Research on the principal factors and indicators of urban MICE competitiveness from the perspective of supply
Authors: Chen Jianbin , Chen Danlin 
Published: April 2019

Purpose
Urban MICE competitiveness research consists of two clusters, one that is public-statistics-based and another that is questionnaire-based. Supply-side research on urban MICE competitiveness is rare. Based on the findings of Chen (2014) and other scholars, the purpose of this paper is to design counterpart statistical indicators to empirically analyze CMCA member cities.

Design/methodology/approach
After calculating the standardized Z value of the original statistical data for 17 CMCA member cities, the authors conducted confirmatory factor analysis for the first-level principal components, based on which hierarchical clustering was performed; then, regression analysis was conducted with the MICE profit factor as the dependent variable and the cost factor, tight support factor and facilitating factor as the independent variables to support publishing articles.

Findings
The confirmatory factor analysis showed that the urban MICE competitiveness indicators from the supply-side perspective include the profit factor, cost factor, tight support factor and facilitating factor.

Research limitations/implications
On the basis of research findings from the demand perspective and the literature review, the authors constructed an urban MICE competitiveness indicator system from the perspective of the supply side and conducted principal component analysis. However, because of the inaccessibility of panel data, the current data were only sufficient to conduct the research. If panel data could be acquired, further research could be conducted to perfect the current indicator system for urban MICE competitiveness.

Practical implications
The findings suggest that tourism total income, tourism foreign exchange income, inbound tourist number, number of exhibitions, exhibition area, number of UFI member cities and number of ICCA member cities were the main reason for the gap between different cities’ competitiveness and the reform focus for improving urban MICE competitiveness. The cost factor had a significantly negative influence on urban MICE competitiveness, implying that the higher the average hotel room price and revenue per available room, the less competitive the MICE host city is.

Social implications
The tight support factor exerts a significant positive influence on urban MICE competitiveness from the supply-side perspective, while the cost factor exerts a significant negative influence. The findings suggest that the tourism total income, tourism foreign exchange income, inbound tourist number, number of exhibitions, exhibition area, number of UFI member cities and number of ICCA member cities were the main reason for the gap between different cities’ competitiveness and the reform focus for improving urban MICE competitiveness. The cost factor had a significantly negative influence on urban MICE competitiveness, implying that the higher the average hotel room price and revenue per available room, the less competitive the MICE host city is.

Originality/value
The research bridge the empirical statistics and the questionnaire-based perception study on urban MICE tourism image, and advance to construct an empirical statistics based indicator system for urban MICE tourism image.