BENEFIT SEGMENTATION OF VISITORS TO A RURAL COMMUNITY‐BASED FESTIVAL

Abstract

This study examines the motivation of the attendees of a community‐based festival in the rural Midwest of the United States. Six motivational factors are identified from the visitor data collected at the festival: escape, novelty, nostalgia and patriotism, event excitement, family togetherness, and socialization. Among them, escape was the most dominant motivation. Five clusters are identified, including family travelers, event enthusiasts, loyal festival goers, escapers, and social gathering lovers. The five clusters are distinct in terms of the respondents' perception of the festival and revisit intention. The characteristics of each segment are given, and the practical implications of the findings are discussed.

Keywords:

• Festival motivation
• rural community
• benefit segmentation

INTRODUCTION

Festivals and special events are known to play important roles in destination development as attractions, image makers, animators of static attractions, and catalysts for other developments (Getz, 1991). In addition to the economic benefit that is derived from the increased number of tourists, festivals and special events also expand the tourist season of the destination (Allen, O'Toole, McDonnell, & Harris, 2002), provide cultural and educational opportunities, foster a feeling of community pride (Mill & Morrison, 2002), help conserve the sensitive natural environment and/or social and cultural environment, and contribute to sustainable development (Backman, Backman, Uysal, & Sunshine, 1995). According to a recent survey conducted by the International Festival and Event Association (IFEA), the special events industry is estimated to include some 4 to 5 million regularly re‐occurring events and has a significant economic impact globally (IFEA, 2007).

The advantages of festivals and special events are demonstrated more explicitly in rural settings, particularly in boosting local economies (Long & Perdue, 1990), continuing employment (Felsenstein & Fleischer, 2003), and rural destination promotion (Boo & Busser, 2006). After the World War II, many farming communities in the Western societies experienced a decline in such singular economic sectors as traditional agriculture, mining, timber, and farm‐based manufacturing (Gilbert, 1989; Xie, 2004). In response, there has been a growing awareness of utilizing existing resources to boost the local economy. Tourism has been identified as one of the most effective ways with local festivals and special events as viable alternatives. In the United States, there are more than 18,500 festivals staged, plus numerous fairs, shows, expositions, and other recurring special events (Janiskee, 1994; Ukman, 1993). The festivals and events in rural areas have produced the host community's largest crowds and its greatest number of visitors (Hall, 1992).

Festivals are increasingly diverse and competitive (Getz, 1997; Nicholson & Pearce, 2001). From a marketing point of view, a festival must meet the needs and satisfy the expectations of the intended audience(s). The dramatic growth in festival and special event tourism has been accompanied by an emerging literature on event‐goers (Nicholson & Pearce, 2001). Whereas most studies address the growth, economic impact, and logistics of planning events and festivals (e.g., Chang, 2006; Gursoy, Kim, & Uysal, 2004), fewer studies deal with the motivations of festival visitors (Li & Petrick, 2006). Crompton and McKay (1997) identified three reasons for investing effort into better understanding the motivations of festival visitors: to design offerings based on the motivations and expectations of festival visitors, to monitor visitor satisfaction and retain repeat visitors, and to understand visitor decision processes. Understanding the motivations of festival attendees will enhance festival production and marketing (Getz & Cheyne, 1997). The current study aims to explore the motivations of attendees of a rural community‐based festival and segment the market based on attendee motivations, using data collected from a consumer survey conducted in Indiana in the United States in 2006.

LITERATURE REVIEW

The first academic study of festival attendee motivation was conducted by Ralston and Crompton in 1988. In a profile study of visitors attending the Dickens on the Strand Festival in Galveston, Texas, a set of 48 motivation statements was generated and thereafter adopted in the literature on leisure motivation. The statements cover the domains of stimulus seeking, family togetherness, social contact, meeting or observing new people, learning and discovery, escape from personal and social pressures, and nostalgia. Ralston and Crompton attempted to identify market segments based on origin, age, income, and family group type that shared similar motivations. However, they found that discrete segments did not exist, which led them to the conclusion that the motivation dimensions were generic across all groups (Ralston & Crompton, in Getz, 1991).

