Relations between Non-Tourism and Tourism Consumption Choices: A Rough Sets Approach

Abstract

The main goal of this research is to analyze Italian tourists' behaviors on the basis of statistical surveys on households, life conditions, incomes, consumptions, travels and vacation. Rough Sets Theory, a Data Mining technique that can easily manage also categorical variables, is suitable for the exploitation of databases collecting sample surveys data. We apply it to a large selection of variables from database Sinottica, containing information on social, cultural and behavioral trends in Italy collected by means of a psychographic survey provided by a leading market research organization, GfK Eurisko. Some interesting relations between non-tourism consumption behaviors and corresponding tourism consumption choices are obtained in terms of decision rules.

Keywords: rough sets, tourism, data mining, sentry variable

JEL Classification: L83, C6