music festivals in particular are more popular than ever, attracting millions of fans. However, despite its significance, music tourism is still not perceived as a defined segment within the tourism market, and research exploring the dynamics of this burgeoning field is lacking

Music tourism involves individuals traveling to a place where they do not reside to either listen to live performances or to experience history related to the creation of or performance of music . In the U.K. alone, music tourism generates approximately $2 billion in spending and provides the equivalent of 19,700 full-time jobs. They include people like David Nye, of the Great British Sausage Company, who sells around 41 miles worth of sausages at music festivals around Britain each year and employs 20 students who host sausage-eating competitions to keep waiting customers happy .
Music festivals themselves are a key component of music tourism , and have been around for hundreds of years. Most historians believe that they date back to Ancient Egypt in 4500 BC, consisting of religious ceremonies and political fests with music and dancing . Ancient Greece hosted its first known music festival, the Pythian Games, during the sixth century BC as a precursor to the Olympic Games, as well as holding competitions for music and poetry. In more modern musical history, the Monterey Pop Festival in the summer of 1967 is considered one of the most important landmarks for music festivals . Occurring in June during the “Summer of Love”, this iconic moment in music history shaped a generation and influenced countless future artists. It was the coming out party for stars like Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, and Otis Redding. A few years later, probably the most famous music festival of all time was staged e Woodstock in 1969 e which prompted a crowd of over 400,000 people to travel by any means necessary to a small town in New York for the festival.

Social media interactions with tourism brands, and specifically music festival brands, affect how consumers think and feel about those brands, and consequently how those interactions affect desired marketing outcomes.
First, it explores whether existing customers who engage in brandrelated social media have more favorable brand perceptions and behaviors than those who do not. Second, a conceptual model captures the relationships between social media use, emotions, brand perceptions, and word of mouth. Third, the study examines the roles that emotional attachment and brand relationship quality play in the context of social media use

Research examining the music festival sector tends to be dominated by economic impact studies. UK Music for example, commissioned a major study of the contribution of music festivals and major concerts to tourism in the UK , and the Northern Ireland Tourism Board conducted a similar study in Northern Ireland in 2010 . But some researchers have looked beyond the immediate economic impacts. Haslam for example, comments that music festivals offer potential as vehicles for branding cities, towns and villages, as they can enhance a destination's image and identity, improving perceptions of the place and the people that live there. Others have studied the motivations of festival attendees. Campbellfor instance, found a distinct connection between humans and music in the context of human development, religion, politics and sporting events, as well as the sense of place created by music festivals.