Since Ralston and Crompton's (1988) study, a small body of literature on event and festival attendee motivation has emerged (Table 1). Common motivational factors have been identified across different festivals and events, including escape (e.g., Mohr, Backman, Gahan, & Backman, 1993; Schneider & Backman, 1996; Uysal, Gahan, & Martin, 1993), family togetherness (e.g., Formica & Murrmann, 1998; Lee, Lee, & Wicks, 2004; Yuan, Cai, Morrison, & Linton, 2005), and socialization (e.g., Chang, 2006; Formica & Uysal, 1996; Lee, 2000). Most of the studies have adopted the scale developed by Uysal et al. (1993), and a fairly consistent and practical research framework has been established (Li & Petrick, 2006). Nicholson and Pearce (2001) suggested that the tourism research community should take a systematic and comprehensive approach that goes beyond the study of individual events to examine the broader characteristics of event tourism motivation, and to explore issues of greater generality. A comparative study was conducted by Nicholson and Pearce of four events in New Zealand—two food and beverage festivals, an air show, and a country music festival.

Table 1. Summary of Selected Studies of Festival and Event Motivation

Researcher	Motivational Factors (in descending order)	Type of Event
Schofield & Thompson, 2007	Cultural exploration, togetherness, socialization, sports attraction, local special events	International sports event
Chang, 2006	Equilibrium recovery, festival participation and learning, novelty seeking, socialization, cultural exploration	Aboriginal cultural event
Bowen & Daniels, 2005	Discovery, music, enjoyment	Regional music festival
Yuan, Cai, Morrison, & Linton, 2005	Festival and escape, wine, socialization, family togetherness	Regional wine and food festival
Zyl & Botha, 2004	Family togetherness, socialization, escape, event novelty, community pride, self‐esteem, entertainment, food and beverages, information and marketing, transport	National art festival
Lee, Lee, & Wicks, 2004	Cultural exploration, family togetherness, novelty, escape, event attractions, socialization	International cultural event
Dewar, Meyer, & Wen, 2001	Event novelty, escape, socialization, family togetherness, excitement/thrills	International festival
Lee, 2000	Cultural exploration, escape, novelty, event attractions, family togetherness, external group socialization, known‐group socialization	International cultural event
Formica & Uysal, 1996	Socialization/entertainment, event attraction/excitement, group togetherness, cultural/historical, family togetherness, site novelty	International cultural‐historical event
Crompton & McKay, 1997	Cultural exploration, novelty/regression, gregariousness, recover equilibrium, known‐group socialization, external interaction/socialization	National cultural and sport event
Schneider & Backman, 1996	Family togetherness/socialization, social leisure, festival attributes, escape, event excitement	International event
Scott, 1996	Nature appreciation, event excitement, sociability, family togetherness, curiosity, escape	Urban event
Mohr, Backman, Gahan, & Backman, 1993	Socialization, escape, family togetherness, excitement/uniqueness, event novelty	Regional festival
Uysal, Gahan, & Martin, 1993	Escape, excitement/thrill, event novelty, socialization, family togetherness	Rural festival
Ralston & Crompton, 1988	Stimulus seeking, family togetherness, social contact, meeting or observing new people, learning and discovery, escape from personal and social pressures, nostalgia	Regional event
Note. Based on Li & Petrick, 2006.

Despite the progress in the investigation of event‐goer motivation, previous studies have largely focused on mega events (e.g., Lee et al., 2004) or regional events (e.g., Yuan et al., 2005), as shown in Table 1, whereas rural community‐based festivals, or “home‐grown festivals,” have remained unexplored. The term “home‐grown festival” is borrowed from the typology developed by O'Sullivan and Jackson (2002). Based on the size of the population, location, major theme, organizing drivers, key management group, and primary purpose of the festival, three types of festivals have been identified: the home‐grown festival, tourist‐tempter festival, and big‐bang festival. The home‐grown festival is essentially small‐scale, bottom‐up, and run by one or more volunteers. It takes place in a rural or semi‐rural area with the primary goal of providing cultural and entertainment benefits for locals and visitors (O'Sullivan & Jackson, 2002). Community led in nature, home‐grown festivals are often intimately related to the maintenance and celebration of community values (O'Sullivan & Jackson, 2002). Local festivals are said to be celebrations of community and effectively serve as a public demonstration of “what a community is all about” (Janiskee & Drews, 1998). Festivals attract tourists who might otherwise never visit the area, and the benefits of festivals extend well beyond generating tourism dollars and include strengthening rural communities and enriching the quality of small‐town life (Janiskee & Drews, 1998). In addition to the social positives, holding festivals also improves the environment of the host community.

