Caribbean Creatives July-Sept 2013 | Page 20

C Key Challenges A R I B B E A N C R E A T I V E S References: Bowden, G., McDonnell, I., Allen, J., O'Toole, W. (2008), Events Management, Butterworth-Heinemann, Oxford. Chouley, Ulrike et. al (2011). The Edinburgh Festivals Impact Study. A Study produced for Festivals Endinburg, Scotland. Nurse, Keith. (2003) Festival Tourism in the Caribbean . A Study produced for Inter-American Development Bank, Washington DC,. _______. (2002) Bringing Culture into Tourism: Festival Tourism and Reggae Sunsplash In Jamaica. Social and Economic Studies 51.1: 127-143. Nurse Keith and Jo-anne Tull (2005) An Economic Impact Assessment of Pirates Week, Cayman Islands, Pirates Week secretariat, Cayman Islands. ______ (2006) The World Creole Music Festival: An Economic Impact Assessment, Dominica National Development Commission, and Dominica. _________. (2012) Grenada Spice Mas: An Economic Impact Assessment, Government of Grenada, 2012. Sahely, Leah and Shirley Skeritt, (2003) St. Kitts Music Festival 2003: Economic Impact Assessment and Visitor Pro?le July. Tull, Jo-anne (2005) Money Matters ? Carnival 2005 , Institute of Carnival s Re?ections on Carnival 2005, April. ________. (2011) A Global Survey of Festivals , A study prepared for UNESCO Institute of Statistics, Quebec. The capacity to consistently and systematically collect data and measure festivals remains challenged in the region. Overall, there appears to be weak infrastructural and institutional capability for gathering and compiling festival statistics. There is also a general shortage of trained personnel. From a conceptual standpoint, this may in part be attributed to the general low priority given to the importance of gathering data on the cultural sectors at the national and regional levels of governance. In some respects, the relevance of collecting statistical data on festivals is not understood. In others, such activities are considered the domain and responsibility of the ministries of culture, festival associations or arts councils. As a result, it is often assumed that festivalrelated statistics are being subsumed under arts and heritage. At the operational level, gathering festival statistics has been plagued by some notable de?ciencies in the region: • limited ?nancial resources to conduct festival research; • unavailability and inability to access relevant statistical data that could usefully serve as secondary data within festival statistics; • poor response rates to survey instruments; and, • inaccurate data as a result of poor administration of survey instruments. The Way Ahead Notwithstanding the challenges, the current pool of festival economics research emanating from the region indicates that there is potential to develop the much needed competences and corresponding institutional capacities within the region. The latter could be done by way of developing a framework for measuring festivals and gathering festival statistics. Such a framework could be used as the regional standard for collecting festival data and compiling festival statistics. The framework proposed would do much to directly improve the skills sets across the region in the ?eld of festival economics Jo-­??Anne   Tull   is   a   Lecturer   &   Academic   Co-­?? ordinator   at   the   department   of   Creative   and   Festival   Arts,   Faculty   of   Humanities   and   Education,  UWI,  St   Augustine  Campus.  She  has   a  Ph.D.  in  International  Relations  and  a  B.A.  in   Public   Sector   Management   and   has   wri`en   extensively   on   the   creative   economy   in   the   Caribbean  Community. 20 www.creativeindustriesexchange.com Volume 5: July - September 2013