Franchising Readiness for Inward Internationalization of Local Annual Events: The Role of International Languages in Events Management Competitiveness
By
Abbey Mutumba
Lecturer/Department of Leisure and Hospitality
Dr. Atcero Milburga*
Senior Lecturer & Head/Department of Leisure and Hospitality
Michelle Kiconco
Lecturer/Department of Leisure and Hospitality
* PRESENTER
Abstract
Tourism is a priority sector under Uganda’s Vision 2040 strategy. Globally appealing but locally developed events are attracting international tourists from around the world to Uganda. For instance, the concerts of Eddy Kenzo of the ‘Sitya Loss’ music fame and Moses Golola’s international kick-boxing matches have respectively attracted entertainment tourists from USA, Europe, Asia and other African countries to Uganda. The socio-economic benefits from the inward internationalization of such events are yet to be explored through an international franchising strategy based on other global languages like French, Germany, Arabic and Chinese. An exploratory study is needed to appreciate the role of such international languages in the event organizers’ capability and willingness (readiness) to competitively use the franchising strategy in attracting more international tourists to Uganda’s top local annual events.
This study aims at exploring the events quality management, media coverage, approximate gate collections, geographical scope and sales percentage from the international tourists who are attracted to Uganda’s top annual local events in showbiz, film, fashion and sports. Understanding such contextual issues will enable the researchers to appreciate the respective events organizers’ readiness for the franchising approach towards continued inward internationalization. The need to interpret the respective events in their contexts will guide the data collection and analysis (methodology) through an appreciative inquiry approach to this theory building/qualitative study (Knight & Cross, 2012; Neuman, 2007; Bacharach, 1989). Preliminary findings are showing that there is some inward internationalization of the above events through internationally authorized agents (franchisees) who speak different global languages. A saturation point of 10-15 events organizers as the key informants (Manson, 2010) are to be interviewed by the researchers and their research assistants or interviewers who are to be trained for at least three (3) days.
The resulting narrative, vignettes, matrices, complementary figures and the conceptual framework are to be used to add to the understanding of the complexity approach to readiness for the events franchising strategy in developing countries like Uganda. Empirically-supported and theoretically-founded recommendations are to be generated for the wider tourism sector.