Nonlinear antecedents of visitors' satisfaction with the oktoberfest in Brazil

Cultural festivals help to promote, improve and preserve tourist and cultural heritages, generating business with great economic value for the destination. It is important that festivals organisers verify the visitors' perception about the quality of the festival, and use this information to develop improvement activities. For better understand the overall assessment of participants on festivals, this study compares the results of using linear regression with the results using a non-linear method, PRCA - Penalty-reward Contrast Analysis, to explain participants' general evaluation of the festival. Interviewing 270 participants in the 32nd edition of the Oktoberfest in Blumenau, Brazil, we found that PRCA best explains the overall assessment of the festival by the participants, than using linear regression analysis. The results demonstrate that knowing possible nonlinearities, we can better understand the overall perception of the festival's quality, which allows us better deciding about what to offer or improve on it.