Avoiding burnout: the succession planning, governance and resourcing of rural tourism festivals

摘要

Small rural tourism festivals can struggle with governance issues, including succession planning and problems with leadership. This could be linked to several factors, including the largely voluntary composition of organising committees, lack of resources, or the stage the festival has reached in the event life cycle. Surprisingly, little research has explored these challenges, despite the ongoing viability of these festivals often being crucial for the socio-cultural and economic sustainability of local communities, attracting tourists and income, and providing social benefits. A phenomenological qualitative study was conducted, involving in-depth interviews with 13 organisers and stakeholders of 7 rural Australian festivals, together with background studies of the communities involved and their festivals. Findings highlight the different approaches taken by rural communities to manage the growing complexity of festival organisation, including finding new committee members and dealing with perceptions that these committees are not representative of the whole community. Issues of burnout were raised, linked to the increasingly onerous regulatory and administrative burden of managing and staging these events. This created a need for greater professional assistance, generally from local government: consideration is given to the pros and cons of this development. The paper provides a micro-study of wider community tourism governance issues.