Determinants of MICE destination choice behaviour in Ho Chi Minh City

Abstract

After the Covid-19 pandemic, the tourism industry in Vietnam has shown positivesigns of recovery and gradual development. It can be said that this non-polluting industrymakes a significant contribution to the country's economic and social development,reflecting its important role as an industry. Among them, MICE (Meetings, Incentives,Conferences and Exhibitions) is seen as a promising direction for the national tourismindustry. According to a study by the Tourism Development Research Institute, MICE canbring in revenues four to six times higher than other forms of tourism. In addition, trainingtrips, skill improvement, and employee reward trips are also being encouraged, opening upa new era of booming MICE tourism after the pandemic.This research was conducted to investigate the factors impacting MICE tourismdestination choice of tourists being resident in Ho Chi Minh City, to build a research model,construct and validate measurement scales for the impacting factors, and based on that, topropose and make recommendations on appropriate solutions to enhance the developmentof MICE tourism in Vietnam.This study is based on the theory of planned behavior and combines with the imageof the destination and sustainable tourism to examine the relationship between the factorsaffecting MICE tourism destination choice behavior through two aspects: internal andexternal tourists. The study was conducted in two stages: qualitative stage and quantitativestage. The research model was built on a questionnaire that includes 24 observed variablesand was adjusted through the reliability testing method (Cronbach's Alpha) and exploratoryfactor analysis (EFA), Pearson correlation analysis, and regression analysis. The resultsobtained from the data collected from 220 respondents in Ho Chi Minh city affirm thepositive relationship between the internal (subjective norms) and external (destinationimage and destination sustainability) factors and the domestic tourists' MICE tourismdestination choice behavior.