Bayesian Network Analysis for the Questionnaire Investigation on Tourists’ Behavior

Abstract

Tourists from abroad are increasing rapidly in Japan. Kawazu town in Izu Peninsula is famous for its cherry trees. In the cherry blossom season, many tourists visit this town. The Kawazu Cherry Blossom Festival was carried out in February 2015. Our research investigation was performed during that period. In this paper, a questionnaire investigation is executed in order to clarify tourists’ behavior, and to seek the possibility of developing regional collaboration among local government, tourism related industry and visitors. In this research, we construct the model utilizing Bayesian Network and causal relationship is sequentially chained by the characteristics of travelers, an objective to visit Izu Peninsula in Japan and the main occasion to visit them. Sensitivity Analysis for “Main occasion to visit to Izu Peninsula” was conducted and 17 cases were analyzed. These are utilized for constructing a much more effective and useful tourism service. To confirm the findings by utilizing the new consecutive visiting records would be the future works to be investigated.