Macroeconomics is a field of economics studying the workings of a national economy, it mainly focuses on the forecasting of national income and analysis of major economic factors including; level of employment/unemployment, gross national product (GNP/GDP), balance of payment position and prices. Macroeconomics shows the relationships between these factors to understand how an economy is operating.
Falmouth Oyster Festival (FOF) is small seafood festival that celebrates the start of the oyster dredging season. It is a four day event which takes place every October in Falmouth, this year over 30,000 people attended the wide range of different activities in the festival including; cookery demonstrations, shell painting, sea shanties, town parade, a boat race, and live music and performances.
At FOF it doesn’t seem like it would be affected by the economy compared to a festival in London because Cornwall is such a remote part of the UK, but each year the festival gets affected by the current economic climate, and has to deal with new problems. Economic factors like unemployment, inflation, tax and funding influence how the festival is run. Since 2007 when many large banks fell into bankruptcy there has been an on-going global financial crisis, this caused the recession in the UK which made unemployment rise and prices to increase; this makes the public watch what they’re buying and spends less on unnecessary purchases.
Cornwall gets a lot of income in its economy from tourism especially in the summer months, so having FOF in October could mean that there are a low number of tourists visiting the festival, but because vistitcornwall.com helped organize and fund the festival, tourists would have heard about it from the website, this event is a good way of bringing people down to Cornwall in the low seasons when businesses that rely on tourism trade are struggling the most. The sponsors for the festivals are local businesses and organizations, people attending the events will see them advertised for example St. Michaels Hotel and Spa are the major sponsors and will get a lot of promotion so people might eat at the restaurant and use the spa or even stay in the hotel and they may get future clients as well.
The festival needs a wide range of suppliers for it to take place, they need to arrange; marques and equipment, staff, stalls, performers, drinks and food. Using local suppliers is good for the economy of the area and looks good for the festival that’s its bringing together Cornish produce. The FOF is funded by Falmouth Festival Ltd, Vistitcornwal.com and St Micheal’s Hotel & Spa, because it is a free community event it has to get its revenue from individual stalls, opening ceremony box office, raffle tickets, and sponsors.
With the current financial difficulties i.e. the recession and budget cuts, many businesses have to let staff go, so the unemployment rates are going up. This affects the FOF because staffing is an essential part of running the festival, in Cornwall 2.4% of the population are unemployed this is actually lower than the nation average which is 3.6%. These figures were published in July 2010 this is during the summer when there are not as many people unemployed as tourism opens up a large number of jobs.
In summery FOF relates to the global economy because it gets affected by the financial state of the UK and oversees economy.
References
- falmouthoysterfestival.co.uk
- visitcornwall.co.uk
- BBC News article: Unemployment figures for Cornwall show fourth fall http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cornwall-10633274
- CEM102 – Lecture 4 Economics Notes
- cornwall.gov.uk
- cornwall.gov.uk
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment