From Having Fun to Applause: The Study of Relationships among Festival Benefits, Festival Identity and Festival Support by Viewpoints of the Hosts and Guests

The sustainable development of the festival depends on the support and participation of residents and tourists. There are a number of practical and theoretical gaps regarding the hosts and guests in festival literature. This study attempts to fill the host–guest gap based on the theory of reasoned action to construct and exam a relationship model. Taking the 2016 Summer Festival during busy season as an example in Hualien, 1165 questionnaires were valid, and data were analyzed by SEM (structural equation modeling). Results showed that the hosts had higher perception than the guests in terms of the festival benefits, identity, and support. This study has two concept models: the guest model and the host model. In the host model, the local-development benefits have more positive relationships to affect the festival support and festival identity than the recreation-experience benefits. On the other hand, the recreation-experience benefits could affect the festival support, but the festival identity could not in the guest model. The results of this study indicate that the festival organizers or the public sectors must be pay attention to the viewpoints of the guests and hosts in order to achieve the sustainable development objectives.