Resumen de The significance of festivals to regional economies: measuring the economic value of the Grahamstown National Arts Festival in South Africa

Melville Saayman, Riaan Rossouw

• This paper estimates the economic value of South Africa�s longest running national arts festival, the Grahamstown National Arts Festival in the Eastern Cape Province. The Eastern Cape is a middleincome province (6.6% of national GDP), settles 9.6% of the South African population and has a high unemployment rate. A survey was conducted in July 2009, with 450 visitors completing a structured questionnaire at various sampling locations across the festival area.

  A social accounting matrix (SAM) for the province was used to estimate the economic value of the arts festival to the region�s economy (adopting the classical SAMs multiplier approach) with visitor depending data. This research shows that the festival makes a significant contribution to revenue generation as well as to job creation, thereby confirming that investments made by government in arts and culture can address economic objectives.