Abstract The Notting Hill Carnival is a vital cultural event in West London and a precious constituent of the London Image. The event has a huge economic effect on the London economy as well.
It promoted up to ? 93m income a year to the city’s economy and maintains the equivalent of 3,000 full-time jobs. The aim of the study was to analyse the economic impacts of the Notting Hill Carnival cultural event. The report would focus on three of the economic impacts as employment, business opportunities and opportunity costs to analysis these aspects for positive and negative influence and provide some recommendation of these. 1. Introduction The Notting Hill Carnival takes place on the August Bank Holiday in London since 1966.
It is widely confirmed as the largest street carnival in Europe, along with another two world festival ranking among the highest dramatic of world festival, as New Orleans’ Mardi Gras and the Toronto International Carnival. Carnival is a passionate and celebratory landscape of Black working class experience. Getz (2007) clarified carnival is a type of cultural celebration, which includes celebration of honour or dignify. It is a constitutional section of civilization, containing carnival, masquerading, role reversals, social concession and display.
People go to carnivals for fun, play and festivity. They love to dress up or do little protest of social norms in masquerading parades (Getz, 2012). In the early 1960s, there was an event called Notting Hill Festival, which was a small street festivity joined by about 200 people (Bowdin, Allen, O’Toole, Harris, McDonnell, 2011). Initially, it started from the powers of Black immigrants from the Caribbean. There were a great deal of problems that the Caribbean population were facing then, such as issue of racism, shortage of economic opportunities, and needing housing.
Today, Notting Hill Carnival gradually expanded and become one of Europe’s largest open-air carnivals. 2. Economic impact 2. 1 Definition of economic impact Allen et al. (2011, p. 70) defined the economic impact of the events as “The strong growth of the festival and special event sector is part of a general economic trend away from an industrial product base to a more service-based economy. ” A study by Jago and Dwyer (2006 cited Allen et al. 2011) showed there are three main sources which caused the impacts of an event: 1. Expenditure by tourists who come from other region . Capital expenditure on facilities is essential to carry out to the event 3. Expenditure raised from event organisers and sponsors to perform the event. According to Getz (2012), if we think the event is a kind of ‘industry’, it will be measured it’s the value of specific activities on the income, treasure and employment of residents in that given geographic region (Ritchie and Goeldner, 1994). The measurement of economic impact usually points out how much revenue or ‘new money’ which is earned from the event into the area is useful.
Prosser (2001) indicated that “Consumption by tourists injects the money into the regional economy and will have a multiplier effect in the local economy as the received funds through consumption are spent and re-spent by employees and employers. If more money circulates within the economy, the larger the multiplier effect will be”. Therefore, the economic impacts are vital to think of in the planning of state, regional and community and economical development. They are the important factors in marketing and management decisions as well. 2. 2 The reason why economic impact is chosen
Tourism plays a vital role in economic development in most countries around the world. The industry has not only direct economic impact, but also significant indirect and influential impacts. There is agreement among experts that the travel and tourism sector is the fastest growing of global economy. According to the latest UNWTO World Tourism Barometer, international tourism receipts surpass US$ 1 trillion in 2011, growing about 3. 8%up from 2010 (WTO, 2012). Each year, hundreds of thousands people descend on the streets of Notting Hill, including performers, DJs, bandleaders, traders, steelpan players and international visitors.
The Notting Hill Carnival is composed of several constituents, through costumes, steel bands, mobile and static sound systems playing in the street to honour the ‘freedom to walk the streets’ (ibid). While more and more visitors crowd into the Notting Hill Carnival (see Table 1), it’s not only useful to develop its societal impact through education and the improvement policy of better racial harmony (ibid), but also promote its economic benefit to development of region. Therefore, the report would distinguish economic impacts of the Notting Hill Carnival and analyse whether the strategies of the event are working or not.
Table1: Notting Hill Carnival attendance in ten year Year| Attendance| Year| Attendance| 2003| 600,000| 2008| 850,000| 2004| 750,000| 2009| 720,000| 2005| 750,000| 2010| 1,000,000+| 2006| 1,000,000| 2011| 1,000,000+| 2007| 850,000| 2012| 1,000,000+| Source: BBC News report. The statistics from WTO shows that almost one tenth of the world’s income and employment comes from the tourism industry. Many people considered that the impact of actual and potential economic is astonishing. They stress such as a source of foreign exchange, a process of balancing international trade is a positive aspects of tourism. . 3 Positive and negative economic impacts Allen et al. (2008) directed that events have a series of both positive and negative impact on their host societies and stakeholders (see Table2). Impacts in any area of management and policy-making are the responsibility of those in event management or government. They might face an amount of challenge when making decisions about the policies. Event managers should be cautious of identifying and predicting their strategies, and then makes them to achieve the maximum of positive impacts and minimum of the potential negative impacts.
