Visitors’ satisfaction, perceived quality, and behavioral intentions: the case study of exit festival

Abstract

Events organized to promote the cultural values of destinations increase tourism diversity and activities. Over 2000 different events are organized annually in Serbia, and music festivals are the most visited. One of them is EXIT festival. The EXIT festival is one of the biggest cultural and social projects running in Serbia based on the concept of modern European festivals. For the past eighteen years, Novi Sad has been hosting one of the largest, or even the largest international event in Serbia, which has attracted over 200,000 visitors, half of whom are foreign visitors. This study explored the relationships between the perceived quality of festival performance and experience factors (traffic and information, hygiene and safety, culture and art, socialization, infrastructure and products and services), behavioral intention and the overall visitor’s satisfaction intending to test a mediating role of the overall visitor’s satisfaction. For this purpose, data were collected from a sample of 557 EXIT festival visitors in Novi Sad in July 2016.