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1. Introduction
Event tourism is gradually increasing in importance due to its significant contribution to destinations. The interest and participation of people in regional, national, and international events is increasing every year. Destinations, therefore, organize local, national, or international events to create alternative tourism products, increase the number of tourists, maximize their share of tourism economic benefits, gain a competitive advantage, create employment, improve the destination’s infrastructure, increase the welfare of local people, ensure social cohesion, and expand audiences for culture and art. Event tourism can be defined as planning, developing, and marketing activities as a primary or secondary tourist attraction to maximize the number of tourists participating in these activities (Getz, 1997). Events are temporary events, with each activity being unique in terms of duration, organization, management, and participation (Tassiopoulus, 2005).
Events are multidimensional organizations that have many compatibilities with the activities. Organizing and promoting events, such as festivals, shows, fairs, exhibitions, and championships, has become part of urban development strategies worldwide (Richards & Palmer, 2010). Fairs are among the important activities that need to be addressed in terms of supply and demand. Supply side activities of fairs focus on improving the event itself and promotion processes whereas the demand side is more about the evaluations of consumers, motivations for participation, consumption patterns, and determination of spending (Getz, 2008). Fairs can improve or damage a destination’s reputation.
Motivation is an important driver for participants (Hudson, 2000). Significant motivators include the event’s organization and the destination’s characteristics in that participants are generally satisfied if a fair is well-organized and the destination has enough facilities. Therefore, satisfaction cannot be ignored in the formation of behavioural tendencies. It is also one of the basic elements of loyalty. The main motivation of many trade fair participants is to establish new business contacts. Therefore, the availability of accommodation, gastronomic diversity, or historical, cultural, and natural attractions in the destination where the fair is organized can play an important role in determining how participants evaluate the fair and recommend it to others.
A common tendency is revisiting and recommending a place based on loyalty. According to Prayag et al. (2017), satisfied tourists tend to recommend destinations while Liu et al. (2017) concluded that tourist satisfaction determines behavioural tendencies. Anderson et al. (1994) describes behavioural intention as an outcome of satisfaction, while Liu et al. (2005) relate it to revisiting, repurchasing, and recommending to others. Behavioural intention indicates the extent the participant is satisfied and influences the decision to revisit the event. This intention can also take the form of positive or negative word-of-mouth advertising. One of the most important indicators of loyalty is recommending a product or service to others through word-of-mouth communication.
MARBLE (Herbig, Q’Hara & Palumbo, 1998), the International Natural Stone and Technologies Fair, is a marketing activity for a major industry, which was first held in 1995 in Izmir, Turkey. In 2019, 1,100 companies and 63,314 visitors, 209 of whom were foreign, participated in the fair. It should be worth noting that there were no foreign participants in the first year (IZFAS, 2019). Considering the number of exhibitors and visitors in such an internationally important fair, it is important to explore the motivations that lead businesses and people to participate and determine how motivation factors influence their intention to revisit again and recommend the fair to others. Izmir is an attractive destination and aspires to create a positive image through event tourism. As a major international organization, MARBLE is even more important in terms of destination. Therefore, it is necessary to determine participants’ satisfaction levels and behavioural intentions. Accordingly, this study identified the motivational factors underlying MARBLE participation and determined how they affect participant satisfaction and behavioural intentions.
2. Literature Review
2.1 Participant satisfaction and behavioural intentions
Tourism studies why people travel and how they enjoy themselves, and suggests what should be done based on these evaluations (Yoon & Uysal, 2005). Motivation is an important variable in tourism as it explains tourist behaviour in terms of the social and psychological factors encouraging people to travel and participate in tourism activities (Cohen et al., 2014; Snepenger et al., 2006). People decide to escape from their daily routine, have different experiences, and see new places. Motivation factors explain the push and pull factors for people to go on vacation (Kozak, 2002) or for tourists (Dann, 1977). Push factors refer to the needs that motivate people to travel, such as curiosity, rest, entertainment, and work. Pull factors include destination characteristics, such as natural beauty, historical texture, lifestyle, and traditions (Baloğlu & Uysal, 1996; Yoon & Uysal, 2005). Pull factors create consumer awareness and motivates travel to a destination (Woodside and Lysonski, 1989). To attract tourists, a destination must determine the needs of the potential target audience, and ensure visitor satisfaction so that they revisit and recommend it to others.
