The Process of Festivalization Througsssh the Formation and Production of Regional Culture: Focusing on the Gangneung Coffee Festivalss

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

The Gangneung Coffee Festival has continually developed through the collaboration between the city of Gangneung and its local residents, emerging as a unique regional festival centered around coffee culture. Since its inception in 2009, the Gangneung Coffee Festival has played a crucial role in advancing the coffee industry and cultural development in Gangneung, while also boosting the local economy and increasing the festival’s value as a tourism resource. The initial development and operation of the festival were driven by the contributions of first-generation Korean baristas who settled in Gangneung, highlighting the region’s coffee culture, especially through the "roasting & brewing" style. This particular focus was further commercialized and promoted for tourism through organizational restructuring and collaboration among local private broadcasters, local governments, and related organizations.
Ultimately, the festival became a key catalyst for embedding coffee culture as a cultural asset within Gangneung's local community, fostering its development and growth. Externally, the festival introduced Gangneung’s coffee culture to tourists through various programs, including experiential activities such as the "stamp tour," where visitors explored specialized coffee shops. This helped to showcase Gangneung’s charm and attracted a significant number of tourists each year, becoming a crucial driver for local business and tourism revitalization.
Visitors, through their coffee-centered experiences, interacted with local residents and developed positive perceptions of the region. This positioned Gangneung as a central destination for coffee tourism and helped to strengthen the region's economic and cultural assets, solidifying its identity as the "City of Coffee." The Gangneung Coffee Festival offers local residents a source of pride and provides external tourists with opportunities to experience the region’s coffee culture, playing a significant role in establishing Gangneung as a "coffee tourism destination." This regional identity, in turn, links to the local economy, creating both direct and indirect ripple effects on the regional economy.
The growth of the festival has directly contributed to the quantitative and qualitative development of local coffee shops, and the coffee industry—centered around roasting & brewing—has become an important economic asset for the region. Indirectly, the festival has also had a positive impact on local businesses and the tourism industry. As a successful example of simultaneous cultural and economic development, the Gangneung Coffee Festival demonstrates the importance of cultivating and forming unique regional identities through festivals, highlighting its distinctive significance.