Causal relationship between eWOM topics and profit of rural tourism at Japanese Roadside Stations "MICHINOEKI"

Affected by urbanization, centralization and the decrease of overall population, Japan has been making efforts to revitalize the rural areas across the country. One particular effort is to increase tourism to these rural areas via regional branding, using local farm products as tourist attractions across Japan. Particularly, a program subsidized by the government called Michinoeki, which stands for 'roadside station', was created 20 years ago and it strives to provide a safe and comfortable space for cultural interaction between road travelers and the local community, as well as offering refreshment, and relevant information to travelers. However, despite its importance in the revitalization of the Japanese economy, studies with newer technologies and methodologies are lacking. Using sales data from establishments in the Kyushu area of Japan, we used Support Vector to classify content from Twitter into relevant topics and studied their causal relationship to the sales for each establishment using LiNGAM, a linear non-gaussian acyclic model built for causal structure analysis, to perform an improved market analysis considering more than just correlation. Under the hypotheses stated by the LiNGAM model, we discovered a positive causal relationship between the number of tweets mentioning those establishments, specially mentioning deserts, a need for better access and traf^ic options, and a potentially untapped customer base in motorcycle biker groups.