Abstract—In the recent years, there have been an increasing number of cultural festivals hosted in Ho Chi Minh City. Unlike the fast growing of festival industry in other countries, without noticing, this industry of Ho Chi Minh City is on its way of development. Therefore, this study is conducted to find out what makes a success of a cultural festival in Ho Chi Minh City by examining the effects of the festivalscape factors including general management, service, venue and technical aspect, amenities and catering, and marketing on the satisfaction and loyalty factors of the festivals visitors. This study applied quantitative approach, using questionnaires, which were delivered to 301 respondents. The data was factor-analyzed and interpreted by statistical method including regression analysis, to find out the direct relationship among independent and dependent variables and path analysis, to claim the indirect effects of independent variables on visitor loyalty. Consequently, there are five factor: general management, service, venue and technical aspect, amenities and catering and marketing were found to have both direct impact on visitor satisfaction and indirect impact on visitor loyalty. Index Terms—General management, service, venue and technical aspect, amenities and catering, marketing, visitor satisfaction, visitor loyalty. I. INTRODUCTION In the past couple decades, festival has played an important part in cultural industries. Represented in various forms such as dance, drama, comedy, film, music, arts, crafts, ethnic and indigenous cultural heritage, religious traditions, historically significant occasions, sporting events, food and wine, seasonal rites, and agricultural products [1], festival has been one of the fast growing segment of the world leisure industry in both quantity and diversity [2], [3] As an element of cultural celebrations, festivals can be used to attract tourism of the area for non-local visitors, build up signature image of the community, raise funds for projects, provide opportunities to build up social union, explore fine arts, carry out important recreational, social, cultural activities, provide opportunities for families to gather, emphasize local pride and cohesion and help to maintain and renovate local cultures and traditions [4]-[7]. There are many advantages that the local community can benefit from a particular festival since festival especially has a significant impact on the local economy, social and culture [8], [9]. From tourism perspective, festivals provide business activities and incomes for the host communities, as they can have both direct and indirect impact on tourism [10]-[12]. In term of economy, the Manuscript received May 19, 2018; revised August 2, 2018. Mai Ngoc Khuong and Dang Duc Khanh Uyen are with the School of Business, International University, VNU-HCM, Viet Nam (email: mnkhuong@hcmiu.edu.vn, uyendang.1109@gmail.com). economic impact of festival was defined as “the net change in the economy” as the contribution of a festival created is beneficial compared to the cost of it [13]. An increased number of visitors who spend when experiencing at the festival, both at the festival site and the surrounding neighborhood of the event, can perform both direct and indirect benefits to the local economy [14]. In addition, by learning which critical factors affecting the success of a festival, organizers can improve their ability to serve visitors in the future by providing facilities, amenities and program suitable with their needs. In Viet Nam nowadays, especially in Ho Chi Minh, there has been an increasing number of different festivals, which are diverse in forms, depending on the signature cultural set-up of each community from cuisine, tourism to art or music. Similar to the rest of young people around the world, Ho Chi Minh youngster mostly enjoy attending to festival, any specific kind of festival depending on their interest. However, unlike the fast-growing festival industry in other countries, these festival are conducted in small-scale plan and still receive a lot of negative feedbacks from visitors such as poor facility and infrastructure, failure in marketing and misinformation, poor cleanliness of the festival site, pickpocket and so on. Therefore, conducting a deeper study of this field will help marketers and managers to gain more insight of the young people's decision of participating in festival in order to meet visitor satisfaction and loyalty. Moreover, understanding the critical success factors of a culture festival is an important grasp for every festival organizer to ensure long-term growth and sustainability of the developing festival industry of Viet Nam. II. LITERATURE REVIEW A. Cultural Festival Cultural festival is defined as: “a periodically recurrent, social occasion in which, through a multiplicity of forms and series of coordinated events, participate directly or indirectly and to various degree, all members of a whole community, united by ethnic, linguistic, religious, historical bonds, and sharing a world view.” [15]. The main purpose of cultural events is usually to draw attention of visitors from different area to share experiences and activities with the same interest [16], [17]. B. Festivalscape Festivalscape, which includes tangible matter as well as the ambience surrounded, can be explained as the physical environment [18]. Therefore, festivalscape has a strong influence on satisfaction and reaction in which festival Mai Ngoc Khuong and Dang Duc Khanh Uyen Determinants of Cultural Festival Success — A Study in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam Journal of Economics, Business and Management, Vol. 6, No. 3, August 2018 120 doi: 10.18178/joebm.2018.6.3.560