Visitors’ Motives for Attending a Healthy Food Exhibition

Abstract

Environmental issues (i.e., food safety and environmental pollution) have increased concerns about individuals’ health as well as global environment. These concerns drive awareness for the influences of healthy foods, and eventually lead them to visit healthy food exhibitions. This research aims to understand the attendees’ motives for participating in a healthy food exhibition. Specific objectives are to identify crucial visitors’ motives influencing satisfaction with the healthy food exhibition and to verify whether visitors’ satisfaction with the exhibition enhances their memory for the experience in the exhibition. The survey was conducted by targeting visitors who participated in the Busan International Food Expo, and the data collected from 363 attendees were analyzed using the SPSS and AMOS statistical programs. The analysis results revealed that three dimensions of healthy food exhibition motives, namely perceived healthiness, perceived hedonism and perceived food safety, increase visitors’ satisfaction with the healthy food exhibition, and that satisfaction with the healthy food exhibition further had a positive impact on the visitors’ memory for the exhibition experience.