Investigating the Expenditure and Experience of International Conference Delegates Visiting Malaysia

A continuous growth of the business tourism in Malaysia has attracted many business tourists towards the MICE tourism. The purpose of this study is to investigate the expenditure patterns of the international conference delegates in micro areas in relation with the experience level measured based on their spending. A quantitative research-based approach was employed through survey method in the Kuala Lumpur Convention Centre to collect the data based on ordinal-polytomous type survey instrument. 378 international conference delegates were chosen through non-probability convenience sampling. The overall expenditure patterns are measured through descriptive analysis, where the results reveals that major part of the delegates' average expenditure (USD$ 2,657) were spent on international airfare (21%) as compared to accommodation, conference registration and other spending which amounted nearly 15% in each areas. The expenditure satisfaction response from the delegates were high (4.58 mean value) along with the revisit intention measuring 84%. Consequently, the most positive feedbacks from the delegates were the Malaysian hospitality, marvelous infrastructure and business facility procedures.