The Explanation of Art and Cultural Activities Participation Frenquency among Cities and Counties of Taiwan Area: The Macro Perspective

[[abstract]]With gradual increase of leisure time and discretionary income, Taiwanese people have come to value leisure activities more and more. In this paper, the concept of applying the aggregate of individual characteristics as the overall variables shall be adopted to study, using the aspects of ?supply of activities? and ?socio-economic development? as two variances, the overall and supply factors that have an effect on Taiwanese people?s participation in leisure activities. The purposes of this paper are to: 1. Examine the types and frequencies of leisure activities Taiwanese people participate in. 2. Investigate the impact of supply of leisure activities on Taiwanese people?s participation in leisure activities. 3. Discuss the influence of overall socio-economic characteristics on Taiwanese people?s participation in leisure activities. Arts and cultural activities are cited in this paper as examples ? using cultural statistics from the Council for Cultural Affairs, demographic statistics from the Ministry of The Interior, household income and expenditure survey results from the Directorate General of Budget, Accounting and Statistics, as well as compiled regional data of urban development from the Council for Economic Planning and Development over the years for analysis. Besides the one with more general purposes, these arts and cultural activities are categorized according to the classification of the Council for Cultural Affairs into six major groups, namely fine arts, music, dance, theater, folk performances and lectures. A regression model is then employed to evaluate the variances of each group, including the ?size of the exhibition/performance venue and number of seats? and ?number of exhibitions/performances of each group? from the supply aspect, and the ?average discretionary income of each county/city? and ?ratio of population employed in the tertiary sector in each county/city? from the socio-economic aspect. The results show: 1. In supply, there is more significant influence from the ?number of exhibitions/performances? than from the ?size of the exhibition/performance venue and number of seats?. 2. In overall socio-economic development, the impact from the ?ratio of population employed in the tertiary sector in each county/city? is more significant than ?discretionary income?. In line with the results, this paper suggests: 1. When planning leisure environments, county/city governments should work from the supply aspect to guide people to participate in more diverse leisure activities at higher frequencies and increase the number of exhibitions/performances of arts and cultural activities instead of getting blinded by the myth of investing in more and more hardware facilities such as building culture centers and fine arts museums that are not as significant. 2. In the future, researches on similar topics should be expanded from arts and cultural activities to other types of activities and make their content more substantial and more comprehensive