The Stakeholders

Discuss About The Transforming Competitiveness Into Economic.

Festivals today play significant role in economic development of regions in which they are held. There are festivals like Tastes of Rutherglen and Gourmetescape which have their own tourist base which attend them (trundleabbafestival.com 2018). Thus, these festivals have gained not only cultural significance but also economic significance as well. This also means generation of more tax which has made the local governments support these festivals. The paper would explore these advantages music festivals garner today by taking an elementary food festival called Flavours of Australia as the example. The festival would allow the local food businesses of New South Wales to sell and market their produce before the local residents and the tourists. The paper stands on the stakeholder theory and studies the impact of stakeholders like governments on the festival

The new annual festival to be held in Australia which would require participation and support of all the stakeholders like the local government, the resident people and the financial institutions would be named ‘Flavours of Australia’.

The main attraction of Flavours of Australia would be Australia’s own cuisine to participants of the festivals. Australia has a rich food culture of its own which blends ancient food habits with modern dishes which it inherited from the west during the colonial period. The festival would showcase the local food items like lamb dishes, kangaroo dishes, emu dishes and sea food dishes-lal of which are priced Australian delicacies. The festival would allow the wine makers of Australia showcase their high quality wine before the attendees. Flavours of Australia would also see presence of local bakeries and dairies presenting their mouth-watering desserts, pastries and biscuits. The festival would also see international restaurant chains like Zambrero and MacDonald’s showcasing their food items to show their support for the festivals and its other stakeholders (Cleave et al. 2016).

The secondary attraction of Flavours of Australia would be promoting the local art and artefacts as well. This would artists market and sell local art exhibits like Aboriginal paintings and small statues, all of which would help promoting Australian culture (Naldi et al. 2015).

Flavours of Australia would aim to promote the local delicacies of Australia and would require participation of all the stakeholders. The key stakeholders of the festival would be the Government of New South Wales. The organisers would require obtaining the approval of the Honourable Governor of New South Wales. The festival should begin with the Governor inaugurating it and the other important government officials gracing the festival with their presence.

Key Benefits of Food Festivals for Economic Development

The next important stakeholder group would consist of the banks and financial institutions having their branches in New South Wales. They would the important role of providing financial help for the festival. The festival would also provide them with the opportunities to promote their financial products which would increase their revenue generation. The banks can in addition to their stalls, hold small events like game shows to interact with the visitors at the food festival (Fuseini and Kemp 2015).

The next important stakeholder would consist of the food businesses which would participate at the food festival. They would consist of bakeries, dairies, fast food sellers, organic food sellers, local farmers and wine makers of Australia. The list would also incorporate international chains of fast food who would express their support by selling their food items, exclusively made for Australia (Stenberg et al. 2014).

The customers and the people in general would be another very important group of stakeholders since, they are the stakeholders whom the Flavours of Australia would actually aim for revenue generation. New South Wales is one of the most sought regions of Australia visited by tourists which means the tourists would also form an important stakeholder group in the festival along with the local residents (Park and Ghauri 2015).

The last group of stakeholders would consist of          supporting suppliers like event organisers, the providers of water, electricity and marketing firms that would promote the event. The online ticketing partners and the online promotional partners would also belong to this category. The group would also include accounting firms and auditors taking care of the recording of accounting transactions pertaining to the event (Jones and Jones 2014).

Festivals like “Flavours of Australia’ play very important role in their development of the economic condition of the local people, boost local tourism and encourage overall economic development of the region. These benefits have made the local governments encourage and finance such festivaks. The following are the main opportunities or advantages festivals would generate for New South Wales region:

Festivals like Flavours of Australia would allow the business organisations to present their goods and services before both the resident people and tourists. These local business organisation consist of producers of dairy farms, bakers and wire sellers which mostly sell their products to the companies which market their products and have very limited access to the final consumers. The food festival would enable these local producers to offer their food products among the local end consumers directly. This would enable them to earn revenue in addition to the revenue they generate by selling their produce to the companies. Moreover, offering food products to end customers would allow local food manufacturers to create demand among customers in new local markets which would in turn expand their business. The food festivals would allow the local food and drinks manufacturers to market their food products among tourists that would create demand about the food items. The national level food manufacturers may be able to capitalise on this opportunity to expand into new international markets (Kim et al. 2015).

