Push and pull factors in determining the consumers' motivations for choosing wedding banquet venues: A case study in Chongqing, China

This study was conducted to investigate the push and pull factors in consumers’ decisions in choosing wedding banquet venues in Chongqing, China. The objectives of this research were to identify push and pull factors that motivated decision makers and to explore the relationships between the factors across decision makers’ demographic variables including “relationship with the new couple”, “personal monthly income”, and “wedding banquet budget”. This study made the first attempts to utilize push-pull theory to investigate customer motivation in choosing wedding banquet venues. Four types of analysis were utilized in the methodology chapter. First, descriptive analysis was used to provide a summary of the demographic characteristics of the participants. Next, exploratory factor analysis was conducted to identify the push and pull constructs used throughout the study. Third, ANOVA was utilized to determine whether significant differences existed between push and pull factors based on the demographic variables “relationship with the new couple”, “personal monthly income”, and “wedding banquet budget”. Finally, Pearson bivariate correlation analysis was conducted to identify the relationships between the push and pull factors. The present research identified four push factors (“seeking relaxation and knowledge”, “fulfilling prestige”, “escaping from daily routine”, and “social networking”) derived from the extracted 10 push items and six pull factors (“budget”, “atmosphere”, “facilities”, “wedding services”, “transportation”, and “service and quality”) derived from the extracted 16 pull items, and failed to find a significant relationship among these push and pull factors at the p < .05 level. This thesis concludes with a discussion of the findings, implications for practice, and recommendations for future research.