Festivals are increasingly being used as instruments for promoting tourism and boosting the regional economy. Festivals are a type of cultural events and are travel attractions with unique features. Much research, undertaken from a variety of perspectives, exists on festivals. However, very few studies related to carnival festivals have been done even when the carnival for these two countries represents one of the most important contributions in the overall growing in the tourism industry. The main objectives of this study are to identify the principal motivations for visitors attending the Bolivian and Brazilian Carnival as well as how the destination image and the information sources affect in their decision.

The research reveals that the cultural exploration about the carnival and the family togetherness during the carnival, among other motivational dimensions are the most important factor attracting tourists to the Bolivian Carnival and the destination image factors like the infrastructure resources or natural environment among others become factors which moderates tourist decision of visiting Brazilian Carnival. In addition, the socio demographic variables like the religion, the marital status, the education and specially the country of origin signify important in the analysis and the final results. Furthermore a binary logistic model is the appropriate model to gain a deeper approaching to into what lead festival tourists to choose between two festivals Bolivian Carnival and Brazilian Carnival.

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