Events are often considered as a part of tourism development plans in which the environmental, social and economic aspects of the host city or region are examined well in advance. An important point about events tourism is that they require special facilities, complete infrastructures, and preparation of the host citizens and experience of responsible managers. Thus, expecting to host big events early on in the job is useless. These events may have short-term and long-term results including:
-The income earned from tourists can affect the local income.
-Media reports and advertisements would provide the opportunity for the sponsors of the events to raise people’s awareness of the city and its general features on one hand and affect the tours provided at the end of the event, on the other.
-relations created through the events for future cooperation
The role of social events:
Social events play an important role in the calendar of cities or tourist areas for presenting an outlook of the features of that society. Each social event, if adequately advertised and planned, could become an important event in the future.
More about events:
Big events are held at a large scale and these require large financial resources. Such events that are usually held once in one place influence all social groups in a country or even a continent. Olympic Games and Football world cup are examples of these large scale events.
Important events, too, are large scale events that require suitable financial support. These events are held once or more in one place and affect the status of the city or region. Examples of such events include world car racing events, world festivals for commemorating international figures and international sports competitions.
Social events, however, do not require vast financial resources and are generally small scale events held to maintain the values and culture of a society and respect its lifestyle. These events can be repeated again. Summer festivals, food and handicraft festivals in different regions of the country are some examples of these events.
Counseling committee:
In the development of events tourism, one of the measures taken could be forming counseling committees to help the planning agencies. In case the administrator of the project is the city council, the counseling committee will become responsible for giving consultation for the purpose of finding the best strategy for the attraction, support and development of different branches of tourism.
The following example indicates how this committee can affect the city council’s activity; Gold Coast which has achieved impressive success in events tourism, uses the ideas of the counseling committee. The committee as a specialized agency studies the status que and performance of the city council and provides the following points:
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In order to create the opportunity for the development of events tourism, the city council needs more active mechanism.
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The council has the required expertise for the implementation of the mechanism and creation of the relevant opportunities, but lacks effective resources (financial and mass media).
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There is a lack of coordination between the council and the administrative agencies in the city.
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The council needs to design better strategies and mechanism for its future plans regarding events.
The key point in the above case is the issue of investment. While hosting different events opens doors to new opportunities for the city, yet the limited financial resources of the region prevent the city from investing on their potentials.
Events in Iran:
In Iran, Fajr International Festival, especially in the music and film section, has the potential for becoming an important event for tourism purposes. This requires better and more advertisement and enhancement of the quality of the festival. Many other traditional and ancient Iranian events can also turn into an important event if noticed. Some of the social events in Iran worth investing are Chaharshanbehsoori, Turkmansahra horse riding, date festival in Bushehr, polo competition (Chogan) and Kharazmi scientific festival.
