We are Serious Event Travelers: Event Travel Careers and the Social Worlds of Arts Practitioners to International Arts Festivals and Events

Abstract

For most arts practitioners, going on tour with their shows or to participate in international arts festivals and events is an essential part of developing their careers. An event travel career (ETC) is formed when people are serious enough about their leisure interests to travel to participate in related events. Existing studies on event travel career, are focused on the serious sport tourists. This study employs an arts-informed life history approach to gain insights into the constraints and facilitators of the ETCs of 19 Singaporean arts practitioners. The theory of serious leisure, social worlds and the event travel career concept provide a framework to qualitatively examine their ETCs. In an integrative framework constructed from their lives lived, the participants’ membership in their social worlds emerged as the key driver throughout the development of their ETCs. The findings also draw attention to the emergence of new social worlds’ leaders and stakeholders in attracting serious event travelers to new social worlds destinations, and recommend that destination marketers and event managers work with them for future planning in event tourism marketing.