The Behavior Analysis of Exhibition Visitors using Data Mining Technique at the KIDS & EDU EXPO for Children

Abstract

An exhibition is defined as market events for specific duration to present exhibitors' main products to business or private visitors, and it plays a key role as effective marketing channels. As the importance of exhibition is getting more and more, domestic exhibition industry has achieved such a great quantitative growth. But, In contrast to the quantitative growth of domestic exhibition industry, the qualitative growth of Exhibition has not achieved competent growth. In order to improve the quality of exhibition, we need to understand the preference or behavior characteristics of visitors and to increase the level of visitors' attention and satisfaction through the understanding of visitors. So, in this paper, we used the observation survey method which is a kind of field research to understand visitors and collect the real data for the analysis of behavior pattern. And this research proposed the following methodology framework consisting of three steps. First step is to select a suitable exhibition to apply for our method. Second step is to implement the observation survey method. And we collect the real data for further analysis. In this paper, we conducted the observation survey method to obtain the real data of the KIDS & EDU EXPO for Children in SETEC. Our methodology was conducted on 160 visitors and 78 booths from November 4th to 6th in 2010. And, the last step is to analyze the record data through observation. In this step, we analyze the feature of exhibition using Demographic Characteristics collected by observation survey method at first. And then we analyze the individual booth features by the records of visited booth. Through the analysis of individual booth features, we can figure out what kind of events attract the attention of visitors and what kind of marketing activities affect the behavior pattern of visitors. But, since previous research considered only individual features influenced by exhibition, the research about the correlation among features is not performed much. So, in this research, additional analysis is carried out to supplement the existing research with data mining techniques. And we analyze the relation among booths using data mining techniques to know behavior patterns of visitors. Among data mining techniques, we make use of two data mining techniques, such as clustering analysis and ARM(Association Rule Mining) analysis. In clustering analysis, we use K-means algorithm to figure out the correlation among booths. Through data mining techniques, we figure out that there are two important features to affect visitors' behavior patterns in exhibition. One is the geographical features of booths. The other is the exhibit contents of booths. Those features are considered when the organizer of exhibition plans next exhibition. Therefore, the results of our analysis are expected to provide guideline to understanding visitors and some valuable insights for the exhibition from the earlier phases of exhibition planning. Also, this research would be a good way to increase the quality of visitor satisfaction. Visitors' movement paths, booth location, and distances between each booth are considered to plan next exhibition in advance. This research was conducted at the KIDS & EDU EXPO for Children in SETEC(Seoul Trade Exhibition & Convention), but it has some constraints to be applied directly to other exhibitions. Also, the results were derived from a limited number of data samples. In order to obtain more accurate and reliable results, it is necessary to conduct more experiments based on larger data samples and exhibitions on a variety of genres.