Abstract
This study reviews the literature related to visitor experience studies in event, tourism, hospitality and museum fields, and proposes a conceptual framework to explore the experiences that visitors have at a festival, the benefits gained from those festival experiences and what particular experience leads to which benefit, by adopting a benefits-based management (BBM) approach. This framework suggests the assumption that visitors may have learning, emotional or social experiences at a festival and gain cognitive, social, affective or transformational benefits from the experiences which are extracted from previous visitor studies in tourism, leisure and museum areas. It also assumes that specific experiences at a festival may lead visitors to have specific benefits. This paper concludes that a BBM approach can be an effective tool for understanding festival visitor experiences and benefits, and the application of a BBM approach to festival studies can be important in the planning and implementation of strategies to strengthen specific visitor benefits in the planning of future festivals.