Beyond The Tangible, The Vigan City’s Binatbatan Festival Of The Arts: A Basis For A Policy Brief

Abstract

Festival conveys encouraging influence in drawing tourists, improving image of destination and supporting local communities. This study scanned “Binatbatan” festival of Vigan City from the point of view of organizers and visitors. Through a case study, the qualitative method was employed to understand the Festival underscoring, its origin, celebration schemes and the challenges on the people and the place, magnifying management strategies for ordinance implementation on various activity related to the culture and tradition of the locality. A Focus Group Discussions and interviews of respondents and visitors conducted were interpreted. The study realized that Festivals evolve through informal sociability; planning and coordination, as well as control, were vital, creating avenues for cultural and artistic appreciation and the formation of social capital, that the festivals shares four common success factors of ambiance, socialization, emotion and reflection; and that planning, budgeting, coordination, promotion as well as control  were vital to the celebrations and that festivals created avenues for job generation, cultural and artistic appreciation and formation of social capital.  Based on the findings, policy brief that act on the challenges met by the organizers in managing the festivals, were proposed.