However, researchers argue that due to the nature of rural community‐based festivals, they are at great disadvantage in promoting themselves to potential and existing markets. As for many other types of destinations, marketing plays a critical role in the process of tourism development for rural area to promote an increase in the general welfare of a rural area economically, culturally, socially, and environmentally (Gilbert, 1989). Nevertheless, the smallness of rural destination marketing organizations in both financial and human resources constrains their ability to market effectively (Cai, Liu, & Huang, 2008). The paucity of marketing expertise has been raised by Gilbert as early as 1989. More than 20 years later, however, attention on rural destination marketing remain sparse (Gartner, 2004), let alone rural community‐based festivals. In addition, despite active tourism development in rural areas, the investigation of rural tourists—the primary actors in rural tourism—was overlooked (Frochot, 2004). The understanding of attendance motivation is the starting point for any marketing initiatives. By understanding the motivations of visitors, event and festival organizers and marketers can increase the enjoyment of visitors, and attract and retain more visitors (Dewar, Meyer, & Wen, 2001). Therefore, deliberate scrutiny is required to better satisfy the needs and wants of the target markets of such festivals.

Once the motivations of visitors have been identified, it is essential to understand the needs of different target groups at festivals (Dewar et al., 2001), which can be accomplished with the assistance of market segmentation. Market segmentation has been widely implemented in the tourism industry as a means of classifying customers into groups based on different variables. This reflects the industry's desire to identify commercially feasible market segments to more effectively allocate limited marketing budgets. The segmentation criteria can include visitor demographics, psychographics, behavior, and benefits. Benefit segmentation is a powerful method for classifying consumers (Kotler & Turner, 1993), because the benefits people seek provide better determinants of behavior than do other variables. Indeed, benefit segmentation is shown to predict behavior better than demographic or geographic segmentation (Kastenholz, Davis, & Paul, 1999). In addition, benefit segmentation, based on predictive factors and combined with key descriptive variables, provides a clear insight into marketing and communication strategy formulation (Loker & Perdue, 1992). The application of benefit segmentation in the study of festival visitors, however, is rare.

Among the few studies that investigate regional or international festivals, is the study of Formica and Uysal (1996), in which the researchers conduct the market segmentation of an international cultural‐historical event in Italy using the benefits sought by visitors. Two segments are identified from cluster analysis: the moderates and the enthusiasts. These two groups are differentiated by the extent to which visitors are attracted by the festival itself. The study results reveal that the motivations that lead visitors to attend an international cultural‐historical event are different from the motivations that lead people to attend community and community‐based festivals (Formica & Uysal, 1996), and so the market segments are derived from the benefits sought. Two other benefit segmentation studies are those of Lee and colleagues (2004), and Chang (2006), for an international cultural event and an aboriginal festival in Taiwan, respectively. Four visitor clusters are identified in the first study: culture and family seekers, multi‐purpose seekers, escape seekers, and event seekers. Significant differences are found among the four clusters in terms of gender and source of information. In Chang's study, the market is divided into three clusters: aboriginal cultural learners, change routine life travelers, and active culture explorers. No statistically significant differences are found in the demographic variables among the three clusters.

The purpose of the study reported herein was to address the research gap by exploring the motivations of visitors to a rural community‐based festival, and to classify the market into groups. In particular, this study aimed to determine (a) the primary motivations that led visitors to attend the rural community‐based festival; (b) the relationships between visitor socio‐demographic characteristics and motivations; and (c) market segments based on the motivations of visitors to attend the festival.

METHODOLOGY

Data used in this study were collected at a rural community‐based festival in Indiana that took place from June 30–July 4, 2006. The festival has been run by a group of volunteers since 1981 during the Independence Day holiday period. The festival hosts a wide range of activities including a car show, different types of rides, and boat racing. The most popular ones are the fireworks and a concert. Festival attendees can also sample a variety of food. The festival receives very limited financial support from the local government, and is primarily funded by donations and vendor participation fees.

Adult visitors from outside the host community who were attending the festival were qualified to participate in the survey. The data were collected through personal interviews at a variety of interview sites including all major attractions provided by the festival. A convenient sampling method was used and the survey instruments were randomly distributed to the festival attendees. A screening question of home zip code was first asked by the respondents to assure that the respondents were not local residents. Most of the respondents lived within a 50‐mile radius of the festival location. A total of 280 usable questionnaires were collected during the course of the festival.

