ANNALS OF TOURISM RESEARCH

Spatial-temporal forecasting of tourism demand

Yang, Yang; Zhang, Honglei

Abstract

This study conducts spatial-temporal forecasting to predict inbound tourism demand in 29 Chinese provincial regions. Eight models are estimated among a-spatial models (autoregressive integrated moving average [ARIMA] model and unobserved component model [UCM]) and spatial-temporal models (dynamic spatial panel models and space-time autoregressive moving average [STARMA] models with different specifications of spatial weighting matrices). An ex-ante forecasting exercise is conducted with these models to compare their one-/two-step-ahead predictions. The results indicate that spatial-temporal forecasting outperforms the a-spatial counterpart in terms of average forecasting error. Auxiliary regression fords the relative error of spatial-temporal forecasting to be lower in regions characterized by a stronger level of local spatial association. Lastly, theoretical and practical implications are provided. This article also launches the Annals of Tourism Research Curated Collection on Tourism Demand Forecasting, a special selection of research in this field.

Keywords

Spatial-temporal forecasting; Tourism forecasting; Dynamic spatial panel model; Space-time autoregressive moving average model; Local indicators of spatial association

Research topic

Tourist Flows and Location

Research method

Econometrics, Spatial Modeling

Geographic area

China

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Additional links for this paper

ResearchGate

Publisher Website

Web of Science

HOW TO CITE

Yang, Y. and Zhang, H-L. (2019). Spatial-temporal forecasting of tourism demand. Annals of Tourism Research, 75, 106-119

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