Tourism Experiences During a Convention: A Case Study from South Korea

Abstract

Convention planners are struggling to contend with the fluid needs of clients and attendees in a competitive, evolving environment. Planners must continuously sculpt events, enhancing revisit appeal enough through offerings like external tourism programs. The purpose of this study is to understand the potential impact perceived preference for external tourism experiences has on a convention attendee's behavioral intentions, such as revisit intention. researchers used elements from 30 separate international conference websites to design a survey. A randomly selected 240 South Koreanhosted international conference attendees answered these pretested questionnaires. An exploratory factor analysis identified four motivational factors with statistically significant impact on behavioral intention. The findings suggest that performances and historical attractions have the strongest impact on behavioral intentions. This study supports that perceived preference for external tourism experiences can successfully segment attendees. Theoretically, this study's unique survey is usable for similar future studies in this context.

Factors affecting conference participation decision-making

“…*Corresponding author, e-mail: vanja.dragicevic@dgt.uns.ac.rs As one of the main purpose of travel worldwide, business tourism has received increased attention from both countries and cities, particularly from emerging destinations, which are investing in the development of venues, transportation, and accommodation infrastructures, and facilities to attract business events. With new destinations entering the meetings, congresses, conventions, and incentives (MCCI) market, competition for market share in Europe and worldwide has become vigorous (Beardsley, Jung, Kim, & Kim, 2019;United Nations World Tourism Organization [UNWTO] & European Travel Commission [ETC], 2015). In developing economies (such as Serbia), business travel, including attending meetings, conferences, incentives and other business events, often plays a leading role in the growth of the wider travel and tourism sector (WTTC, 2017) and contributes to the economic growth of the host community (Han & Hwang, 2017).…”

“…Moreover, the existing body of research on the business travel industry has focused mostly on the supply side, while little attention is being paid to individual conference attendees and their needs and wants (Beardsley et al, 2019;Mair & Thompson, 2009). Although a few recent studies have addressed the research need (Beardsley et al, 2019;Jung & Tanford, 2017;Mair & Thompson, 2009;Malekmohammadi et al, 2011;Severt, Wang, Chen, & Breiter, 2007;Yoo & Chon, 2008;Zhang, Leung, & Qu, 2007), still there has been a lack of studies about factors influencing conference participation decision and behavioral intentions. Thus, more research that is empirical is needed.…”

Sustainability in the Meetings Industry

“…In particular, emerging destinations have made significant capital investments in developing the infrastructure necessary for the meetings industry (Presbury and Edwards, 2005;Pavluković and Cimbaljević, 2020). Consequently, competition between destinations has become vigorous (Beardsley et al, 2019;UNWTO and ETC, 2015). Furthermore, several global megatrends are shaping the future of the meetings and events industry, such as globalisation, demographic change, technology, safety, sustainability (Davidson, 2018) and recently, the corona virus pandemic.…”