Conclusion

Festivals like Flavours of Australia allow the tourists to get involved in the local activities like participating in local festivals. They as a result are able to experience the local culture and aspects related to it like artefacts. These participation of tourists lead to promotion of these local festivals which helps the tourism of New South Wales attract more international tourists. This would also boost the business of business of hotels, restaurant and travel agencies serving these huge number of tourists. Thus, holding of festivals like Flavours of Australia would enable organisations like hotels to generate huge revenue. Thus, food festivals not only benefit local food businesses but also tourism industry of the place as a whole (Webster and Ivanov 2014).

Thematic festivals like food festivals promote business generation in the local business organisations and promote all-round economic development. The food festival would promote business of the local food businesses of New South Wales like dairies and distilleries. The festival attract tourists which generates business of hotels, travel agencies and restaurants serving these tourists. These business organisations earn more profit and pay more taxes to the government. The government can in turn channelize the fund towards further infrastructure development of the region. Thus, festivals today facilitate huge capital generation and economic development of regions (Antonakakis, Dragouni and Filis 2015).

The governments today, in all the three levels, central, state and local play tremendous role in supporting, financing and development of these festivals. The central government of Australia enter into bilateral ties with other nations to attract tourists. The government also forms laws and policies pertaining of food, tourism and all the related industries. The state governments like the Government of New South Wales implement these laws at state levels. The local governments at the municipal levels enforce these and provide amenities like venues to hold the festivals. The governments at the three levels allocate immense funds for laying of infrastructure like roads and communication network. The local governments like Government of NSW today promote events on their official websites which boosts revenue generation of these festivals. Thus the governments play significant role in financing and promoting the cultural events due to the economic opportunities which they usher in the region (Antonakakis, Dragouni and Filis 2015).

As discussed above, festivals the Flavours of Australia would bring about economic development by generating revenue of all the industries present in the region like food businesses and hotels. The below diagram would exhibit the same:

Conclusion:

One can conclude that festivals like food festivals bear tremendous significance for economic development of regions. They promote revenue generation of the local businesses which creates more tax for the local government. The festivals not only spread the local culture but also the industries like hotels and restaurants which serve tourists. The governments should support these festivals on larger scales and help them to gain international fame. This would enable these businesses to attract more tourists both from within Australia and overseas, thus enhancing economic development of the place.

References:

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Brida, J.G., Lanzilotta, B. and Pizzolon, F., 2016. Dynamic relationship between tourism and economic growth in MERCOSUR countries: a nonlinear approach based on asymmetric time series models. Economics Bulletin, 36(2), pp.879-894.

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Fuseini, I. and Kemp, J., 2015. A review of spatial planning in Ghana’s socio-economic development trajectory: A sustainable development perspective. Land Use Policy, 47, pp.309-320.

Jones, M.L. and Jones, M., 2014. Sustainable event management: A practical guide. Routledge.

Kim, W., Jun, H.M., Walker, M. and Drane, D., 2015. Evaluating the perceived social impacts of hosting large-scale sport tourism events: Scale development and validation. Tourism Management, 48, pp.21-32.

Margaret River Gourmet Escape 2017. 2018. Home – Margaret River Gourmet Escape 2017. [online] Available at: https://gourmetescape.com.au/ [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018].

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Park, B.I. and Ghauri, P.N., 2015. Determinants influencing CSR practices in small and medium sized MNE subsidiaries: A stakeholder perspective. Journal of World Business, 50(1), pp.192-204.

Stenberg, K., Axelson, H., Sheehan, P., Anderson, I., Gülmezoglu, A.M., Temmerman, M., Mason, E., Friedman, H.S., Bhutta, Z.A., Lawn, J.E. and Sweeny, K., 2014. Advancing social and economic development by investing in women’s and children’s health: a new Global Investment Framework. The Lancet, 383(9925), pp.1333-1354.

trundleabbafestival.com. 2018. Home. [online] Available at: https://www.trundleabbafestival.com/ [Accessed 2 Apr. 2018].

Webster, C. and Ivanov, S., 2014. Transforming competitiveness into economic benefits: Does tourism stimulate economic growth in more competitive destinations?. Tourism Management, 40, pp.137-140.