Congress Destination Attractiveness: The Case of Supply-Side of Business Tourism in Slovenia
Abstract
The purpose of the article is to research which attractiveness attributes of a congress destination are those that are important for visiting the congress destination and association meeting, namely from the point of view of the supply-side of business tourism, meaning meeting planners (buyers), suppliers, intermediaries and special agencies. The article redefines the dimensions of visiting a congress destination and the research concept of the supply-side of business tourism. On this basis, we developed a new multidimensional construct (model) of congress destination visit, which takes into consideration three aspects: the destination, venue and business event aspects as the foundation of the supply-side of congress tourism. Based on previous research, we developed a model of attractiveness attributes for each individual aspect which contributes to the visiting of the congress destination. The aim of the research is to contribute to a more comprehensive understanding of the supply-side of congress tourism in a multidimensional analysis of attractiveness attributes of a congress destination which constitute important factors for visiting.
Keywords: congress destination attractiveness, business tourism, conference attributes, congress destination attributes, venue attributes, congress destination visit
References
Baloglu, S., & Love, C. (2005). Association meeting planners’ perceptions and intentions for five major us convention cities: The structured and unstructured images. Tourism Management, 26(5), 743–752.
Breiter, D., & Milman, A. (2006). Attendees’ needs and service priorities in a large convention center: Application of the importance-performance theory. Tourism Management, 27(6), 1364–1370.
Choi, J. J. (2005). Factors influencing state association planners’ overall satisfaction with a convention experience. Journal of Convention & Event Tourism, 6(4), 65–80.
Comas, M., & Moscardo, G. (2005). Understanding associations and their conference decision-making processes. Journal of Convention & Event Tourism, 7(3/4), 117–138.
Crouch, G. I., & Brent Ritchie, J. R. (1998). Convention site selection research: A review, conceptual model, and propositional framework. Journal of Convention & Exhibition Management, 1(1), 49–69.
Crouch, G. I., & Louviere, J. J. (2004). The determinants of convention site selection: A logistic choice model from experimental data. Journal of Travel Research, 43(2), 118– 130.
Crouch, G. I., Del Chiappa, G., & Perdue, R. R. (2019). International convention tourism. Tourism Management, 71, 530–542.
Davidson, R., & Rogers, T. (2006). Marketing destinations and venues for conferences, conventions and business events. Routledge.
Del Chiappa, G. (2012). How do meeting organisers choose convention sites based on different types of meetings? An empirical analysis of the Italian meetings industry. Event Management, 16(2), 157–170.
DiPietro, R. B., Breiter, D., Rompf, P., & Godlewska, M. (2008). An exploratory study of differences among meeting and exhibition planners in their destination selection criteria. Journal of Convention & Event Tourism, 9(4),258–276.
Edelstein, L. G., & Benini, C. (1994). Meeting market report 1994. Meetings & Conventions, 29(9), 60–62.
Elston, K., & Draper, J. (2012). A review of meeting planner site selection criteria research. Journal of Convention & Event Tourism, 13(3), 203–220.
Getz, D., & Page, S. J. (2016). Progress and prospects for event tourism research. Tourism Management, 52, 593–631.
Jago, L. K., & Deery, M. (2005). Relationships and factors influencing convention decision–making. Journal of Convention & Event Tourism, 7(1), 23–41.
Lee, J. S., & Back, K. J. (2010). Reexamination of attendeebased brand equity. Tourism Management, 31(3), 395–401.
Lu, Y., & Cai, L. A. (2009). Analysis of image and loyalty for exhibitions and host destinations. Scholarworks. http://scholarworks.umass.edu/refereed/Sessions/Saturday/15/
Mair, J., & Thompson, K. (2009). The uk association conference attendance decision-making process. Tourism Management, 30(3), 400–409.
Millar, M., & Kerr, G. M. (2009). Conventions held by associations: A case study of buyers and suppliers in an emerging conference destination. In J. Carlsen, M. Hughes, K. Holmes, & R. Jones (Eds.), Proceedings of the 18th Annual cauthe Conference (pp. 1–20). Curtin University of Technology.
Nelson, R., & Rys, S. (2000). Convention site selection criteria relevant to secondary convention destinations. Journal of Convention & Exhibition Management, 2(2–3), 71– 82.
Oppermann, M. (1996a). Convention cities: Images and changing fortunes. Journal of Tourism Studies, 7(1), 10–19.
Oppermann, M. (1996b). Convention destination images: Analysis of association meeting planners’ perceptions. Tourism management, 17(3), 175–182.
Oppermann, M., & Chon, K. S. (1997). Convention participation decision-making process. Annals of Tourism Research, 24(1), 178–191.
