Modeling consumer perception of public space in shopping centers

This article presents a study of the effects of various shopping center design and management attributes on consumer evaluations of the public space appearance (or atmosphere) in shopping centers. Examples of such attributes are level of maintenance, area for pedestrians, window displays, street layout, and street activities. A model is estimated from responses to experimentally controlled descriptions of hypothetical shopping centers. This conjoint analysis or stated preference-based model is compared with a similar regression model estimated from a cross section of perceptions of existing shopping centers. The conjoint and cross-sectional models are tested for their external validity on a holdout sample of respondents. It is concluded that both models perform equally well, but that the approach using hypothetical alternatives allows more detailed insight in the effects of the various shopping center attributes.