![Sample our Humanities journals, sign in here to start your FREE access for 14 days]({"type":"image" , "src" : "/sda/5939/TOC-Subject-Sample-2021-Humanities.jpg"})
Abstract
This paper analyses how much culture is valued in a newly-developed economy with a distinct dichotomy of an arts-appreciating population segment and a less-culturally aware mass. An analytical framework weaving together the intrinsic, business and societal benefits of arts and culture is applied to explore whether arts festivals – a popular tourism event in many countries – are a temporary fad, an expensive governmental fetish or a naturally-evolving fixture. This has implications for government funding and cultural policy. Empirical evidence supports the notion that the long-running performing arts festival is a not a fad but a fixture with some fetish elements while the visual arts festival appears to be a fad but has the potential to be a fixture. Of particular concern, however, is the evidence from both festivals that the perceptions of community benefit, business benefits as well as bequest value from the arts are not significant determinants of willingness to pay for these events.
Notes
1. The on-going debate regarding exposure to the arts and a range of cognitive, attitudinal and behavioural as well as social benefits (McCarthy et al. Citation2005) is acknowledged. However, this debate is beyond the ambit of this paper which seeks to establish how people’s perception of the possible benefits of the arts affects their valuation.
2. The words ‘culture’ and ‘policy’ have a wide-ranging scope. Williams (Citation1984) identifies five senses of cultural policy. In this paper, we follow Wee (Citation2003) to define ‘cultural policy’ as a policy for the arts sector aimed at addressing critiques of Singapore as a ‘cultural desert’ (cited in Lee 2004).
3. Singapore’s 2011 Gross Domestic Product per capita (using purchasing power parity measured in international dollars) is $61,103, putting it ahead of the UK ($36,511), Australia (US$39,466) and the USA (US$48,442). However, only 40% of its population have attended at least one arts and culture event over the past year. This lags behind Australia (85% in 2006–2009) and the UK (76% in 2009–2010) although it is ahead of the USA’s 34.6%.
4. The survey represents the profile of the population in Singapore in terms of age, race and gender. The data on the market segments is drawn from the 2009 Population Survey of the Arts conducted by the National Arts Council of Singapore. Retrieved 20 August 2012, from National Arts Council Singapore http://www.nac.gov.sg/docs/resources/population-survey-on-the-arts-2009.pdf.
5. This refers to survey respondents to Singapore’s 2009 Population Survey of the Arts who gave positive ratings to all the following criteria: (a) stated interest in arts; (b) Attendance at any arts event or activity in the past 12 months; and (c) likelihood of attending any arts event or activity in the past 12 months.
6. This refers to survey respondents to Singapore’s 2009 Population Survey of the Arts who gave positive ratings to 2 out of the 3 criteria in footnote 3.
7. This refers to survey respondents to Singapore’s 2009 Population Survey of the Arts who gave positive ratings to 1 out of the 3 criteria in footnote 3.
8. The report elaborated the contributions of arts and culture to enhanced community bonding, a well-rounded education, the inculcation of a greater sense of national pride and cultivation of a positive international image for Singapore.
9. Kong et al. (Citation2006) points out that much of the economic transformation in USA and West Europe over the last three decades is due to the cultural or creative economy. She cautions that this has worked for the Western discourses of creative economy but may not work in Asian countries.
10. The three phases are 2000–2004, 2005–2007 and 2008–2015. In the first phase, additional funding was approximately 20% of the arts and culture agencies’ 2001 budget. Accessed from http://www.mof.gov.sg/budget_2001/govtexpenditure/index.htmlon21August2011.
11. These include the number of visitors at arts and culture events and institutions, employment and value added, as well as the number of arts-related activities and companies.
12. It was the decision of the National Arts Council not to interview the non-patrons.
13. Other types of elicitation format used in the literature include bidding games, open-ended question, stochastic payment card, single-bounded and double-bounded dichotomous choice.
14. Since intervals of WTP were asked in both the surveys, the WTP was computed at the means.
15. It can be argued that using the WTP from patrons for this purpose is analogous to using values from users of the arts festival and this will be an overestimate of the non-use value.
16. This is a weighted average of the non-use value as revealed through the WTP for each age group, with the weights derived from the number of Singapore residents in each age group based on the 2010 Population Census. A sensitivity analysis was done by using the weighted average WTP of subgroups under the two other significant variables – Gender and Education. The resulting overall WTP per person were, respectively, S$9.60 and S$10.40.
17. There is however no data available for the Biennale but the cost is likely to be lower since the scale of this newer festival is smaller than that of the Arts Fest.
18. Expatriates originating from countries such as the UK, USA, Australia, France, Germany, Japan and Korea accounted for 50% of the expatriate sample.
19. One of the Singapore Biennale component programmes was Kids Biennale which was described by the organisers as ‘a series of exhibitions, art competitions and mass events open to all children’.
20. For example, the Gwangju Biennale typified a spate of new cultural festivals launched by South Korea to reshape the image of its various cities. The Gwangju government wanted to reposition itself as a city of art after having been characterised as a ‘city of resistance’ and ‘city of blood’ due to its political history (Shin Citation2004).
21. Tourism and local cultural events and institutions are frequently integral to each other, i.e. tourists are often keen to explore representations of ‘local arts and culture’ and some cultural events cater specifically to tourists. To Ooi (Citation2002), in Singapore, there are instances of local culture being deliberately touristified and manufactured for tourists. However, in our analysis, we make a distinction between tourism and policy-making for the arts festival as tourism events are frequently profit motivated.
22. This, together with several others in Edinburgh’s family of festivals has made the city a pre-eminent cultural destination, boosting its international profile and enhancing economic well-being and cultural development (AEA Consulting Citation2006).
24. According to the sequence of their establishment, we have: Gwangju Biennale (1995), Shanghai Biennale (1996), Taipei Biennial (1998), The Fukuoka Triennale (1999), Yokohama Triennale (2001), Chengdu Biennale (2001), Busan Biennial (2002), Nanjing Triennial (2002), Guangzhou Triennial (2003), Beijing Biennale (2003) and Singapore Biennale (2006).
26. This represents the joint probability of people who had not heard of the Biennale and those who are willing to pay i.e. (307–33)/(307 + 157).
27. In fact, if preferences had hierarchical aspects, there may even be discontinuous leaps in WTP for arts and culture once basic physiological needs were satisfied. In this context, the WTP estimates found in our study may potentially be under-estimates.
28. A review of the Singapore Arts Festival was undertaken in 2012 and a recommendation made for the Arts Fest to reorientate itself to focus on being a platform for artistic excellence instead of trying to meet multiple objectives attracting tourists, engaging community and so on. This will clearly have an impact on its programming, and in turn, people’s WTP for the festival. The extent of the impact on WTP should be explored in future research.
29. In the 2011 Biennale, a new initiative to education and outreach was trialled and this was said to have attracted 3000 students from 40 schools (Media Release 16 May 2011). This is however a one-off event but a more permanent means of inculcating the value of arts and culture in the education system should be undertaken.
30. In the 1970s, oil painting, water, ceramics and wood carving were introduced as compulsory subjects in Singapore schools.
31. See Gopinathan (Citation2008) and Tan and Gopinathan (Citation2000).