1. A meta-analysis of convention satisfaction and loyalty
Shinyong (Shawn) Jung, MBA,
Sarah Tanford, Ph.D.

2. Introduction
With its significant economic contribution and other positive impacts overall, the convention industry has focused on the factors that influence attendees’ satisfaction to generate repeat attendance, which is loyalty.
However, a consolidated review of research exploring the attributes and perceptions that have an impact on attendee satisfaction and loyalty is lacking.
To fill this gap, a meta-analysis of convention journal articles was conducted.

3. Conceptual Model (Figure 1)
Attributes
Satisfaction
Perceptions
Loyalty

4. Meta-Analysis
Meta-analysis is a statistical method that synthesizes key research findings from multiple studies (Glass, 1976).
It evaluates effect sizes across an entire data set, enabling researchers to compare the relative magnitude of relationships between different variables.

5. Method
Since most of the studies use regression-based techniques, correlations are the appropriate effect size for analysis.
Following accepted meta-analysis procedures (Borenstein, Hedges, Higgins, & Rothstein, 2009), correlations were coded for every relationship illustrated in Figure 1.
After the coding process was completed, the statistical analysis was conducted using Comprehensive Meta-Analysis version 3 (CMA) software.

6. Attributes-Satisfaction
Number of effects
Total N
Summary effect size p
Lower
bound
Upper bound
Fail-safe
Networking 4
1255
.600
.000
.380
.756 28
Education 8
1655
.520
.308
.683 43
Convention environment 9
2183
.372
.261
.474 27
Destination image 5
1305
.125
.485
-.223
.444

7. Attributes-Loyalty
Number of effects
Total N
Summary effect size p
Lower
bound
Upper bound
Fail-safe
Networking 8
1984
.428
.001
.193
.617 40
Education 9
1981
.330
.008
.090
.533 26
Convention environment 11
2650
.434
.000
.248
.589 29
Destination image 7
1818
.297
.003
.102
.469 16

8. Perception-Satisfaction
Number of effects
Total N
Summary effect size p
Lower
bound
Upper bound
Fail-safe
Service quality 6
1321
.389
.000
.212
.541 24
Value 3
471
.231
.023
.033
.412 4

9. Perception-Loyalty
Number of effects
Total N
Summary effect size p
Lower
bound
Upper bound
Fail-safe
Service quality 5
1286
.533
.000
.337
.685 26
Value 6
1436
.369
.011
.089
.594 22

10. Satisfaction-Loyalty
Number of effects
Total N
Summary effect size p
Lower
bound
Upper bound
Fail-safe
Satisfaction- Loyalty 9
1996
.552
.000
.374
.691 49

11. Implications
Satisfaction relationships: “networking” and “education” are the top drivers of convention attendee satisfaction.
Loyalty relationships: “convention environment”, “networking”, and perceptions of “service quality” strongly influence in convention attendee loyalty.
Similar to hospitality research, a strong relationship between “satisfaction” and “loyalty” in conventions was confirmed by the meta-analysis.