Events could produce benefit by attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors to the region, but also costs an amount of charge related to policing, cleansing, crime, traffic congestion, noise and air pollution. Hence, the report would focus on three major economic impacts to analyse those aspects of positive and negative influence. Table2: The list of economic impacts Positive impact| Negative impact| Destination promotion and increased visitors| Community resistance to tourism| Extended period of stay| Loss of authenticity| High profit| Damage to reputation|
Increased tax revenue| Exploitation| Business Opportunities| Inflated prices| Commercial Activities| Opportunity costs| Employment| Financial mismanagement| | Financial loss| Source: adapted from Allen et al. 2008 and Bowdin et al. 2011 3. Impact of employment As we can see that tourism creates the opportunities of jobs, no matter through the straight employment or indirect division with the retail supplier, accommodation and transportation positions. According to the London Development Agency, the Notting Hill Carnival promoted up to ? 3m a year to the city’s economy and maintains the equivalent of 3,000 full-time jobs. Furthermore, based on the survey of last year’s statistics, the carnival attracted up to 1. 4 million visitors. The report found that approximately 316,000 who visitors went to carnival were from the UK but outside London and there are around 90,000 visitors from abroad to join this event. Hence, accommodation and transportation are the vital sectors for these tourists in travelling. It makes the hotels located near Notting Hill area will hire more employees to welcome these international visitors.
These related jobs can provide local residents more opportunities to work and bring huge amount of income effect. However, as Faulkner (1993 cited by Allen et al. 2008) and others indicate that it is too easy to overestimate the numbers of jobs which are provided by the host organisation in the short term. To avoid the kind of negative aspect, the host organiser should make the brief lists of event workers such as positions, vendors, cleaners, retail suppliers every year, and do the professional training for employees to reduce the redundant personnel or waste management. 4. Impact of business opportunities
In terms of Allen (2008) and others point out events can provide a huge stage for the host communities to show their own character, attract potential investors and promote more business opportunities. Events carry huge amount of visitors from different regions to the locality. Tourists spend their money on related business such as accommodation, shopping, food, drinks, local transportation and so on. There is an official statistic which shows that visitors spend extra on Caribbean related products and general financial boost to companies and individuals involved in carnival accounts for up to ? 0 million. With this huge business income, Notting Hill Carnival offers large marketing opportunities to attract more and more investors supporting the event. It has a variety of sponsorship package opportunities for firms to advertise their brands across a wide range of event areas, also including the opportunities for experiential marketing, sampling and merchandising. Government and event organisers should make the strict policy to avoid behaviour of monopoly from those golden sponsors. Monopoly would make the market loose the local character but also cause the inflated prices of products.
For these reasons, visitors might reduce their concerns to join the event and this would cause huge damage to local community and residents reducing vital income. 5. Impact of opportunity costs It is usually understood money spent on events would involve opportunity cost of resources. When host regions invest in the development of events, they seldom ponder whether the same resources could devote to somewhere else (ibid). The opportunity cost is the value of the best alternative choice. ‘If there is a gain, there is also loss. ’ is a nice description to opportunity costs.
For instance, every year when hundreds of thousands visitors descend on the streets of Notting Hill, people crowded in this small area would create noise, cause traffic congestion, overcrowding and disruption of local activities. In addition, there are likely to be other costs particular to the event such as crime. Figures from the Metropolitan Police indicated approximately 230 people were arrested in 2012. Crime would break the reputation which costs invaluable loss for Noting Hill Carnival and need more police forces to maintain peace and the situation to the locality.
Therefore, government should make more effort to support the event by allocating resources of police and staffs in order to minimize the negative influence and opportunity costs in Notting Hill Carnival. 6. Conclusion To sum up, Notting Hill Carnival both has positive economic impact and negative economic impact for the locality. Positive economic impact is often related to event through advertising to promote the destination, attracting more visitors to join it, increasing incomes, creating the equivalent of employment and gaining the high profit.
In order to maximize the positive impact of Notting Hill Carnival, government should put emphasis on making appropriate policy to leverage the profit of private investment and sponsorship. And also, review the events experience to build on the skills and business possible development of Notting Hill Carnival. In addition, the host organiser could use the media and internet well to publicize the Notting Hill Carnival related activities. It could make the event to be well-known by different countries.
They could also provide the specific package schedule of the event by cooperating with hotels, restaurants, and transportations which could offer free shuttle buses to attract more and more international visitors to come to London to join this huge activity. However, successful development of resource could conduct to some negative economic impact of the event. To reduce the bad influence of monopolizing, the host organiser could build on the rules of sponsorship.
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