Twelve years of patient observation.

BAR LAB was founded in 2013 by Prof. Hak-Seon Kim at the Department of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Kyungsung University.

The original Korean name — 서비스경영연구실 (Service Management Lab) — captured the early focus on Korean food-service operations and consumer behavior. As the lab grew international and the methods diversified into bibliometrics, eye-tracking, and cross-cultural validation, the broader name Business Analytics Research Lab took its place.

We translate noisy consumer signals — reviews, gaze, surveys, social posts — into actionable understanding of how service industries actually behave.

The lab pairs rigorous quantitative methods with industry-tested intuition. Members come from nine countries and bring their own cultural and market lenses to research. We publish in SSCI/SCIE venues, advise companies, and increasingly, build our own research instruments — including the eye-tracking platform at wtbd.site.

Twenty-eight doctoral graduates now lead departments, run consultancies, and manage hospitality operations across Korea, China, Vietnam, and Mongolia.

Many alumni return as faculty colleagues — what we call re-lab: graduates of the MS or PhD programs who now teach at Kyungsung Global College and continue collaborating on research. This produces an unusual depth of institutional memory and methodological continuity.