LOST IN MAYBERRY/MOUNT AIRY : IMPORTANCE OF TOURIST PROFILES IN SUSTAINABLE TOURISM PLANNING

Abstract

In sustainable tourism planning it is essential to understand the type of tourist attending and determine the temporal sustainability or longevity of pop-culture festivals, especially those focused around film and television. Mount Airy, North Carolina, was physically transformed in the 1980s to mirror Mayberry, the fictional town of television's The Andy Griffith Show and is currently home to the Mayberry Days Festival. This thesis examines the Mayberry Days Festival to develop a typology of festival visitors and the influence of The Andy Griffith Show on the attendee's motivations. Online survey invitation cards were distributed during the 2010 Mayberry Days Festival in order to gather data on the socio-demographic characteristics, motivations, perceptions, and economic impact of the attendee. Additionally, a framework was developed to identify and analyze the different tourist profiles based on the attendee's behaviors and characteristics to comprehend how sustainable the Mayberry Days Festival will be for Mount Airy in the future. Results suggest that visitors are drawn to Mount Airy for a variety of reasons and that The Andy Griffith Show is not necessarily the main motivator. Long term success of Mount Airy tourism is perhaps linked to building upon it's small town nostalgic image which can be independent of it's association of television.