Tackling Territorial Fragilities: Does Visitors' Engagement Matter? The Active Involvement During Local Food Festivals

This study proposes an explorative model examining the visitors’ involvement during the participation to local food festivals held in small-sized peripheral destinations. A sample of 70 visitors attending to a popular event repeated annually in the municipality of Castellalto in Abruzzo region was surveyed and, through the application of three latent constructs borrowed by the experience economy theory, the active and passive involvement of event’s participants were tested on their overall perceptions. The application of a structural equation model reveals that the visitors’ overall perceptions are positively influenced by their active involvement during the event, where the most relevant determinants are those related to the hedonic and emotional dimension. The related policy implications are discussed.