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In this case, I am required to write an essay case study on the background of the culture and how it has impacted the country and communities by elaborating the cultural festival. As a festival involving the arrivals and participation of both tourists and visitors, I am required to analyses the relationship of the Hold festival and its contribution as a essential element of cultural tourism through critical analysis on its several impacts which that have been or potentially caused by globalization and the introduction of tourism development.
Lastly, a brief explanation on how to preserve and ensure a sustainable future for the younger generations is given. Name: Melvin Ian Kay Young Festivals, are often regarded as a form of unique factor that brings people of a reticular community together and has been well known throughout the ages where people in almost all parts of the world recognized the need to set aside daily activities and prioritize efforts of communal creativity and celebrations, (Turner, 1982).
According to Oxford Dictionaries, the origins of festival’ could be traced back to its Latin tem of festivals’ (singular) and Tests’ (plural) which means feast’. As festivals are considered to be an essential part of cultural aspect in societies, culture itself as a whole concept still remains as a debatable topic till today with any different standards and understanding by different researchers and studies, (Miles & Sullivan, 2010).
However, the earliest stage of cultural studies by the notable British anthropologist in 1871 defined culture as the complex component which involves knowledge, belief, art, morality law, customs, factors and attributes that plays a major role as being a strong influencing tool towards generating a particular identity for members of a society. Generally, festivals and events are believed to be the formal periods or programmer that consist forms of entertainment, pleasurable activities which people biblically celebrate in relation to a concept, happening or fact, Aniseed, 1980).
While an event is commonly referred as an occurrence happening at a particular place and time with or without human participation, (Business Dictionary, 2012). In views of festivals, events are occurrence which forms part of the festival programmer that gives a periodical feel to its festive nature. Thus, festival is defined as an infrequent but recurring social occasion which a respective community gathered by similar ethnic race, language, religion, historical past and lobar views in which through forms and series of coordinated events, involve the direct or indirect participation of the following members, (Falsie, 1987).
Though festival may also include artistic based events such theatrical performances, music and films festivals which consists of programmer that takes place on one or more temporary location with a clear starting and ending time, (Mordant et al. , 2005). However, on metropolitan context, festivals are categorized as a form of cultural event, which is interconnected with the culture and religion of local community highlighting the importance of one’s identity through communal art and ultra. Further in depth studies on recent work of festival by Polish and Slovakia geographers (Cuddy et al. 2012), explains the significant 4 characteristics of festival as being a varied, unconnected with work, consisting of many Deterrent Tort AT social Ana cultural events Tanat plays a major role In ten Tie AT a community. A conference paper on festivals by Dry Philip Long in 2008 further identified these forms of festivals as celebrations of particular cultural identities which are made up of ethnics’ community festival on basis of local, regional, national r international significance such as the notable Indian meals or Chinese New Year celebration.
It is also cited by the author to be organized using a festive led approach which is heavily based on the local cultural aspects that have been grounded in the destination over a long period of time while emphasizing on its authentic creativity and participation of local community members. In order to be properly identified as a festival, the event must first satisfy at least one or more criteria of a true festival which firstly includes the use of the term festival’ as part of the event name.
It must also be irregular and fit a one off basis concept such as being organized annually with a main purpose of celebrating, promoting and setting its priorities towards focusing on the local culture and background that would capture the attention of members of respective community to participate in the following cultural celebration and activities, (Gibson and Stewart, 2009). Therefore, it is clear that a festival is directly linked to a particular community’s culture and its people. However, if the presence and participation of visitors do exist, it would then be considered as a vital aspect of tourism.
The most common definition of tourism by UNTO is the social, cultural and economic phenomenon which describes the movement of people to places out of their usual environment for not more than a year for leisure or business purposes, a clearer relationship between the host population and its tourists could be examined in a explanation by Likewise, 1995 that it is the social cultural and economic phenomena which people voluntarily and temporarily change their place of residence for cognitive and recreation purpose to gain intellectual and emotional experiences.
This further clarifies that tourists are no longer those who are easily influenced by ‘sun and fun’ marketing strategies, they desire for quality and are purpose driven implicating that they are constantly searching for something to learn and do from their providers and the host community, (PR Newswire, 2009).
As society stands in the era of exploration and globalization, culture plays a great role in influencing the consumer behavior, marketing and branding competitiveness of the tourism industry causing extensive reproofing and ventilation by different countries and destinations through utilizing the support of festivals and events in the tourism industry, (Van Deepen and 5 Nine, 2010). This leads to the existence of a new type of tourism which is cultural tourism. Cultural tourism in travel and tourism context relates to several components which are the culture, ethnics, heritage, identity and history of a particular society, (King, 1994).
