Abstract

During the last decade of the 20th century, there has been an evidence of intensive growth of the economic role and importance of events within developed countries and transition countries economies. The economic role and importance of events might be achieved only if the planning, staging and taking place of the events are well managed. The economic importance of events brought about the competition between festivals and the need to analyse factors affecting customer satisfaction and loyalty within the customer attraction strategy. This study represents the results of a questionnaire research conducted during the 50th anniversary of brass bands music festival in Guca (The Republic of Serbia) in August 2010. The results were based on 300 questionnaires sheets distributed. The research is aimed at establishing the model for analyzing the factors affecting customer satisfaction with the event. The factor analysis generated six factors: "Traffic and information", "hygiene and safety", "culture and art", "socialization", "infrastructure", "products and services". Using an importance-performance analysis (IPA), this paper examined visitors’ perceived importance and performance of remote factors.

Key words: Event management, festivals, consumer satisfaction, importance-performance analysis.