Satisfaction is the sense of contentment that the consumer experiences from purchased products or services (Oliver, 1980). If consumers’ expectations are met, then they feel satisfied. (Fornel, 1992). Satisfaction also includes concepts like performance, quality, value, regret, addiction, and re-purchase.
Customer satisfaction is one of the most important factors determining behavioural intentions to re-purchase or recommend (Cronin et al., 2000). Behavioural intention is the expression of satisfaction through recommending the product to others after purchasing and consuming goods or services. If the experience is not pleasant, then the individual may not recommend to others (Zeithaml et al., 1996). Customer loyalty resulting from satisfaction is the willingness to pay more whereas dissatisfaction is related to complaining and abandoning the organisation (Cronin et al., 2000).
Regarding destinations, behavioural intention can be combined with concepts like destination loyalty, desire to revisit, and recommendations to others (Bigne et al., 2001; Castro et al., 2007). The intention to revisit reflects the tourist’s desire to go to the destination again while the intention of recommending concerns positive word-of-mouth advertising (Boulding et al., 1993). For destination managers, an important indicator of success is tourists’ desire to revisit (Chen and Tsai, 2007). When tourists become loyal customers, costs are reduced, and they recommend the destination to others. Thus, they become a voluntary advertisement tool that promotes the destination.
Customer satisfaction is achieved by fulfilling demands, but this can be a very difficult process. All services received during the visit are considered as a whole, resulting in satisfaction or dissatisfaction (Brody and Cronin, 2001; Varki and Colgate, 2001). Satisfaction involves evaluating the destination’s characteristics and can indicate the intention to revisit (Kozak and Rimmigton, 2000; Kozak, 2001). Post-visit evaluations of tourists include the desire to revisit and the intention to recommend (Chen and Tsai, 2007).
2.2 Fair participation
Fairs are business and trade events that promote the destination through social, environmental, and sustainable contributions as well as economic returns (Getz, 2008). Special fairs focus on a specific sector and bring together organizations to exhibit products and services related to this sector (Aymankuy, 2006). Fair and meeting organizations are among the fastest growing events and provide the most profit in the tourism sector (Zhang et al., 2007). Fairs boost accommodation, eating and drinking, entertainment, local transportation, and other spending in the destination (Opperman and Chon, 1997). Compared to tourists, fair participants stay more nights, spend more, and are more likely to contribute to the destination’s positive image (Zhang et al., 2007). Therefore, organizing more fairs in a destination can be a good strategy to develop tourism. The strongest motivation for participating is to create a convenient environment for establishing new trade connections. Since the budget of business trips is usually met by firms, participant spending may be quite high (Rittichainuwat and Mair, 2012).
Fair participants usually include firms who want to establish relations with them (Lee, 2010). Fairs save money and ease communication by providing faster and more effective results through face-to-face communication with customers (Crompton and Mckay, 1997). For visitors, it is important to see new products, compare prices, make the right purchasing decisions, establish new business contacts, and follow the latest technological developments (Rittichainuwat and Mair, 2012). The number of participating companies and visitors tends to be higher if fairs are repeated on the same specific dates every year. It also increases the quantity and quality of fairs held in the destination. The quality of the service provided at these events is just as important as the content. That is, while content is a motivating factor that directs the event, quality service ensures that participants are satisfied and shapes their decision to revisit (Getz et al., 2001).
Like the decision to travel, the motivation of companies or visitors to participate in a fair is related to the organization, the fair, destination characteristics, and opportunity costs (Akgunduz and Coşar, 2018). In addition, the destination’s attractiveness and opportunities also influence motivation (Zhang et al., 2007). Participants may pay attention to security, language, behaviour of local people, recreational facilities, variety of accommodation, access, and travel time. Fairs can benefit destinations by attracting visitors in the low season, extending their stay, creating a positive image, increasing awareness about the destination, increasing the efficiency of congress, and contributing to local infrastructure development (Getz et al., 1998).