It is defined as the people’s movement for essentially cultural motivation, which includes study tours, performing arts, cultural tours, travel to festivals, visits to historic sites and monuments, folk lore and pilgrimage, (World Tourism Organization, Being a part AT ten cultural tourism Ministry, Trot countries to regions across he globe, ranging from the smaller size of community to the mega scale mass audiences festivals and events have been recognized as the most attractive and contributing form of leisure tourism, (Get, 1991).
While festival indeed attract tourist and visitors to one particular destination, the main objective of such form of tourism is to stimulate tourists to become fascinated with a new and exotic culture expecting to gain new cultural experience of another particular society such as the tasting and feeling of exotic food and places respectively, (Impeacher, 2002; Quinn, 2010).
What is ore unique of festivals is that it provide the sense of celebration and festive communal ambiance that encourages and provides the opportunity for festival goers to Join in for the out-of-everyday life experience such as attending an unfamiliar event, meeting people with similar passion and interest while striving to improve knowledge and self esteem. On a community’s perspective, festivals being an essential part of cultural tourism bring many positive benefits towards a host community and may also boost the destination overall development and raise local regeneration and liveliness.
While activates aims to attract visitors to arrive and experience its local distinctiveness, it serves as a method of establishing a better identity, community pride, sense of belonging and unity fostering a strong community atmosphere, bonding and contributes many positive social and cultural impacts, (Backbencher and Sins, 1992). It is also observed that cultural festivals acts as a medium to build excellent understanding and cross cultural communication between the host and its visitor, (Astral and Chapin, 2007).
Cultural festivals and events can also lead to positive direct and indirect economic impacts produced by visiting tourists serving as an increasing economic factor to most travel and hospitality components, (Litton and Fetter, 2006) improving the foreign exchange while promoting in flow of revenue, investments and infrastructural development all in generally improving the living standard of the respective destination community. By organizing cultural 6 festivals and events, it also opens up many opportunities for direct and indirect employment in the service sector, (Backbone, 2007).
Generally, being an important asset of cultural tourism had led festivals to become one of the fastest growing forms f tourist attraction in modern times, (Crampon and Mckay, 1997). Through festivals, we can identify cohesiveness between the host community and its visitors, as both parties share equal benefits and the capability to achieve their desired expectation and satisfaction. Therefore, it is crucial that one must analyses the background of a particular culture in relation to the respective festival and identify how it could possibly be considered as a high impact and popular festival in context of cultural tourism industry.
As we identified the importance of a particular community, its religion, language, customs Ana Tasteless Delving essential sources AT a Lovers culture, want would probably match the diversity the national slogan of ‘Incredible’, is the country India which is globally known as a country incredibly well known for its diversity, biological and cultural resources. Being the second country to officially cross the one billion population mark, It stands as the second most populated country in the world with 1,210. 0 million as of the census of India 2011, with a decal growth of 17. 64% (181 million people) residing across 24 states and 8 Union Territories of the country, ), (Figure 1). Figure 1. The Indian Population 2001 – 2011 Source: http://censuring. Gob. In/2011-prop results/data_files/India/pop_popup_total_presentation_2011 . PDF 7 India cultural and historical past could be well dated back to as early as its Vivid period, which is further enriched by the evolution of religion and language making it as one of the earliest civilization to exist in our world.
This greatly signifies its strong background formed by the impacts of the many powerful kingdoms and dynasties across time leading to assimilation of subgroups from different eras and regions that has encouraged direct integration with one another thus resulting in a high degree f cultural dynamic and variation in the country. The country also represents the cradle of several religions including the oldest form of religion Zoroastrian, Hinduism, Buddhism, Jansenism, Schism along with a long existence of Islam, (Dads, 2006).
What supports a more diversely defined country would be the co existence of different cultural background of aborigines and local communities that supports the enrichment of cultural diversity in a country as compared to other countries where members of their society are usually dominated or eliminated by only one homogeneous race such as England, United States and Korea consisting of lesser eaters of diversified culture, (Alai, 2010).
India, differentiates itself from the others existing as a country without implementation of any particular social vacuum whereby significantly larger communities do not absorb or dominate the other smaller ones. Instead, India possess the tendency to nurture its collection of diversity as abundance of cultural identity plays a major role in representing their people thus defining the many different communities, sects, Stats segregated across the country.
