Vacation portfolio decisions : analysis using a Bayesian belief network

The aim of this study is to analyse the extent to which vacation portfolio decisions are influenced by socio-demographic characteristics. A vacation portfolio involves interdependent decisions related to the facets that make the vacation trip, including transport mode, accommodation, destination, travel party and so on. Holiday trips of 839 Dutch respondents made from 2002 to 2009 were used for the analysis in order to find the direct and indirect relationships between socio-demographics and travel-related variables. A Bayesian belief network model, which learns these relationships from the data, was developed. One of the results of this analysis indicates that the family lifecycle stages directly affect the choice of transport mode, accommodation and travel party.