ABSTRACT
Illness at Fairs and Festivals ........................................................ 347 16.5 Improving Food Safety and Hygiene at Fairs and Festivals ........ 358 16.6 Conclusion and Future Research in Food Safety at Fairs
and Festivals ................................................................................ 359 Keywords .............................................................................................. 361 References ............................................................................................. 361
16.1 BACKGROUND
Fairs and festivals are among the fastest-growing types of tourism attractions. According to the International Association of Fairs and Expositions (2013), there are over 3,200 fairs in North America today. The number of community festivals has exceeded 20,000 (Janiskee, 1996) and is growing. Every year, hundreds of millions of visitors attend state fairs, making them one of the largest leisure spectator activities in the United States. In fact, more people attend fairs than baseball, football, and basketball games combined (Mihalik and Ferguson, 1994). For instance, the average number in attendance at the Feast of the Hunters’ Moon, a 2-day annual event in Indiana, is approximately 40,000 (Christos, 2006). The world’s largest food festival, Taste of Chicago, drew 1.2 million visitors in 2012 (Gatziolis and May, 2012). Likewise, the UK music festivals attracted more than 7.7 million attendees from all over the world in 2009 (Botelho-Nevers and Gautret, 2013).
