Papua New Guinea's Indigenous Cultural Festivals: Cultural Tragedy or Triumph?

Abstract

Indigenous cultural festivals are increasingly being recognized for their contribution to the growth and vitality of communities around the globe. Such festivals invigorate the communication and celebration of indigenous culture, tradition, and rituals. Additionally, indigenous cultural festivals are often used as a draw card to attract tourists to a host destination and contribute to the development of the region. In Papua New Guinea (PNG), festivals have long been essential to community life and are fundamental in sharing and sustaining Indigenous culture. More recently, local communities and the PNG Government alike are recognizing that these festivals have the capacity to facilitate development of the country's embryonic tourism and event industry. The purpose of this qualitative research was to identify and examine cultural festivals in PNG, to develop a footprint of indigenous cultural festivals in PNG, and explore the extent to which tourism influences the cultural commodification of indigenous cultural festivals in PNG. Weaver and Lawton's cultural commodification model provided theoretical scaffolding for the development of the PNG Indigenous Festival Cultural Commodification Framework, which revealed that overall, cultural festivals in PNG are a relatively unspoiled resource. To date, tourism has had little influence on the festivals, which celebrate, among other things, PNG culture and traditions. However as tourism in PNG gains momentum, arguably a key issue will be the extent to which tourism development adopts the principles of sustainability and, concomitantly, avoids turning a triumph into a tragedy as a result of over commodification of PNG indigenous cultural festivals.

Community Events: Committees, Challenges, And Cooperation

“…As cultural tourism is one of the fastest growing forms of tourism, destinations benefit when visitors have the opportunity to experience unique cultural settings, thereby sustaining cultural practices. Furthermore, indigenous cultural festivals are celebrations of local culture reconfirming a sense of identity through shared values (Donlon, Donlon, & Agrusa, 2010;Page & Connell, 2012;Whitford & Dunn, 2014) where residents are the central component. In the case of Highland Games and every competitive event, the competitors are key to a successful outcome although the sustain many events as an essential organized workforce.…”

Residents' perception of festival impacts and satisfaction: a focus on Zanzibar international film festival (ZIFF)

“…The continuity of festivals significantly depends on the satisfaction of the local residents with their offerings, and this in turn depends on their perceptions of the festivals themselves (Lawton and Weaver, 2015). Local residents' satisfaction and their perceptions of a festival is considered to be paramount as they are deemed the rightful owners of the festivals (Whitford and Dunn, 2014), and thus are able to influence the longevity of the festival in question. It has been shown that positive perceptions of a festival by local residents enhances their satisfaction and support for the festival, and thus increases the chances of continuity and longevity of the festival itself (Song et al , 2015).…”

Paragliding festival: understanding stakeholder perception of environmental attitudes and tourism performance

“…These Kwahu returnees were likely to focus on networking and exploiting business opportunities associated with the tourism events, as suggested by several authors (e.g. Quinn, 2006;Whitford and Dunn, 2014). Non-Kwahu Ghanaian tourists might not have experienced the paragliding festival before their visit, would come with high expectations and might seek the opportunity to build business relations and marketing networks.…”

“…Globally recognised festivals include Gezici Festival or “Festival on Wheels” in Turkey (Odabasi, 2016); the environmental art festival held in the Noosa Biosphere in Australia (Marks et al , 2016) and the “Olojo and Ojude Oba” festivals in south-western Nigeria (Agbabiaka et al , 2017). Festival tourism is a well-developed concept of “event tourism” and a place-marketing tool that is deliberately created with clear objectives of branding and re-positioning the city or communities for sustainable development (Felsenstein and Fleischer, 2003; Quinn, 2006; Whitford and Dunn, 2014). Interestingly, paragliding has become a recreational sport for repositioning some rural communities as tourist destinations (Costa and Chalip, 2005).…”