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Julie Jackson is a senior lecturer in the School of Tourism and Hospitality at La Trobe University, Australia. She is a past Deputy Head of the school and coordinates the honours programme. Her research interests lie in the application of statistical methodology including survey design and analysis, sampling theory and econometric modelling to areas as diverse as market research, Total Quality Management and economic analysis. Her recent research has focused on tourism and regional development. She is currently the principal researcher on a major project on regional festivals and events, funded by the Cooperative Research Centre for Sustainable Tourism. She is a foundation member of the Albury-Wodonga Tourism Taskforce.Peter Murphy is Foundation Chair and Head of the School of Tourism and Hospitality at La Trobe University, Australia. He has been involved with regional development issues for many years, especially in terms of the tourism opportunities that exist in this regard. He has not only published widely in this area, but has been a major facilitator in regional tourism development. In BC Canada he helped to create the destination agency 'Tourism Victoria' for the capital regional district on Vancouver Island. He became an executive board member of that agency (annual revenue of over Aus$4m) and was a regular consul-tant to the provincial government and many rural communities. : clusters, industrial districts, regional tourism, New World, porter This paper responds to the recent paper by Hjalager (2000) which analyses tourism destinations in Europe within the framework of the industrial districts model (Piore and Sabel, 1984). Hjalager finds that despite tourism destinations having many of the identifying characteristics of industrial districts, there are elements of these destinations that defy the theory, which hamper their ability to cooperate in destination development and promotion. This paper su,\?gests the use of Porter's (1998) cluster model as an extension of the industrial district model and as a broader analytical framework for measuring the success of tourism destinations. Two regional tourist destinations outside Europe are analysed within this framework. The authors find that the cluster model is a suitable analytical jramewotk and that tourism destinations in the 'New World' are likely to be quite receptive to working cooperatively to develop their product. ABSTRACT KEYWORDS

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Festivals and events are increasingly important to the tourism industry, especially in regional areas, where the possible sources of gross regional product are more limited than in metropolitan areas. In recognition of the potential economic contribution of arts festivals and other special events to regional economies, there is a need for a rigorous and replicable model/methodology for assessing such impacts. A project initiated in the state of Victoria, Australia, by Arts Victoria, constituting the development of a software tool, the Festivals Do-it-Yourself (DIY) kit, enables regional event organizers to assess the economic impact of their events to the region simply and relatively inexpensively. As well as providing information to the festival organizers, the results for festivals are able to be compared by external sponsors and stakeholders. A key to the successful application of the kit was the dissemination project discussed in this article. Preliminary results from the use of the DIY kit and reactions of some users are also presented.

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