국립부경대학교 | Kim's Lab
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About

About

We study how people choose, taste, and travel, using data.

BAR Lab is the Business Analytics Research Lab at Pukyong National University in Busan, Korea. We turn big data, GeoAI, and eye-tracking into evidence for better decisions in hospitality, tourism, and foodservice.

Join the labSee our research
About

A data-driven lab for hospitality and tourism

Led by Prof. Hak-Seon Kim, BAR Lab works with an international network of researchers and doctoral alumni across six countries. The lab welcomes graduate students from all backgrounds who want to answer real industry questions with rigorous, data-driven methods.

250+peer-reviewed publications
5,000+citations, h-index 37
30+PhD graduates supervised
6+countries in our alumni network
Research

What we work on

Four connected lines of research, one goal: evidence that hospitality and tourism decisions can stand on.

Big data text mining

Online reviews and social media at scale, turned into measures of service quality, customer experience, and market response.

GeoAI and spatial analytics

Location intelligence for tourism and foodservice: where demand forms, how destinations connect, and why place matters.

Eye-tracking consumer behavior

What diners and travelers actually look at, from menus to booking screens, measured rather than assumed.

Wellness and food tourism

How food, health, and travel intersect, and what that means for destinations, restaurants, and policy.

People

Who we are

Hak-Seon Kim, Ph.D.

Professor, Pukyong National University · Editor-in-Chief, ABSI and CSHR

Prof. Kim received his Ph.D. in Hospitality Administration from Texas Tech University and his B.S. and M.S. from Seoul National University. Before joining Pukyong National University, he was a professor at Kyungsung University for 15 years, where he served as Founding Dean of the Global College and directed the Wellness Tourism Big Data Research Center.

He serves as Editor-in-Chief of Asia Business and Service Innovation (ABSI) and Culinary Science and Hospitality Research (CSHR), and has published over 250 peer-reviewed papers on hospitality analytics, consumer behavior, and tourism big data.

Prospective graduate students

We recruit M.S. and Ph.D. students year-round, including international applicants to English-track programs. If our research interests you, reach out with your CV and a short statement of interest.

Email Prof. Kim
Publications

Selected work

  • Online food delivery services and consumers' purchase intention: integration of theory of planned behavior, theory of perceived risk, and the elaboration likelihood model
    International Journal of Hospitality Management, 2022
  • The impact of hotel customer experience on customer satisfaction through online reviews
    Sustainability, 2022
  • Topic modeling and sentiment analysis of online reviews for airlines
    Information, 2021
  • Understanding customer experience and satisfaction through airline passengers' online reviews
    Sustainability, 2019
  • Investigating key attributes in experience and satisfaction of hotel customers using online review data
    Sustainability, 2019

Full list on Google Scholar

Contact

Get in touch

Office

Tel +82 51 629 4561

Address

Pukyong National University, Daeyeon Campus
45 Yongso-ro, Nam-gu, Busan 48513, Republic of Korea