The survey instrument consisted of four parts. The first part inquired into the travel and trip characteristics of the visitors to the festival. The visitors were also asked whether they were attending the festival for the first time. The second part of the questionnaire measured the motivations and perceptions of the festival visitors. The third part of the questionnaire concerned media usage and information searching. In the final part, respondents' demographic information was collected.

The questions on visitor motivation were used in the current study. Respondents were asked to evaluate on 33 motivation statement by rating it on a scale from 1 (least appropriate) to 10 (most appropriate). Among those 33 items, 25 were initially generated from a review of previous studies pertaining to tourist motivations to travel in general or to attend festivals in particular (Crompton & McKay, 1997; Getz & Cheyne, 1997; Li & Petrick, 2006; Mohr et al., 1993; Nicholson & Pearce, 2001; Schneider & Backman, 1996; Scott, 1996; Uysal et al., 1993; Yuan et al., 2005). Eight statements were surveyed—festival specific motivation factors that were designed based on the nature of the festival, as well as the activities provided.

A progressive procedure of statistical analyses was carried out. First, frequency analysis was conducted to examine the profile of the festival attendees. Descriptive analysis was then conducted to summarize visitor motivations for attending the festival, which was followed by exploratory factor analysis (EFA) with varimax rotation to identify the underlying motivation constructs. Although there are already established measurements for festival motivation, those measurements are designed mostly for regional or mega events. Therefore, it was necessary to identify the latent factors of the motivational constructs for rural community‐based events. Items exhibiting low factor loadings (< .40), high cross‐loadings (> .40), or low communalities (< .50) were candidates for deletion (Hair, Black, Babin, Anderson, & Tatham, 2006). Cronbach's alpha test was then employed to verify the reliability of the variables generated by EFA. Finally, two‐step cluster analysis was conducted to split the sample into different segments using the motivational factor scores.

RESULTS

Sample Profile

The sociodemographic and trip‐related characteristics of the sample are shown in Table 2. There were more female than male respondents, and more than 70% of the respondents were over 35‐years‐old. Fewer than half of the respondents had a bachelor's degree or above, and more than 40% of the respondents reported an annual household income of US$60,000 or above. Most of the respondents were day trippers who lived within 50 miles of the host community, which differentiates the rural community‐based festival from a mega event in that the former attracts more day trippers from nearby communities than does the latter (Getz, 1991). More than 66% of the respondents had attended the festival many times.

Table 2. Socio‐Demographic and Trip‐Related Characteristics of the Respondents

Variables	Percentage	Variables	Percentage
Gender		Distance of Travel (miles)
Male	44.5	1–9	27.7
Female	55.5	10–19	26.6
Education		20–39	23.6
High school drop‐out	1.8	40–49	4.5
High school diploma	41.3	Over 50	17.5
Associate's degree	19.6	Number of Visits
Bachelor's degree	23.2	First visit	33.3
Master's degree	5.2	Multiple visits	66.7
Doctoral degree	1.8	Length of Stay
Age		Day trip	81.8
18–19	8.56	Overnight	17.5
20–24	8.17	Household Income*
25–34	14.79	Under $20,000	8.7
35–44	21.01	$20,000–39,999	8.7
45–49	14.01	$40,000–59,999	15.5
50–54	9.73	$60,000–79,999	15.8
55–64	14.01	$80,000–99,999	11.7
65 and over	9.73	Over $100,000	12.8
Note. *In US$.

Motivation Constructs

Descriptive analysis of travel motivations detected that visitors were mostly motivated by festival‐specific reasons with seeing the fireworks (mean  =  7.64), and celebrating the Independence Day with others (mean  =  7.46) being the top two reasons. Other important motivations included spending time with my family together (mean  =  7.42), for a change of pace from everyday life (mean  =  7.37), and having a change from daily routine (mean  =  7.33).

