The Graduate School of Business (GSB) within the School of Business and Management (SBM) at The University of the South Pacific (USP) hosted its “Meet the Leaders Forum” last Thursday (June 15, 2023).
The speaker for the Forum was the Chair of Tourism Events & Attractions at Rosen College of Hospitality Management at the University of Central Florida and an Adjunct Professor with the School of Business & Management, Professor Stephen Pratt.
Current students from Laucala, Lautoka, Samoa and Emalus Campuses joined the Forum to learn from Professor Pratt, who spoke on “Using Market Basket Analysis to Understand Cross-Selling Opportunities (and other jointly consumed goods and services).”
The Graduate School of Business was grateful to the speaker for highlighting the important points relevant to the GSB and MBA curriculum, enhancing students’ learning capability, and empowering the audience in attendance.
Professor Pratt elaborated, “Market basket analysis works by looking for relationships between frequently bought items.”
“If you bought something on Amazon and were then informed that customers who bought [this item] also bought [several other items]” or had Netflix tell you to watch this movie if you like [the movie just watched]”, then the data mining technique of market basket analysis has been used to uncover associations between different products purchased,” he explained.
Professor Pratt applied this analytical technique to investigate which types of activities backpackers participated in when they visited Fiji. “The backpacker market is important and diverse for many Pacific destinations.”
“Understanding what backpackers do on their trip is essential for tourism businesses so they can cater to their needs and wants. Combined with factor and cluster analysis, segmentation based on activities backpackers participate in revealed that over two-thirds of backpackers participate in a wide range of diverse activities while about a quarter of backpackers ‘fly and flop’ on the beach, only participating in a limited number of passive activities.”
He added that the remaining segment of backpackers could be termed “cultural adventurers” based on their participation in activities.
The Forum was also an excellent opportunity for students to improve their understanding and ideas on “Using Market Basket Analysis to Understand Cross-Selling Opportunities (and other jointly consumed goods and services).”