This has well developed a cultural significance and a pluralistic form of national ultra identity, (Gads and Gush, 1992 ; Sings, 1998). As often how one person from the West perceived Indian language to be often associated with Sanskrit and its holiness of religious elements while the Far East to consider the typical spicy food of curry along with the majority of most nationality around ten world to perceiver In tenet mall AT ten IANAL language to consist AT only either Hindi and Tamil made popular by Plywood and Kowloon film and media industry of Modern India.
As of the 1991 census, Modern India has a total collection of 216 recognized mother tongues, consisting of four different language families with Indo Aryan/European language standing as the most spoken (19 languages, total population of 75. 28%) followed by Dravidian (17 languages, total population of 22. 53%), Status Chiantis (14 languages, total population, 1. 13%) and Sino-Tibetan (62 languages, total population of 0. 97%), (Figure 2). 8 Figure 2. State and respective language diasporas in India Source: http://www. Languidness’s. Com/appraisal/stenographers . HTML In addition to the abundance of languages, India is cited also as the top linguistic features spread across its languages families, communities are grounded and acclimated by their cultural exchange and co existence for ages and centuries interacting with one another from day to day, (Bloch, 1934 ; Mean, 1956). Past and present migration by Indians across different states and region also has proven the increased of linguistic capabilities and nationwide social identity of its people signifying language contact as the major catalyst for cross social and cultural interaction, (Millenarian, 2004).
According to a POI (People of India) survey project, it is observed there is an extensive growth in bilingualism from 13. 4% to 64. 2% from the 1971 and 1985 and was expected to increase even further. This had led to 9 India to possess very strong background of cultural development and promotes multilingualism, (Figure 3). Figure 3. Sharing of Languages – Speakers of Major Languages 1991 Census Source: http://www. Languidness’s. Com/appraisal/stenographers. HTML Though communities are subject to be heavily grounded by its religion background, they remained living close and interact with one another. This has created a synergistic growth in cultural bonding with one another. Indian anthropologist Waggoner Sings explained that “the fact that local cultures of castes, ethnicity and immunities dispersed over four thousand entities which lends itself to rationalization of culture zones into 91 configurations affirms the presence of linkage Ana Interaction Detente local Ana trans local cultural molestations”, (Slang, 2 46 – 47).
With people distributed across India and bounded by its unique cultural distinctiveness, festivals play a very important role in each society and community. Through festivals and fairs, communities have gained social, economical, cultural and artistic benefits as they play a major cultural element and have well blended with religious elements in the country.
One may assumed a Buddhist practitioner in India to celebrate only Buddhism related festivals and fairs, however there are many inter religion admixture in between and across borders of diverse communities of India, such as Attar Pradesh, Karakas, Gujarat and Punjab, is it found to have a significant community of neo Buddhist who celebrates both 10 Hindu and Buddhism festivals at the same time paying religious homage to variety of Hindu deities.
In northern regions, one can observed the prominent Schism faith communities to visit guarders at the same celebrating Hindu based festivals such s Hold, Dalai and Lori, while in Himalaya Pradesh region, one can find a great cultural synchronization between religion and daily life customs whereby Hindus and Sikhs inter marry with one another, (Sings, 1995:130). On the other hand, the Satanism sect in Chastiser region follows strict Satang pant as their main religion closely related to true Schism despite celebrating Hold, Dalai without the presence of a Brahmas priests, (Dads, 2000).
With unparalleled cultural and historical dynamic, no doubt it represents the key driver of destination branding for tourism reposes to both international and domestic market. Being the third largest earner of foreign exchange, the tourism industry acts as an essential role in the Indian tourism market providing significant socio economic benefits through employment, income, foreign exchange and additional positive externalities and contribution to other industries such as agriculture and construction, (Boniface and Cooper, 2005).
India is ranked 1 lath in the Asia pacific region and 65th out of 140 tourism competitiveness index with an average annual growth rate of 16. 3 % on the World Economic Forum’s Travel and Tourism Competitiveness Report. At its growing stage, India had at least 1057 million tourists arriving in 2012 and arrivals are expected to grow by 6. 2% over the next decade and expected total spending amounting to INNER 2958 Billion at the rate of 9. % per annum, (Ministry of Tourism India, 2012). Tourism brings many positive impacts to India, among the most significant contribution are the economical benefits towards building a strong GAP of the nation, generating total of INNER 222 in 2013 itself. Additionally, tourism of India also secures 25 million Jobs which consist of 4. 9% of national direct tourism employment which expected to increase to 31 million by the next decade.
If taken into consideration of its multiplier effect, tourism may approximately supports up to 40 million Jobs which makes up of 7. 7% of entire employment in the country, This has also supported many AT ten Industry development sun as accommodations, transportation, T beverages and travel facilities through capital investment which amounts to a total of 6. 2% of total investment in the Indian economy, (WATCH, 2013).
