To gain a more comprehensive understanding of the current situation and development process of festivals and special events, a hot field of tourism research, this paper gathers 1 287 festivals and special event-related CSSCI articles in the CNKI database from 1999 to 2019 using CiteSpace, a document visualization software to draw knowledge graphs of festivals and special events in terms of authors, research organizations, keywords, and so on. The results show that, first, domestic festival research can be roughly divided into four stages: the start-up stage (1999—2002), preliminary development stage (2003—2008), rapid rise stage (2009—2011), and steady development stage (2012—2019). In particular, the practical effects of large-scale domestic festivals and the guidelines of state policy documents are important factors that bring about changes in the themes and content of festival research. There are four major domestic research teams with an obvious lack of communication and cooperation. The research institutions mainly consist of sports education colleges, tourism colleges, and university research centers at the undergraduate level. Over time, they have expanded from universities in eastern coastal provinces to universities in inland provinces such as Sichuan, Chongqing, Shaanxi, Henan, and Hunan. Research academics have paid close attention to festivals, but the research perspective is still relatively limited, and the research content must be enriched. It is suggested that in the future, more attention should be paid to community festival activities, innovative research methods, research on festival-oriented education, social, cultural, and environmental impacts of festivals, and the analysis of failed festival cases.

The objective of attending an exhibition is a topic of significant interest in the academic field. However, studies paying attention to how a business’s nature, scale, and distance from the exhibition affect the exhibition’s objectives are scarce. The present study investigated 768 exhibitors who participated in eight exhibitions in Chengdu and Chongqing. Exploratory factor analysis (EFA), confirmatory factor analysis (CFA), and multi-factor multivariate analysis of variance (ANOVA) were used, and the results found that: (1) the objectives of exhibiting enterprises include 13 indicators in four categories: relationship building, image building and maintenance, interactive learning and social network construction, and sales; (2) domestic enterprises attach importance to the four types of exhibition purposes in the following order: sales, image building and maintenance, relationship building, interactive learning, and social network construction; meanwhile, among the 13 indicators, “getting acquainted with new customers, establishing and maintaining enterprise image, and exploring new markets” are the three most important exhibition objectives of enterprises; (3) The nature, scale, and distance of the exhibitors’ enterprise significantly affect the objectives of exhibiting, with agents, micro-enterprise exhibitors, and medium-distance exhibitors focusing on “sales” as the main objective of exhibiting, while manufacturers attach the most importance to “image building and maintenance” as the objective of exhibiting. Agents and service providers are more concerned with “interactive learning and social networking construction,” while close exhibitors are most concerned with “relationship building.” Finally, we propose suggestions for exhibitors and organizers to improve the effectiveness and benefits of exhibitions, respectively.

This study explores factors influencing community members’ ethnic identity in relation to festivals and depicts the differences. The Multi-group Ethnic Identity Measure (MEIM) in the form of a questionnaire survey is conducted on the Yi ethnic community members attending the Yi Torch Festival in Sichuan Province, China. This study employs quantitative methods, including exploratory factor analysis, confirmatory factor analysis, and multivariate variance analysis. The results show that the ethnic identity of festival attendees is reflected in two dimensions: ethnic identity commitment and ethnic identity exploration. Moreover, while the level of community tourism development is negatively correlated with members’ ethnic identity commitment, there is a positive correlation between the improvement of ethnic groups and their enthusiasm for and frequency of participating in community ethnic festivals. There is no clear difference in ethnic identity commitment between the festival performers and the festival spectators. However, as active participants of the festival, performers score much higher on ethnic identity exploration than spectators. Meanwhile, frequent participants exhibit greater levels of ethnic identity commitment and exploration than occasional participants. Gender and the level of education also play a vital role in personal ethnic identity. In comparison to the Yi females, the Yi males have higher ethnic identity commitment and exploration, while the educational level also affects the degree of ethnic identity commitment in a U-shaped pattern. This study is the first study applying MEIM in festival research and demonstrates the applicability of the MEIM scale in studying ethnic festivals.