Festival as creative destination

The Edinburgh "Festival" positions the city via creativity. Its success in attracting audiences for the performing arts contrasts with the limited extent it appears to modify the general image of Scotland among its tourists. Three styles of consumption are considered: Edinburgh as a tourism-historic city; Scottish performing arts; and international performing arts. The festival is judged successful in its international arts positioning in terms of the core of serious repeat tourists it attracts, but much less so in modifying the image of Scotland as a "landscape and tradition" destination. It is suggested that if the focus of consumption is not seen as typical of a wider destination, familiarity will not necessarily impel changes in how the destination is imagined