Harbin, lanterns of ice, sculptures of snow

The purpose of this study was to investigate the motivation of those visiting the Harbin Ice Lantern and Snow Festival using an existing cross-cultural instrument and to determine the reliability of this instrument in different cultural festival situations. The motivational factors were compared with similar studies conducted for Jordanian and North American festivals, using very similar questionnaire items. The results of the Harbin study differ a little from the Jordan study and appear to be more similar to the North American studies. The consistency of the results for the above studies, despite Likert scale cultural bias and variations in festival themes, access and management, suggests that this instrument will be valuable to festival planners and marketers for the monitoring or motivational factors for festival attendance. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.