The results from the exploratory factor analysis are shown in Table 3, with the reliability test for each factor. Two rounds of factor analysis were conducted and the motivational item “sampling local food” was deleted because of the low loading on either factor. This process resulted in a six‐factor solution, and the factors were, in descending order of importance: escape, novelty, nostalgia and patriotism, event excitement, family togetherness, and socialization. Escape refers to the desire to get away from the demands of life and relieve daily stress, novelty indicates the desire to experience new and different things, and nostalgia and patriotism refers to the desire to think about and relive previous good times. Some festival‐specific items also loaded on the nostalgia and patriotism factor. Event excitement represents the desire for exciting and stimulating experiences, family togetherness represents the desire to do something with one's family, and socialization refers to the desire to be with, or observe, other people. All of the factors had a reliability score greater than 0.7.

Table 3. Motivation Factors of Community‐Based Festival Attendees

Factor	Loading	Eigen value	Variance Explained	Alphas
Escape		4.896	15.299	0.907
To get away from the demands of life	0.793
To have a change from daily routine	0.790
To relieve daily stress	0.750
For a change of pace from everyday life	0.742
To relieve boredom	0.699
Novelty		4.587	14.334	0.905
To increase my cultural knowledge	0.777
To experience local customs and culture	0.741
To experience new and different things	0.666
To see new and different things	0.662
Because of the variety of things to do and see at the festival	0.551
Because the festival is unique	0.511
I am curious	0.504
To visit a place I can talk about when I get home	0.493
Nostalgia and Patriotism		3.614	11.294	0.837
To think about good times I've had in the past	0.679
To celebrate Independence Day with others	0.637
To participate in the games at the festival	0.630
To see the fireworks	0.626
To reflect on past memories	0.586
To see the raising of the Stars and the Stripes (flag)	0.478
Event Excitement		3.071	9.597	0.852
To enjoy the festival crowds	0.709
To see the entertainment	0.562
Because I enjoy attending any festival	0.549
Because it is stimulating and exciting	0.515
To observe other people attending the festival	0.490
To enjoy the festival mood	0.484
It offers excitement	0.419
Family Togetherness		3.003	9.384	0.868
To spend time with my family	0.819
Because I thought the entire family would enjoy it	0.760
To increase family kinship	0.712
Socialization		2.369	7.402	0.751
To be with people who are enjoying themselves	0.734
To be with people who enjoy the same things I do	0.701
To be with my friends	0.400

Socio‐Demographic Influences

The motivations of the rural community‐based festival attendees were examined in relation to the socio‐demographic characteristics of the attendees (Table 4). With few exceptions, the six motivational factors were common across age, gender, income, and education group. Age was found to be a significant indicator of the motivational factors of family togetherness and socialization. For visitors aged between 25 and 34, family togetherness was very important in the decision to attend the festival. While for the motivation of socialization, it was found that the older the respondent, the more important was this motivation. Male festival goers were motivated more by novelty than were female festival goers, whereas nostalgia and patriotism was more important for female visitors than for male visitors. Regarding educational background, visitors with a high school diploma considered family togetherness more important than did visitors in the other educational groups. Income was found to be significant indictor of the motivational factor socialization, and this factor was more important for visitors with an annual household income of US$20,000–40,000 than for visitors in other income groups.

Table 4. Motivation and Socio‐Demographic Characteristics (F‐Value)

Motivation	Gender	Age	Education	Income
Escape	0.001	0.994	0.385	1.225
Novelty	2.840**	0.993	1.016	1.506
Nostalgia and patriotism	2.946**	1.004	0.868	0.728
Event excitement	0.012	1.083	1.058	1.452
Family togetherness	0.134	4.123*	1.031**	0.406
Socialization	0.042	2.238*	0.520	2.322*
Note. *p < .05; **p < .1.

Cluster Analysis

A combination of hierarchical and non‐hierarchical methods was used as suggested by Hair et al. (2006). The factor scores of the six motivational factors were used as the cluster variables. In the first step, the partitioning stage, a hierarchical procedure was used to identify a preliminary set of cluster solutions as a basis for establishing the appropriate number of clusters. The similarity among cluster solutions was measured by the squared Euclidean distance with Ward's method as the clustering algorithm. Cluster solutions ranging from 2 to 10 were examined, and neither outliers nor unrepresentative cases were detected.

