Investigation of touristic festivals within the scope of the local people's quality of life, satisfaction and intention to support tourism development

This research has been conducted to examine touristic festivals in the context of local people's quality of life, satisfaction and intentions to support tourism development. Within the scope of event tourism, it is to determine the positive and negative effects of the festivals which are organised every year in Manavgat district of Antalya province on the local people. It is another aim of the research to draw attention to the problems that may arise by evaluating the effects of these festivals on the quality of life of the local people, the satisfaction of the local people and their support for tourism development, their opinions and suggestions about the festival. Convenience sampling method has been used in the research. As a result of the sampling method used, a questionnaire has been applied to the local people. The surveys have been carried out in two ways, face-to-face and electronically. Research questionnaires have been obtained from 425 people living in Manavgat destination. Research analyses have been carried out on the remaining 402 questionnaires after the removal of incorrect and incompletely completed questionnaires. In this study, the relationships between the positive and negative effects of festivals on local people, their perceptions of quality of life, festival satisfaction and their support for festival tourism have been analysed. The results of the research indicate that especially positive perceptions of festivals have a positive effect on quality of life, festival satisfaction and support for festival tourism. In future studies, investigating the effects of similar variables on different destinations may help to fill the gap in the literature. In particular, similar studies to be conducted in destinations that are independent from sea, sand and sun tourism and have become a brand with a focus on cultural tourism or gastronomy tourism are considered important. Within the scope of the research results, a number of theoretical and practical suggestions have been developed for academicians working in the literature, destination management organisations and tourism business managers.