Resumo: Cultural events play a vital role in the social, cultural, political and economic development of a country or a region. In tourism, they appear as a 'weapon' to identify or position a destination, attract more tourists, improve the image of the place or combat the seasonality. The motivations to participate in a cultural event are multiple and depend on the nature of the event. This paper aims to identify and analyze the two main motivations of tourists to visit the Flower Festival in Madeira Island, as well as its intention to future behavior. To materialize the objective it was applied a survey to tourists through aconvenience sample. The results showed that the two main motivations for the majority of respondents, who visited the event for the first time, were associated with 'know the culture of the event' and 'participation in a special event'. For the most tourists that were in visit repeated, the two main motivations were related to the ‘cultural aspects of the event’ and with the ‘atmosphere of the event’.
