Film festivals tourism impact. Case study: ClujShorts International Shorts Film Festival, Romania

Abstract

The present study aims to make a brief analysis of festivals as events in general, and film festivals in particular, and consists of two distinct parts: the complexity of the impact factors of festivals on the phenomenon of tourism and a case study attention ClujShorts Film Festival. The first part is a theoretical introspection on the fields / directions of impact deriving from this type of human activity and we will refer, successively, to the financial side, the tourist side (strictly from the point of view of the destination) and the socio-cultural side, trying thus to completely cover the main angles of the approach. We have tried to focus on each the three sectors in order to highlight the benefits deriving from the development of this type of activity. The second part of the article makes a brief foray into the main film festivals in Romania, and is continued with the analysis of the results of a questionnaire survey, applied within the Cluj Shorts film festival, 2019 edition, and 2020 online. The questionnaire was constructed so that the results are relevant in order to be able to draw the profile of the participating tourist, as well as to emphasize the main elements of the tourist infrastructure that are preferred by the participants. Even if the data on the tourist flow in Cluj Napoca in April (the month in which the festival usually takes place) cannot be separated in terms of exact origin, the analysis of the trend in recent years shows that this international film event has an undoubted contribution in consolidating the city as a complex cultural tourist destination.