2.3 Research question and hypotheses
Participants in trade events, such as trade fairs, expect to benefit from participating. That is, participation is a planned behaviour that results from a cost-benefit analysis. Before performing a behaviour, individuals try to foresee the results by taking available information into account to make an informed decision (Madden et al., 1992). If a behaviour is perceived in a positive way (personal attitude) or if other individuals that they care about (subjective norm) also have a positive attitude, and if perceptions affect the individual’s behaviour, then the probability of performing that behaviour increases (Ajzen and Driver, 1992).
The research question (RQ) was developed to identify what motivates participants to participate in the MARBLE fair, specifically their expectations, to make suggestions for both organizing committees and companies with stands in the fair.
RQ. What are the motivating factors underlying participation in MARBLE?
People are drawn to situations and events that make them happy and satisfied and avoid those that cause pain or sadness. Positive feelings, thoughts, and behaviours emerge from a satisfying situation whereas negative emotions, thoughts, and behaviours emerge from dissatisfying situations. Previous research (Akgunduz and Coşar, 2018; Barbeitos et al., 2014; Um et al., 2006; Al and Mohammad, 2014) has demonstrated a positive relationship between satisfaction level and future behaviours, such as revisits and recommendations. Many event management studies (e.g. Dayour and Adongo, 2015; Yoon and Uysal, 2005) indicate that participant satisfaction and behavioural intentions depend on expectations. That is, motivation factors drive satisfaction while participant motivations affect revisit and recommendation intentions. The present study investigates these relationships in the case of MARBLE by testing the following hypotheses:
H1. Motivational factors increase the satisfaction of fair participants.
H1a. Commercial attractiveness increases the satisfaction of fair participants.
H1b. Financial attractiveness increases the satisfaction of fair participants.
H1c. City attractiveness increases the satisfaction of fair participants.
H1d. Information search increases the satisfaction of fair participants.
H2. Motivational factors increase the behavioural intentions of fair participants.
H2a. Commercial attractiveness increases the behavioural intentions of fair participants.
H2b. Financial attractiveness increases the behavioural intentions of fair participants.
H2c. City attractiveness increases the behavioural intentions of fair participants.
H2d. Information search increases the behavioural intentions of fair participants.
3. Method
3.1 Measurement
Data were collected through a four-section questionnaire. The first part presented the Participation in Fair Scale developed by Lee et al. (2010) to identify the factors that motivate people to participate in fairs. This 21-item scale has five subscales: commercial attractiveness (CA) (5 items), financial attractiveness (FA) (5 items), information search (IS) (4 items), city attractiveness (CAT) (3 items), and travel attractiveness (TA) (4 items). The second part presented the Trade Show Satisfaction Scale developed by Lee (2011) to determine which satisfaction elements have been met by the fair experience. This 7-item scale measures general satisfaction. The third part measured behavioural intention using two items derived from Lam and Hsu (2004). All scales used a five-point Likert-style response format (e.g. 1 - I do not agree, 5 - I completely agree). The fourth part presented demographic questions about gender, age, number of previous attendances at the fair, educational status, and type of participation.
3.2 Sample
The universe of the research was participants at MARBLE, held on 22-25 March 2017 in İzmir, Turkey. According to official information, 50,218 people from 104 countries participated (IZFAS, 2019). Since the actual number of participants could not be exactly determined, sample size was based on the argument that reliable results can be achieved by including 10 times or more respondents than the number of items in the survey (Kline, 2011). Since the questionnaire form included 35 items, the required sample size was a minimum of 350 participants. Convenience sampling was used for collecting the data. Of the 650 questionnaires distributed, 615 were completed, representing a response rate of 94%. The final sample consisted of 608 valid responses. Of the 608 respondents, 71% were male (420 people), 71% were 40 years or younger (418 people), 52% were participating as a visitor (353 people), 70% had participated more than twice (409 people), and 50% had a university degree (291 people).
