A perceptual measure of trade shows using fuzzy quality deployment development

In the past researches on the evaluation of trade shows (TSs), visitors were mostly assumed to conduct aggregating partial deliberations, which were analyzed with a single step procedure, yet unable to derive a whole picture of TSs. An organizer of trade TSs needs to know the framework of criteria used by potential visitors in their ex ante evaluation of trade shows. This paper comes to fill a gap in the published research, aiming to answer to research questions: which is the underlying structure of criteria? And which criteria are important for visitors in evaluating TSs to visit? A sample of retailers was interviewed and using fuzzy judgment to determine the vague cognition of visitors. Besides, fuzzy quality function deployment and entropy are used to determine the intensity of criteria in TSs to develop the fuzzy decision support system (FDSS). The resulting fuzzy values can be used to analyze the variance and the importance of criteria in TSs more effectively compared with the crisp values. The information will make it easier for the retailers to prioritize the criteria in TSs for marketing-oriented service.