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Friday 31 May 2019

Commercialized Music Festivals on Aruba: Do or Don’t?

MAASTRICHT – Last week the organizers of the
Caribbean Sea Jazz Festival announced that one of
the oldest music festivals on the island is canceled
this year due to reduced funding stemmed from
unmet targets as stated in the contract between
the organizing committee and the Aruba Tourism
Authority (ATA). This raised a lot of opinions on social
media and a critical discourse in the community
on how these festivals on the island are funded and
to what degree they contribute economically to
Aruba. However, with the recent success of the Soul
Beach Music Festival this last weekend, it is clear that
commercialized music festivals have been evolving
greatly in the past two decades on Aruba. In today’s
column, I will discuss the relationship between
the Cultural and Creative Industry (CCI) and the
remaining economy to understand economic value
of cultural activities, and I will dig deeper into the
impact of tourism-based commercialized music
festivals on the economy, aimed on Small Island
Developing States (SIDS).
When it comes to the dynamic relationship between the
creative industries and the rest of the economy, Potts
and Cunningham (2010) argue for four models to an-
swers this mystery amongst economists and profession-
als in the creative industry: namely (1) welfare model,
where the whole economy drives CCI through transfers
of resources; (2) competition model, where the CCI is just
another industry; (3) growth model, where the CCI drives
the whole economy through high rates of growth; and (4)
innovation model, where the CCI helps the whole econo-
my evolve through transfers of knowledge. Each of these
possibilities is related to a very different policy model: in
(1) a welfare subsidy is required; in (2), standard industry
policy; in (3), investment and growth policy; and in (4),
innovation policy. We know that the Minister of Economic
Affairs, Finance and Culture of Aruba, Mr. Xiomara Ruiz-
Maduro recently presented Aruba’s Economic Policy,
which includes 6 prospective industries for diversification
of the Aruban economy. These include; Tourism Indus-
try, Knowledge Economy, Logistics, Agriculture, Circular
Economy and Creative Industries. After analysis of the
economic policy, it can be considered a standard indus-
try policy, in this case 6 industries in one. This means, that
the Aruban government is aiming towards a competition
model, rather than a welfare, growth or innovation mod-
el. In this case, according to the authors a CCI “should
properly require the same policy treatment as other in-
dustries. The creative industries, in this view, are just anoth-
er member of the industrial community, and they should
rightfully then demand neither more nor less “assistance”
than that due to others. Recognition of normal existence
is sufficient and “significance” is immaterial” (p. 169). The
results of the research indicate a preference for models 3
and 4, however models 2 and 3 propose a more consis-
tent treatment of the CCI, while models 1 and 4 require
more public intervention.
Continued on Page 14