4. Results
There were three phases in the data analysis. In the first phase, confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) was used to verify the convergent and discriminant validity of the motivation, satisfaction, and behavioural intention scales. The internal consistency reliabilities of these scales were evaluated via the commonly accepted cutoff level of 0.70, based on the recommendations of Hair et al. (2010) and Jöreskog and Sörbom (1996) regarding the calculation of reliability and consistency of scales. In the second phase, correlation analysis was used to describe the relationship between motivational factors, satisfaction, and behavioural intention. In the third phase, two separate multiple regression analyses were performed to test the effects of motivation factors on satisfaction and behavioural intention (Akgunduz and Cin, 2015). Correlation and regression analyses were performed by averaging the valid and reliable constructs.
The convergent and discriminant validity of the overall measurement quality was assessed by CFA (Anderson and Gerbing, 1988). The standardized loads should not fall below 0.50 while t-values should be over 1.96 (Hair et al., 2010). Internal consistency reliability was checked by composite reliability using the cut-off value of 0.70 (Hair et al., 2010).
Three items from the satisfaction scale and seven items from the motivational factors scale were excluded, after which the CFA analysis produced the following final fit statistics: X²= 510.10; df= 155; X²/df= 3.29; root mean squared error of approximation (RMSEA)= 0.066 goodness-of fit index (GFI)= 0.91; adjusted goodness-of-fit index (AGFI)= 0.88; comparative fit index (CFI)= 0.96; incremental fit index (IFI)= 0.96; relative fit index (RFI)= 0.93; parsimony normed fit index (PNFI)= 0.77; non-normed fit index (NNFI)= 0.95; normed fit index (NFI)= 0.94 and standardized root mean square residual (SRMR)= 0.052. As shown in Table 1, the results indicated a reasonable fit of the original six-factor model to the current data.
Table 1 Overall reliability of constructs and factor loadings of indicators
X²= 570.10 df= 155 X²/df= 3.29 RMSEA= 0.066 NFI= 0.94 NNFI= 0.95 PNFI= 0.77 CFI= 0.96
IFI= 0.96 RFI= 0.93 GFI= 0.91 AGFI= 0.88 SRMR= 0.052 RMR= 0.069
AVE= Average Variance Extracted CR= Composite Reliability
RQ investigated the motivating factors leading people to participate in MARBLE. The CFA results indicated four factors were involved: Commercial Attractiveness (CA), Financial Attractiveness (FA), City Attractiveness (CAT), and Information Search (IS).
Arithmetic means of constructs were calculated for correlation and regression analyses. Table 2 presents the means, standard deviations, and correlations of the variables. Satisfaction and behavioural intentions were significantly and positively correlated with the motivational factors. According to Hair et al. (2010), to ensure the discriminant validity of the factors in the model, the square root of the AVE value for each variable should be larger than the shared relationship coefficients. As Table 2 shows, all discriminant validity values are satisfactory in this case.
Table 2 Means, Standard Deviations, and Correlation matrix
a Square root of AVE ** p < 0.01 ***p < 0.001.
CA= Commercial Attractiveness, FA = Financial Attractiveness, CAT = City Attractiveness
IS=Information Search, SAT = Satisfaction, BI = Behavioural Intention
Three multiple regression analysis were performed to test the hypotheses. Table 3 summarizes the results of the multiple regression analysis to determine the level of effect of the independent variables (CA, FA, CAT, and IS) on the dependent variables (satisfaction and behavioural intention). The Durbin Watson (D-W) statistic was used to identify significant differences between the variables in terms of tolerance value, variance magnification factor (VIF), and condition index (CI), and to assess whether there was auto-correlation.