The percentage changes in heterogeneity were adopted as the stopping rule to decide on the number of cluster solutions. The basic rationale is that when larger increases in heterogeneity occur, the researcher selects the prior cluster solution because the combination joins quite different clusters. Changes in the clustering coefficient for 10 to 2 clusters were calculated (Hair et al., 2006). The largest increases were observed in going from two clusters to one cluster (11%), followed by going from five to four and from three to two clusters (10% each). It should be noted, however, that the increase in heterogeneity in the final stage (in which two clusters are combined to form one) will always be large. That is, a two‐cluster solution will generally be identified through this procedure, yet may represent limited value in meeting research objectives. Therefore, the five‐cluster and three‐cluster solutions were chosen as the preliminary cluster solutions for further investigation in terms of the degree and type of difference.

The statistical results revealed that the five‐cluster solution showed more distinctions than did the three‐cluster solution. Therefore, non‐hierarchical cluster analysis was conducted using the k‐means method, and the five clusters had 33 (14.1%), 26 (11.1%), 83 (35.5%), 43 (18.4%), and 49 (20.9%) cases, respectively, out of 265 observations. To label the five segments, the mean value of each motivational factor was computed as shown in Table 5. Significant differences were detected in terms of travel motivation among the five segments. The five clusters were subsequently labeled family travelers, festival enthusiasts, loyal festival goers, escapers, and social gathering lovers.

Table 5. Motivation Factor Means Among Clusters

Motivation	C1	C2	C3	C4	C5
Frequency	33	26	83	43	49
Percentage (%)	14.1	11.1	35.5	18.4	20.9
Escape	0.43	−1.28	0.14	0.74	−0.50
Novelty	−0.43	−0.70	0.84	−0.60	−0.23
Nostalgia and Patriotism	−1.20	−0.23	0.52	0.31	−0.22
Event Excitement	0.13	1.02	0.12	0.19	−‐1.00
Family Togetherness	0.91	−0.06	0.28	−1.08	−0.10
Socialization	−0.76	0.12	0.06	−0.34	0.65

Profiling Clusters

The profile and behavioral pattern of each cluster is listed in Table 6. Respondent educational level, number of visits, and length of stay follow similar patterns across the five segments. Respondents in the segment family travelers rated family togetherness the highest and nostalgia and patriotism and socialization the lowest among the motivation factors. In contrast to the other four segments, males dominated this segment. Respondents in this segment were most likely to be young parents aged between 35 and 44. The household income of family travelers was evenly distributed across the five categories. Respondents in this segment visited the festival to spend time with their family and increase family kinship.

Table 6. Segments by Demographics and Travel Behavior

	Family Travelers	Festival Enthusiasts	Loyal Festival Goers	Escapers	Social Gathering Lovers
Gender
Male	54.8	30.4	42.9	41.0	40.5
Female	45.2	69.6	57.1	59.0	59.5
Age
18–24	6.3	23.1	15.9	31.7	17.8
25–34	21.9	15.4	15.9	12.2	11.1
35–44	37.5	19.2	22.0	12.2	17.8
45–49	9.4	7.7	12.2	12.2	17.8
50–54	6.3	15.4	7.3	9.8	13.3
55 and over	18.7	19.2	26.8	22.0	22.2
Education
High school drop‐out	0	3.8	1.2	2.4	0
High school diploma	42.4	46.2	42.0	34.1	38.6
Associate's degree	21.2	19.2	16.0	24.4	25.0
Bachelor's degree or above	33.3	24.0	28.4	34.1	36.3
Household Income*
Under $39,999	15.2	7.6	20.2	19.5	24.5
$40,000–59,999	15.2	15.4	13.9	14.6	20.0
$60,000–79,999	12.1	19.2	19.0	9.8	13.3
$80,000–99,999	12.1	11.5	13.9	17.1	6.7
Over $100,000	15.2	19.2	13.9	17.1	11.1
Number of Visits
First visit	46.9	20	34.6	34.9	28.6
Multiple visits	53.1	80	65.4	65.1	71.4
Length of Stay
Day trip	90.9	80.8	79.5	76.7	85.4
Overnight	9.1	19.2	19.3	20.9	14.6
Note. *In US$.

Respondents in the segment festival enthusiasts were characterized by their enthusiasm for the atmosphere of the festival. They were mostly motivated to attend the festival to enjoy the crowds and mood, observe other people attending the festival, and experience the excitement provided by the festival. Generally, they enjoyed attending any festival. Demographically, respondents in this segment were relatively young, with the 18–24 age group dominating. Their household income was higher than that of respondents in the other four segments, with nearly half reporting an income above US$60,000. This segment also featured a high proportion of repeat visitors: over 80% of the respondents had attended the surveyed festival more than once.

