The NOL Korean Festival Index, developed by Yanolja Research, is a tool that analyzes social data to objectively measure the attractiveness of major Korean festivals based on visitors’ cognitive and affective evaluations; its official name is the Korea Festival Attractiveness Index.
Festival Attractiveness is a complex concept involving the psychological and cognitive factors that influence whether tourists decide to visit a particular festival. According to the Push-Pull Framework of tourism motivation theory, festival attractiveness acts as a key mediator connecting visitors' internal needs (Push) with the external appeal offered by the festival (Pull).
Unlike traditional survey methods, this index collects the attractiveness that visitors actually experience and feel by analyzing user-generated content (UGC) created on global social media. This enables data-driven, scientific evaluation of festivals.
Why should we pay attention to 'Korea Festival Attractiveness'?
Korea's festival market has shown clear quantitative growth in recent years. However, existing festival evaluation systems focus on supplier-centered quantitative indicators such as visitor numbers, economic impact, and media exposure, and lack a demand-centered tool that measures the 'attractiveness' actually experienced and felt by visitors.
For sustainable festival development and stronger tourism competitiveness, a shift is needed toward a qualitative and quantitative evaluation system centered on visitors' actual perceptions and emotional responses.
Yanolja Research's Korea Festival Attractiveness model evaluates festival attractiveness around the following two core axes.
• Festival Awareness: How widely known and noticed is a particular festival among tourists? Measured through the volume of social media mentions (Buzz Volume).
• Festival Attractiveness: How positively do visitors evaluate a particular festival? Reflects the emotional response and perceived value measured through sentiment analysis.
Methodology
The Korea Festival Attractiveness model developed by Yanolja Research is a framework for objectively and quantitatively measuring the attractiveness of festivals as perceived by visitors, based on large-scale analysis of social data. Unlike existing supplier-centered evaluation methods, this model measures both the quantitative and qualitative attractiveness of festivals through a data-driven approach based on visitors' actual voices.
1. Purpose
• Moving beyond quantitative indicators such as visitor numbers and economic impact, to diagnose the qualitative attractiveness of festivals based on data
• Building an evaluation system that can be practically used by festival operating organizations, government and local authorities, and tourism marketing strategy
2. Evaluation Framework
Based on the Push-Pull Framework of Tourism Motivation Theory and Destination Image Theory as its theoretical foundation, this model organizes festival attractiveness into 2 core axes.
The two core axes of festival attractiveness are as follows.
• Festival Awareness: Measured by the volume of social media mentions (Buzz Volume)
• Festival Attractiveness: Measured by the positive ratio derived through sentiment analysis of social data
3. Data Collection
4. Measurement Method
The Korea Festival Attractiveness Index is calculated through the following steps.
Step 1. Calculation of Awareness and Attractiveness: Measures the awareness and attractiveness of each festival based on mention volume and sentiment analysis results from social media data. Each indicator is normalized on a scale of 1 to 10.
Step 2. Calculation of Korea Festival Attractiveness Index: Calculated by applying a 50% weight to each of the Awareness and Attractiveness index.