Conventions and Tourism:

This research sought to explore the extent to which different groups of convention attendees add tourism or recreation activities to the convention experience and do these groups differ in the amount of money they spend on such activities? The research was conducted among a statistically valid and reliable sample of the residents of one state. Twenty-two percent of the sample population had attended a convention in the past year and 58.9 percent of those spent additional money on tourism activities. Of the four different types of convention attendees, members of two groups spent significantly more money on vacation food and beverage and recreation related retail than the other groups.