The first regression analysis shows that 10% of the elements explained the motivation factors of the participants to satisfaction (Table 3). VIF values were between 1.322 and 2.026 while the CI values were between 8.354 and 14.214, which indicates that the variables did not have multiple linear connectivity problems. In addition, the D-W value of 1.753 in the regression model proves that there was no auto-correlation. The results also show that CA (β= 0.118), FA (β= 0.080), and IS (β= 0.160) significantly increased participant satisfaction whereas CAT did not. Therefore, H1a, H1b, and H1d can be accepted whereas H1c is rejected. Based on these values, the regression equation can be written as follows (Constant= 2.771):
Y (Satisfaction) = 2.771 + [0.118 (CA) + 0.08 (FA) + 0.16 (IS)]
Table 3 Multiple Regression Analysis of Satisfaction
Dependent Variable: Satisfaction
R= 0.334; R²= 0.112; ΔR²= 0.106; F=18.975; Sig.= 0.001; Durbin-Watson=1.753
The second regression analysis tested the effect of motivational factors on behavioural intention (Table 4). This analysis indicated that 5% of the variation in participants’ behavioural intentions to revisit MARBLE was explained by their motivation to participate. VIF values were between 1.322 and 2.026 while CI values were between 8.354 and 14.214, which indicates that the variables did not have multiple linear connectivity problems. In addition, the D-W value of 1.78 in the regression model proves that there was no auto-correlation. CAT (β=0.078) and CF (IS=0.082) significantly increased behavioural intention whereas CA and FA had no significant effects. Thus, H1c and H1d can be accepted whereas H1a H1b is rejected. Based on the significant effects of the independent variables on the dependent variable, the regression equation can be written as follows (Constant = 3.299):
Y (Behavioural Intention) = 3.299 + [0.08 (CAT) + 0.082 (IS)]
5. Conclusions and recommendations
This study explored why people participate in the MARBLE trade fair in Izmir, Turkey. More specifically, it assessed their general satisfaction, intention to revisit, and intention to recommend to others, and determined how these outcomes are affected by specific motivational factors. Four out of five factors motivated individuals to participate: commercial attractiveness, financial attractiveness, city attractiveness, and information search. These motivational elements were previously discussed by Lee et al. (2010), Lin et al. (2016), Oppermann and Chon (1997), Wamiri, (2016), and Zhang et al. (2007).
As predicted, Izmir is an attractive destination, which motivated participation in the fair. This indicates that public and private organizations preparing such fairs should consider destination characteristics to maximize the number of visitors. As Waitt (2003) shows, destination characteristics, such as accessibility, accommodation facilities, historical, cultural and natural assets, gastronomic wealth, and entertainment opportunities, encourage participants to participate in fairs. Destinations with a strong image become the centre of attraction for more activities while such a destination’s prestige is strengthened by holding events there (Getz, 2008; Hall, 1992). In addition, potential participating companies are affected by the fair’s trade attractiveness, which depends on who participates in the fair. Thus, publicizing on the fair’s website which companies have participated in previous years may encourage future commercial participants. Although businesses generally have larger budgets than households, these are not unlimited. Therefore, the attractiveness of the fair affects participation, so organizers should increase this through various facilitators.
Many previous studies have demonstrated a positive relationship between satisfaction and behavioural intentions (Akgunduz and Coşar, 2018; Cakici et al., 2019; Kim et al., 2015; Lee et al., 2011; Sim and Lee, 2013). In the present study, three motivational factors increased participant satisfaction: commercial attractiveness, financial attractiveness, and information search. Thus, meeting participant expectations and having a sufficient budget are important factors increasing the intention to revisit. When participants meet outside the fair, they meet more customers, suppliers, and competitors, thereby achieving their business aims. The same satisfaction factors promoting intention to revisit also determined intention to recommend MARBLE to others. Thus, fair organizers must ensure that these elements are adequately met. Business decisions are made through cost-benefit assessments. That is, participants should believe that the benefit outweighs the cost when persuading others to visit the fair.
Participation in the fair affects city attractiveness, commercial attractiveness, information search, and financial attractiveness. For example, if participants are motivated by financial attractiveness, then their satisfaction may increase if their participation costs are in line with their expectations. Cost expectations affect satisfaction because costs are more measurable and controllable whereas the benefits are harder to predict.
Limitations and future research
This study has several limitations. First, because the universe was limited to MARBLE participants, the results and recommendations cannot be generalized to other events. Second, random sampling would have been preferable. Finally, future studies of the relationship between satisfaction elements and behavioural intentions of participants in other kinds of fairs (e.g. agriculture, furniture, careers, bridal, jewellery) will allow the research findings of this study to be compared.
