The Grahamstown Arts Festival, now in its 29th year, generates about R33 million for the Eastern Cape.

This was revealed in a recent study, undertaken by Jen Snowball and Professor Geoff Antrobus from the Department of Economics and Economic History at Rhodes University.

What is encouraging is that the number of black festinos rose by 30 per cent. The study reveals that festinos with English make up a little more than half (53%) of the festinos attending. The remaining festinos spoke Xhosa (19%), Afrikaans (17%), Zulu (4,5%), and Sotho, Ndebele, French and German (6,5%).

Most festinos who attended were from Johannesburg and Cape Town. Another pleasing trend was the large proportion of loyal festinos who had attended more than 10 festivals. The average stay of a festino was six days.

Eastern Cape Development Corporation senior tourism consultant Abu Latief comments:
The Grahamstown Arts Festival, which began in 1974, provides an ideal tourist attraction. However, for us to really grow our profile, we need to augment it with other attractive products.

What the festival has done is obviously bring more domestic and international tourists who spend money in province. The benefit is two-fold: Local and international investors are attracted to province, creating jobs and stimulating economic development. Secondly, local investors in province give further confidence to international investors, creating creates a node for development.