Loyal festival goers were the largest segment, comprising 35.5% of the total sample. This segment rated most highly festival‐specific motivations such as participating in the games at the festival. They were mostly attracted by the surveyed festival itself; therefore, they were labeled loyal festival goers. Compared with other segments, respondents in this segment were older (nearly 27% were in the 55 and over age group), and reported a lower household income.

The fourth cluster was labeled escapers, as respondents in this group rated relieving daily stress and boredom, and experiencing a change of pace from everyday life as very important motivations to attend the festival. They rated family togetherness the lowest among the motivation factors, which indicated their wish to get away from the demands of everyday life and their daily routine. Respondents in this segment were characterized by a younger age and higher level of education, with over one third having a bachelor's degree or above.

The social gathering lovers rated socialization the highest among the motivational factors. Their rating of event excitement, however, was the lowest among the five groups, which implied that, unlike the festival enthusiasts, this group of people did not care about the theme of the festival. Rather, the festival was a place for them to be with their friends, and to get to know more people.

Validating Segments

It has been established that the five segments differ in terms of the benefits sought. To validate the cluster solutions and further examine the differences among segments to provide practical information, the differences among the five clusters were examined in terms of the perception of the festival and revisit intention of the visitors. Those two variables were selected as the means to test the predictive validity of the cluster solution, as previous studies have found that motivation is an antecedent of both perception and behavioral intention (Li, 2007). The most commonly used factors—demographics and behavior patterns—were not adopted in the current study because as noted, a rural community‐based festival market is relatively homogeneous in terms of visitor demographics and behavior.

One‐way ANOVA was conducted to compare the differences in visitor perception among the five segments (Table 7). Significant differences were identified in 16 out of 17 perception items. The only item on which all respondents agreed was that the festival is a local one. Statistical analysis showed that the five segments were distinct with respect to revisit intention. Loyal festival goers were most likely to revisit, whereas social gathering lovers were least likely to revisit. The other three clusters shared a similar level of intention to revisit. These results confirmed that the cluster solution was identifiable and could be described based on other variables.

Table 7. Perception and Revisit Intention by Segment

Validation Items	F Value	Sig.
This festival provides a unique festival atmosphere	11.87	0.000
There are a lot of things to see and do at this festival	9.20	0.000
There are exciting entertainment opportunities at this festival	11.10	0.000
This festival provides a unique experience to celebrate Independence Day	12.83	0.000
This festival is an ideal festival for a fun day trip	10.13	0.000
This festival provides a quality dining experience for visitors	8.03	0.000
People at this festival are warm and friendly	6.83	0.000
This festival is an ideal festival for family togetherness	4.61	0.001
This festival is my favorite festival	14.03	0.000
I would recommend this festival to my friends and/or relatives	8.73	0.000
This festival is my type of festival	9.67	0.000
This festival is an affordable festival	7.96	0.000
This festival is a regional one	6.50	0.000
This festival is an ideal festival for a romantic getaway	11.23	0.000
This festival is a local one	1.12	0.348
This festival is for people of all ages	2.12	0.079
I feel safe at this festival	4.74	0.001
Revisit Intention	3.785	0.005

DISCUSSION AND CONCLUSION

The objectives of this study were to explore the travel motivations of attendees of a rural community‐based festival, identify the influences of the socio‐demographic characteristics of attendees on their motivations, and segment the market based on the travel motivations of attendees. The understanding of tourist motivations is used to better understand visitor choices, preferences, and needs. In general, the research findings show that, among the six motivation factors extracted from 33 measurement items, escape was the dominant motivation of the rural community‐based festival attendees. Other motivations included novelty, nostalgia and patriotism, event excitement, family togetherness, and socialization. Descriptive analysis revealed that two festival‐specific reasons—watching the fireworks and celebrating Independence Day with others—were the top motivations for the respondents to attend the festival, followed by one item loaded on family togetherness and two items loaded on escape. The motivations of festival attendees differed to some degree according to their socio‐demographic characteristics.

Five segments were identified from cluster analysis: family travelers, festival enthusiasts, loyal festival goers, escapers, and social gathering lovers. The cluster of loyal festival goers constituted the largest group in the total sample. No significant differences were found among the five segments in terms of demographic characteristics or visitor travel behavior, which implies that the market of a rural community‐based festival is relatively homogenous. However, significant differences were found among the five segments regarding perceptions of the festival and revisit intention.

