earticle

영어

This study purposed to examine the impacts of ecological festivals, which are held based on the environmental characteristics of eco‐tourists’ destinations, by surveying local residents’ perception of such festivals. For this purpose, we took the case of ‘the Reed Festival in the Suncheon Bay’ and surveyed the local residents’ attitude toward and intention to participate in the festival in order to understand how the local residents perceive the environmental, social and cultural effects of the festival on the community and to provide useful information for reducing negative impacts of the festival and increasing its benefits. According to the results of examining the effects of the ecological festival, the positive effects of the festival were perceived more positively and its negative effects were perceived less negatively. Thus, in order to enhance the positive effects of the festival and to induce local residents’ continuous participation in the festival, it is necessary to plan how to manage the reed fields and fishing grounds and to develop environment‐friendly profit‐making businesses. What is more, as interest in ecological environment is rising throughout the world, all the residents of the community with distinguished ecological resources should make active efforts to preserve the Suncheon Bay and environment education programs should be developed continuously in order to support the efforts.