Modeling consumer perception of public space in shopping centers

This article presents a study of the effects of various shopping center des ign and management attributes on consumer evaluations of the public space a ppearance (or atmosphere) in shopping centers. Examples of such attributes are level of maintenance, area for pedestrians, window displays, street lay out, and street activities. A model is estimated from responses to experime ntally controlled descriptions of hypothetical shopping centers. This conjo int analysis or stated preference-based model is compared with a similar re gression model estimated from a cross section of perceptions of existing sh opping centers. The conjoint and cross-sectional models are tested for thei r external validity on a holdout sample of respondents. It is concluded tha t both models perform equally well, but that the approach using hypothetica l alternatives allows more detailed insight in the effects of the various s hopping center attributes.