The term ‘event(s) tourism’ was not widely used, if at all,
prior to 1987 when The New Zealand Tourist and Publicity
Department (1987) reported: ‘‘Event tourism is an
important and rapidly growing segment of international
tourismy’’. An article by Getz in 1989 in Tourism
Management (‘Special Events: Defining the Product’)
developed a framework for planning ‘events tourism’.
Prior to this it was normal to speak of special events,
hallmark events, mega events and specific types of events.
Now ‘event tourism’ is generally recognized as being
inclusive of all planned events in an integrated approach
to development and marketing.
As with all forms of special-interest travel, event tourism
must be viewed from both demand and supply sides.
A consumer perspective requires determining who travels
for events and why, and also who attends events while
traveling. We also want to know what ‘event tourists’ do
and spend. Included in this demand-side approach is
assessment of the value of events in promoting a positive
destination image, place marketing in general, and cobranding
with destinations.
On the supply side, destinations develop, facilitate and
promote events of all kinds to meet multiple goals: to
attract tourists (especially in the off-peak seasons), serve as
a catalyst (for urban renewal, and for increasing the
infrastructure and tourism capacity of the destination),
to foster a positive destination image and contribute
to general place marketing (including contributions to
ARTICLE IN PRESS
D. Getz / Tourism Management 29 (2008) 403–428 405
fostering a better place in which to live, work and invest),
and to animate specific attractions or areas.
There is no real justification for considering event
tourism as a separate field of studies. The constraint is
that both tourism and event studies are necessary to
understand this kind of experience. As well, there are subareas
like sport and cultural tourism (in which intrinsic
motivations prevail) and business travel (mostly extrinsically
motivated) that also focus on the event tourism
experience. In a similar vein, Deery, Jago, and Fredline
(2004) asked if sport tourism and event tourism are the
same thing. Their conceptualization showed sport tourism
as being at the nexus of event tourism and sport, with both
sport tourism and event tourism being sub-sets of tourism
in general. Indeed, there is almost limitless potential for
sub-dividing tourism studies and management in this