An estimation of the contribution of the international meeting industry to the Korean national economy based on input-output analysis

This paper presents the contribution of the international meeting industry to the Korean national economy. To obtain more accurate results, the study adopted three improvements over previous research: consideration of both supply and demand; direct expenditure surveys of participants and hosts; and re-categorization of related business sectors. The results of the input-output analysis showed that per capita expenditure for international and domestic participants was US$2,432.4 and US$459.3, respectively, and the per capita average budget was US$562.1. Based on these findings, the total contribution of the international meeting industry to the Korean economy exceeds US$1,343.2 million in output, US$236.6 million in personal income, US$589.3 million in value added, US$61.5 million in tax revenue and 16,336 full-time-equivalent jobs. These results provide two key implications, providing evidence of the importance of both the supply and demand sides and the relative importance of each sub-industry for increasing economic benefit.