Abstract

Purpose - This study reviews the achievements of a pilot project for the revitalization of a commercial district performed for three years after its establishment in 2011. The project for the revitalization of the commercial district was performed to create a new local community space in connection with the traditional market and nearby districts. Although it was a pilot project, the project for the revitalization of the commercial district has been performed for almost three years. Therefore, this seems a proper time to conduct an interim evaluation of the project. This study aims to review and evaluate how the government support policy is influential for the revitalization of the commercial district. In other words, this research aims to identify what projects positively affected consumers' intention to revisit the downtown commercial area among the commercial district revitalization projects-promotion events, promotion activities, education, merchants cooperation system, IT projects, cultural events, and residents' communication. Research design, data, and methodology - This study designated seven management improvement projects affecting commercial district revitalization based on preceding studies. The survey of the degree of satisfaction on seven management improvement projects was executed targeting consumers who visited the commercial areas. Additionally, visitors' revisit intentions regarding currently visited commercial areas were also investigated. Therefore, revisit intention was set as a dependent variable and the satisfaction degrees of the respective management improvement projects were set as the independent variables. A total of 1,209 consumers were examined in six districts in the country. Result - Multiple regression analysis results showed that cultural events, education, the merchants' cooperation system, and IT projects brought statistically significant effects to the revisit intentions of consumers. In contrast, promotion events, resident communication projects, and promotion activities did not affect the revisit intentions of consumers. Particularly, the residents' communication project did not show significant influence because of consumers' recognition that it is similar to a cultural event. Conclusion - The following implications for the revitalization of business districts in the urban central area are drawn. From a general perspective, the businesses of culture, education, and cooperative system among seven businesses play positive roles regarding the intention to revisit so that the project is required to be promoted periodically through unique performances differentiated for each district, the merchant training reinforced for professionalism, and the expansion of joint events of merchants. Moreover, the sales promotion project and public relations activity are shown to be not influential to the intention to revisit. Therefore, while short-term sales promotion such as one-time gift events are required, sales promotion and public relation activities to induce revisits by mileage savings and accumulated gift presentation to attract long-term customers are required. The IT business is positively influential to the intention of revisit. Therefore, detailed information on the revitalized commercial district should be provided and additional functions such as discount coupons for continuous utilization should be included in the mobile app and the website.