Evaluating Incentive Travel: shopping, satisfaction, experience

Project Member(s): Edwards, D., Schlenker, K., Foley, C.

Funding or Partner Organisation: Business Events Sydney Limited (Business Events Sydney LTD)

Start year: 2014

Summary: A secondary analysis of published reports on the incentive travel market indicates inconsistencies in incentive travel data. Such inconsistencies lead to an undervaluing of the high yielding incentive market in Australia. Indeed shopping expenditure by incentive travel participants is not fully captured in any secondary data. Additionally few studies of incentive travel programs have targeted the participant experiences. Anecdotally, individual shopping spend is considered to be higher than any other MICE segment but as yet the authors have found no study to confirm this. This is surprising as shopping accounts for a significant portion of a holiday budget and in the case of incentive travelers it could be the majority of their budget given that the bulk of their trip is paid for by their employer.

Publications:

Edwards, D, Cheng, M, Wong, A, Zhang, J & Wu, Q 2017, 'Ambassadors of Knowledge Sharing: Co-produced Travel Information Through Tourist-Local Social Media Exchange', International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, vol. 29, no. 2, pp. 690-708.
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Edwards, DC, Foley, C & Hergesell, A University of Technology Sydney 2015, Asian incentive events in New South Wales: expenditure and retail impact, pp. 2-26, Sydney.
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Keywords: Incentive trave, impacts, shopping, expenditure

FOR Codes: Management, Tourism Management