Abstract
Purpose This study proposed an approach for predicting the efficiency rating of the cultural tourism festivals using DEA and machine learning techniques. The cultural tourism festivals are selected for the best festivals through peer reviews by tourism experts. However, only 10% of the festivals which are held in a year could be evaluated in the view of effectiveness without considering the efficiency of festivals. Design/methodology/approach Efficiency scores were derived from the results of DEA for the prediction of efficiency ratings. This study utilized BCC models to reflect the size effect of festivals and classified the festivals into four ratings according the efficiency scores. Multi-classification method were considered to build the prediction of four ratings for the festivals in this study. We utilized neural networks and SVMs with OAO(one-against-one), OAR(one-against-rest), C&S(crammer & singer) with Korea festival data from 2013 to 2018. Findings The number of total visitors in low efficient rating of DEA is more larger than the number of total visitors in high efficient ratings although the total expenditure of visitors is the highest in the most efficient rating when we analyzed the results of DEA for the characteristics of four ratings. SVM with OAO model showed the most superior performance in accuracy as SVM with OAR model was not trained well because of the imbalanced distribution between efficient rating and the other ratings. Our approach could predict the efficiency of festivals which were not included in the review process of culture tourism festivals without rebuilding DEA models each time. This enables us to manage the festivals efficiently with the proposed machine learning models.