ABSTRACT
As Getz (2007) notes in his review of the literature relating to event tourism, events per se have a long history even whilst the term ‘event tourism’ arguably dates only from the 1980s. Yet in the intervening decades the literature has reached a point where ‘The literature on events has now grown beyond anyone’s capability of reading it all, with a number of distinct specializations having emerged and gained recognition – including event tourism’ (Getz 2008: 410). Yet, although Getz notes research drawn from a wide range of research paradigms including the anthropological, he also comments, ‘It has been clear for some time that there has been a preoccupation with the economic costs, roles and impacts of events’ (Getz 2008: 419) and this, with a post-positivistic paradigm, has tended to dominate research other than perhaps in the area of cultural and heritage tourism which also considers the significance of events in a wider cultural setting. The purpose of this chapter is to consider how events may be experienced and what determines
the depth of the experience. The author has argued that at the heart of tourism research lies observation, for which participation and immersion in various activities is a requirement. Potentially, therefore, an approach to research based on participant observation is auto-ethnographic, and the research outcomes are to be informed not simply by observation, but also reflection upon that which is observed. Reflection in turn is informed by interpretations shaped by an immersion not only in the event observed, but in a literature about the phenomenon, and possibly all researchers should, from time to time, seek to write a reflective piece freed from the constraints of statistical exercises, because only then, possibly, may they then consider the ethics of their research processes (Ryan 2005). The auto-ethnographic approach combines the self with observations of society (Reed-Danahay 1997; Wall, 2008; Noy 2009). This chapter is therefore offered in that vein, and seeks primarily to identify the variables that shape any experience of events. It does not seek to generalise, as experiences may be contextualised within places and times that each have their unique characteristics and thereby inhibit or constrain generalisation. Indeed, Ryan, Zhang and Zeng (2011) have gone so far as to suggest from an examination of meta narratives of the impacts of tourism on communities that possibly the study of tourism can only advance by comparisons of case studies, each of which, however, offers only limited lessons for other places and times. That too may be true of the study of events and the experiences they induce.
