Forecasting tourism demand in Asian-Pacific countries

This article scrutinizes issues relating to the forecasting of international tourist arrivals. The area of interest is Asian-Pacific countries. Six forecasting techniques are examined. The results show that the accuracy of the forecasts differs depending on the country being forecast, but that the seasonal-nonseasonal ARIMA model is overall the most accurate method for forecasting international tourist arrivals. This research also finds, that, judging from the value of Theil inequality coefficient, seasonal-nonseasonal ARIMA is superior to any other technique examined in this article. Finally, the issue of policy implication is also addressed. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.