4.1.2. The 1980s
Event Tourism expanded dramatically as a research
topic in the 1980s. A number of extension studies at Texas
A&M focused on events and tourism including the Gunn
and Wicks (1982) report on visitors to a festival in
Galveston. Two notable research articles from early in this
decade include those by Gartner and Holecek (1983) on the
economic impact of an annual tourism industry exposition,
and J.R.B. Ritchie’s (1984) treatise on the nature of
impacts from hallmark events, which remains a classic in
terms of citations and influence. A major study of festival
visitors and the economic impacts of multiple festivals in
Canada’s National Capital region was conducted in the
latter part of this decade (Coopers and Lybrand Consulting
Group, 1989), followed by a similar major study in
Edinburgh (Scotinform Ltd., 1991). These remain landmarks
in terms of their scope and cross-event comparisons.