Oral, J., & Whitfield, J. (2010). The North Cyprus conference sector: Establishing a competitive advantage. Tourism Analysis, 15(4), 411–424.
Petersen, D. C. (2005). The city as a destination: Measuring its attractiveness. Journal of Convention & Event Tourism, 6(1/2), 145–157
Ramirez, D., Laing, J., & Mair, J. (2013). Exploring intentions to attend a convention: A gender perspective. Event Management, 17(2), 165–178.
Rittichainuwat, B. N., Beck, J. A., & Lalopa, J. (2001). Understanding motivations, inhibitors, and facilitators of association members in attending international conferences. Journal of Convention & Exhibition Management, 3(3), 45–62.
Robinson, L. S., & Callan, R. J. (2002). Professional uk conference organizers’ perceptions of important selection and quality attributes of the meetings product. Journal of Convention & Exhibition Management, 4(1), 1–17.
Robinson, L. S., & Callan, R. J. (2005). uk conference delegates’ cognizance of the importance of venue selection attributes. Journal of Convention & Event Tourism, 7(1), 77–95.
Rogers, T. (1998). Conferences: A twenty-first century industry. Adison Wesley Longman. Rogers, T. (2008). Conferences and conventions: A global industry. Routledge.
Severt, K., Fjelstul, J., & Breiter, D. (2009). A comparison of motivators and inhibitors for association meeting attendance for three generational cohorts. Journal of Convention & Event Tourism, 10(2), 105–119.
Shin, Y. (2009). Examining the link between visitors’ motivations and convention destination image. Tourismos: An International Multidisciplinary Journal of Tourism, 4(2), 29–45.
Sikošek, M., Bojnec, Š., Fabjan, D. & Uran Maravić, M. (2014). Obseg dejavnosti in neposredni ekonomski učinki kongresnega turizma v Sloveniji: primer Ljubljana. Javna agencija spirit Slovenija.
Swarbrooke, J., & Horner, S. (2001). Business travel and tourism. Butterworth-Heinemann.
Tanford, S., Montgomery, R., & Nelson, K. B. (2012). Factors that influence attendance, satisfaction, and loyalty for conventions. Journal of Convention & Event Tourism, 13(4), 290–318.
The Global Association of the Exhibition Industry. (2016). Global exhibition barometer: A ufi report based on the results of a survey conducted in december 2015. http:// www.ufi.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/UFI-Global _Exhibition_Barometer_report16b.pdf
United Nations World Tourism Organization. (2006). Measuring the economic importance of the meetings industry – Developing a tourism satellite account extension.
Upchurch, R. S., Jeong, G. H., Clements, C., & Jung, I. (2000). Meeting planners’ perceptions of site selection characteristics: The case of Seoul, Korea. Journal of Convention & Exhibition Management, 2(1), 15–35.
Var, T., Cesario, F., & Mauser, G. (1985). Convention tourism modelling. Tourism Management, 6(3), 194–204.
Weber, K., & Chon, K. S. (2002). Convention tourism: International research and industry perspectives. The Haworth Press.
Whitfield, J., & Webber, D. J. (2011). Which exhibition attributes create repeat visitation? International Journal of Hospitality Management, 30(2), 439–447.
Whitfield, J., Dioko, L. D. A., Webber, D., & Zhang, L. (2014). Attracting convention and exhibition attendance to complex mice venues: Emerging data from Macao. International Journal of Tourism Research, 16(2), 169–179.
Yoo, J. J. E., & Chon, K. (2008). Factors affecting convention participation decision-making: Developing a measurement scale. Journal of Travel Research, 47(1), 113–122.
Zhang, H. Q., Leung, V., & Qu, H. (2007). A refined model of factors affecting convention participation decisionmaking. Tourism Management, 28(4), 1123–1127.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
1. Copyright
Copyright for all articles published in Academica Turistica - Tourism and Innovation Journal is held by individual authors. Authors are themselves responsible for obtaining permission to reproduce copyright material from other sources.
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to complete the Publication Agreement and Copyright Licence, based on the Open Access Model Publishing Agreement.
Articles are published under the terms of the Creative Commons CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 License.
Under the terms of this license, authors retain ownership of the copyright of their articles. They can archive the pre-print and post-print or publisher's version of their work. They will, however, assign to Academica Turistica - Tourism and Innovation Journal (AT–TIJ) the permanent right to electronically distribute their manuscript and, after it has appeared in AT–TIJ, they may republish their text as long as they clearly acknowledge AT–TIJ as the place of the original publication.
2. Author Fees
Article submission, processing and/or publishing fees are not charged.