A context-specific causal model for estimating the effect of extended length of overnight stay on traveller's total expenditure

Abstract

Tourism significantly affects the economies of many countries. Understanding the causal relationship between the length of overnight stay and traveller's expenditure is crucial for stakeholders to characterize spending profiles and to design marketing strategies. Causal mechanisms differ between personal and work-related travel because the decision-making processes have different drivers and constraints. We apply context-specific independence relations to model causal mechanisms in contexts specified by trip purpose and identify the causal effect of the length of stay on expenditure. Using the international visitor survey data on foreign travellers to Finland, we fit a hierarchical Bayesian model to estimate the posterior distribution of the counterfactual expenditure due to extending the length of stay by one night. We also perform a Bayesian sensitivity analysis of the estimated causal effect with respect to omitted variable bias.