RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN DIMENSIONS OF EXPERIENCE, SATISFACTION, WORD-OF-MOUTH AND INTENTION TO RETURNING: THE PERCEPTION OF CULTURAL EVENT PARTICIPANTS

Consumer experience has gained importance in marketing in recent decades. However, measurement of that dimension regarding its applicability is still new and insufficient. Several authors have developed scales for measuring consumer experience in the context of brands, sports and tourism. Events can be used as a path to promoting experiences, because consumers have the chance to engage in activities that are not usual in their daily lives. The object of this paper is to study the Virada Cultural de Belo Horizonte 2014, a cultural event held for the second time in Belo Horizonte. The study aimed to understand the experiences of participants at Virada Cultural from a range of dimensions of memorable tourist experiences already tested. For this, we held a descriptive research with a quantitative approach through the application of a survey during the event. The main results were: (1) hedonism dimension was the most influencing factor to Memorable Experience while Local Culture was the least influencing one; (2) there is positive and significant relationship between Memorable Experience and Satisfaction, and (3) there is positive and significant relationship between Satisfaction and Intention to Returning and Word-of-Mouth recommendation.