Abstract
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Nowadays culture is everywhere. It reaches out well beyond museums, heritage sites or traditional cultural institutions and what is more important is that culture counts. And today more than ever, it counts for cities, the powerhouses of the contemporary society. Culture is a full-fledged economic sector that – as any other – generates impacts on the urban environment, ranging from direct and indirect expenditure to employment generation.
Culture can influence local development in many ways. It may contribute to a more balanced and sustainable urban development. Culture is part of urban revitalisation projects in degraded urban areas throughout the developed world. It provides a formidable opportunity for personal development and social interaction among weaker groups, and gives to “excluded” individuals a chance to their own start businesses or to catch up socially. It can be found in technology hubs, in media clusters nourishing innovation, on city walls in the form of graffiti, or at local community centres and street festivals which trigger social interactions
Indeed, properly planned festivals have the ability to attract a variety of consumers to an area and in turn increase the economic impact on the community. Festivals are capable of displaying and honoring cultural traditions, as well as boosting the local economy. This is because funds generated by festivals help sustain the jobs of vendors, provide local tourism related businesses with a spike in revenue, benefit other businesses through indirect and induced spending, and increase taxable revenue for local governments.
In order to sustain or increase the economic benefit to the local community, it is essential to understand the attributes of festivals that are most important to consumers. By understanding the needs of the people visiting the festival, researchers can recognize the reasons participants are coming to the event and what they value enough to spend their money on.
Depending on how far a participant has to travel to attend an event, restaurants, hotels, and other local businesses not directly involved in the festival can greatly benefit from the swell of visitors. This injection of funds into the community can have a dramatic affect on the benefits received by the locals. Taxed income can help improve community resources, while the growth in personal income can spur increased spending and economic growth.
In Bulgaria, there are a tremendous number of cultural events that are being held and, their number is growing every year. A recent survey has proven that the festivals in Bulgaria are highly dependent on municipalities. Research shows very few festivals are funded on a project basis. There is no accurate data on the share of festival project funding, and the volume and forms of support for cultural events. Evidence shows that municipal funds are spent on creative projects in the larger Bulgarian cities: Sofia, Varna, Plovdiv, Ruse, Shumen and others.
It seems that cities are triggering a cultural policy revolution. This trend is due to increased evidence of the impact of cultural investment on urban development. The new cultural policies are aimed at augmenting or leading local development, and they focus on:
•developing long term cultural visions and programming at local level;
•making use of heritage buildings that are difficult and costly to maintain;
•attracting creative talents, artists and maximising the potential for local crafts by making workspaces available at lower costs;
•generating fun and entertainment (wellbeing and social cohesion) through festivals and cultural events;
•attracting tourism or international investors (cultural events and an attractive suite of cultural infrastructure and reputation as a destination city / region);
•helping the city to internationalise.
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