While newer concepts of travel such as adventure, luxurious cruise and MICE are gradually being introduced to both international and domestic travel markets, no bout social, 11 cultural and religious travel is expected and still remains as the largest contributor proudly boosting its rich natural and cultural assets consisting of 28 world heritage sites, 25 bio geographical zones with a 7,000 km long coastline offering rich cultural heritage through religions, traditions, fairs and festivals, (KEMP, 2013).
Regardless of following trends of others, it is the cultural elements, the main image projected by the India tourism boards and promotions that is utilized for tourism. Examples such as ‘Hindustan aka Dill Decked’ and ‘PM Lab Hay, Sable Gala Hay’ which means ‘Take a kook at Indian’s Heart’ and ‘Madhya Pradesh is Miraculous, All in is Wonderful’ respectively, we can observed that India strongly emphasized on its vivid colors and cultural heritage to promote tourism.
Festivals are among the key cultural elements that are highly prioritize by India tourism with each state and respective communities having their own variety of associated festivals, fairs and events often associated with local mass participation and occasionally as a form of activity related to pilgrimage. Thus, many have been strongly integrated as part of Indian’s diversified tourism products. Each state in India hosts unique seasonal festival which may last up to a few days or perhaps weeks.
Several prominent large festivals such as the North Eastern Durra Pupas festival in Kola, Ganges Cathartic Festival in Western state of Iambi and Mona festival in the South western state of Kraal can be found celebrated annually each promoting its very own communal distinctiveness and creativity while recent festival concepts such as the International Mango festival of New Delhi are being integrated as newer forms of festivals and fairs.
During such mass appealing festivals, people of both locals and tourists gathered gather to experience Indian’s uniqueness where people appreciate and enjoy these festivals as they are often considered interesting and participative. As such, many festivals and fairs have been included in the circuit concept of destinations of many northern states of India, where it has been developed by Joint support from the Centre, state and private sectors into a part of Indian’s unique cultural tourism packages.
However Hold is among the one interesting festival which has been largely celebrated across history by most northern states of India made popular by its seductiveness cultural features and mass participation. Hence, this essay assignment explores the significance of Hold, a traditional and popular Indian festival of colors that can be found predominately almost all areas across the world with the community of Hinduism Indian origin. It explores the cultural background behind the formation of the festival and discusses on how it play a major role in the respective community.
Lastly, it explores the issues that surround the conduction of the traditional festival and how it exists as part of a key element of cultural tourism. Background study of Hold Festival Hold, also known as the festival of colors’, is an annual religious spring festival celebrated by the Hindu communities both in India and its worldwide Diasporas. It is the festival where streets are filled with Joys and friendliness of people arriving from different social groups and ages interacting with one another through fun and colorful participation.
Not only it is deemed popular festival, Hold has been featured by many travel publishers and media as an essential festival throughout society. According to Lonely Planet India 2013, it is cited as the ‘North Indian’s most ecstatic activates’, while online travel sites such as Buzzed Travel ranked Hold festival as the ‘2nd world festival you won’t want to miss in your life’, (Perez, 2013). Founded throughout time, religion and cultural background, the presence of the festival can be felt across most Hindu communities across the world.
Hold, the term for the festival is directly borrowed from the Hindi word of њ’ which means bonfire and has its roots from Sanskrit word of ‘halo’ which means burning. In western context, it is defined as the spring festival, held at the approach of the vernal equinox, during the 10 days preceding the full moon of the month Phalanx. It is a sort of carnival in honor of Krishna and the milk-maids. Passer-boys are chaffed, and pelted with red powder, or drenched with yellow liquids from squints.
Songs, mostly obscene, are sung in praise of Krishna, and dances performed round fires, (Crooks, 1986. 425). Generally, the main concept behind the communal festival is to celebrate the end of winter and the coming of a new, vivid and lively spring specifically during the month of Phalanx in the Hindu calendar which is in March of the modern Gregorian calendar. Though the festival actually begins roughly ten days before the full moon of Phalanx month (March), priority is placed towards the last few and the full moon day itself which signifies the actual start of the festival, (Savanna, 2000).
As complexity is concerned, it is indeed difficult to trace back its origins of the festival. However, there are historical indications which can be directed back towards its origins as it being a key element of the religion of Hinduism. Historically, the term Hindu can be traced back to its founding of the civilization of Indus which the people were then known as Sinuous, which Persians later replaced the 13 Melvin Tan Kay Young Name.