This study has attempted to contribute to the body of knowledge concerning tourist motivations to attend festivals in general, and rural community‐based festivals in particular. First, to the best of our knowledge, the study is the first attempt to segment visitors to a rural community‐based festival on the basis of their motivations. The findings from this study together with those of previous studies indicate generic segmentations exist among attendees of any type of festival. Those segments include visitors who are mainly motivated by the desire to escape, experience the general mood and atmosphere of the festival, and take part in the activities and enjoy the theme of particular festivals. A unique segment was also identified. Different from international or regional festivals, a group of attendees to rural community‐based festival were highly urged by the motivation of socialization. They consider attending rural community‐based festival as an opportunity to have quality time with friends and to get to know other people.

Second, the study results confirm and supplement the proposition of Schneider and Backman (1996), and Lee and colleagues (2004) that visitors who participate in various festivals are likely to share similar motivations, albeit to a different degree, even if they come from different cultural backgrounds, whereas the order and components of motivational factors vary according to the type of festival. Visitors to rural community‐based festivals shared similar motivations as those to regional festivals or mega‐events, while the order of motivations was different. Escape was found to be the primary motivation of rural community‐based festival attendees, whereas for regional or mega events, event‐specific motivations are most likely to be the major reasons that people attend. This finding indicated that, different from regional festivals or mega‐events, people who attend rural community‐based festivals are motivated more by internally generated push factors rather than external pull factors. The escape rather than seeking force of Iso‐Ahola's (1980) dichotomy was more appropriate for rural community‐based festival attendees.

Third, the findings of the current study confirm those of previous studies, which find that motivational variables are more important than demographic or behavioral variables in explaining and segmenting visitors to festivals (Chang, 2006; Lee et al., 2004). Furthermore, this study can be readily replicated elsewhere.

The understanding of visitor motivations is essential to identify the target market for festivals and communities, and to develop positioning strategies. The findings should therefore be useful for community leaders and festival organizers to effectively market the festivals and better serve the needs of attendees. Significant motivators should be addressed and emphasized to improve the perceived festival image and enhance the likelihood of return visitation. Specifically, as visitors to a rural community‐based festival are primarily motivated by the desire to escape their daily routine, it is imperative for the festival to provide a pleasant ambiance for visitors. The design and innovation of festival activities and programs should also focus on providing a memorable experience.

The findings should also help festival organizers to achieve synergy by working together with the area's destination marketing organizations. When such understanding is overlaid with visitor socio‐demographic characteristics, market access will be greatly improved. For example, family togetherness is an important motivation for respondents with a high school diploma. Contributing to over 40% of the total visit to the festival, this is a critical market for the rural community‐based festival. Therefore, it is vital for the festival managers to provide a kids‐friendly and family‐like environment for the visitors. The design of the festival activities and delivery of marketing messages should also focus on a warm and sweet atmosphere and experiences.

In addition, differentiated marketing strategies should be developed by relevant parties. Specifically, for visitors in cluster 1 (family travelers) and cluster 5 (social gathering lovers), promotional tactics should stress the opportunity to spend time with family members or friends and get to know other people, respectively. Visitors in cluster 2 (event enthusiasts) are interested in attending any festival to enjoy the festival crowds, so marketing efforts aimed at this group should emphasize the convenience of the location of the festival, as well as the festival mood provided. Cluster 3 (loyal festival goers) was the largest segment, and visitors in this segment were loyal attendees of the surveyed festival. They are therefore the critical customers to retain, and marketing efforts should focus on developing new activities and programs that are of interest to this market. Visitors in cluster 4, escapers, are less likely to be interested in the festival itself than in being able to get away from their daily routine. In other words, they want to escape from their usual environment and seek alternative stimuli by attending the festival. Accordingly, marketing efforts targeting this group should emphasize the attractions of the rural area in general rather than focusing only on the festival.

This study is not without limitations. First, respondents were not asked about their experience of other rural community‐based festivals, and the impact of those experiences merit further attention. Second, other segmentation variables, such as perception, could be incorporated into further studies. Third, the research setting is confined to one festival in the rural Midwest of the United States. As such, the generalizability and practical use of the findings may be limited.