IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/intfor/v27yi3p822-844.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The tourism forecasting competition

Author

Listed:
  • Athanasopoulos, George
  • Hyndman, Rob J.
  • Song, Haiyan
  • Wu, Doris C.

Abstract

We evaluate the performances of various methods for forecasting tourism data. The data used include 366 monthly series, 427 quarterly series and 518 annual series, all supplied to us by either tourism bodies or academics who had used them in previous tourism forecasting studies. The forecasting methods implemented in the competition are univariate and multivariate time series approaches, and econometric models. This forecasting competition differs from previous competitions in several ways: (i) we concentrate on tourism data only; (ii) we include approaches with explanatory variables; (iii) we evaluate the forecast interval coverage as well as the point forecast accuracy; (iv) we observe the effect of temporal aggregation on the forecasting accuracy; and (v) we consider the mean absolute scaled error as an alternative forecasting accuracy measure. We find that pure time series approaches provide more accurate forecasts for tourism data than models with explanatory variables. For seasonal data we implement three fully automated pure time series algorithms that generate accurate point forecasts, and two of these also produce forecast coverage probabilities which are satisfactorily close to the nominal rates. For annual data we find that Naïve forecasts are hard to beat.

Suggested Citation

  • Athanasopoulos, George & Hyndman, Rob J. & Song, Haiyan & Wu, Doris C., 2011. "The tourism forecasting competition," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 822-844, July.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:intfor:v:27:y::i:3:p:822-844
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S016920701000107X
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hyndman, R.J. & Koehler, A.B. & Ord, J.K. & Snyder, R.D., 2001. "Prediction Intervals for Exponential Smoothing State Space Models," Monash Econometrics and Business Statistics Working Papers 11/01, Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics.
    2. Hyndman, Rob J. & Khandakar, Yeasmin, 2008. "Automatic Time Series Forecasting: The forecast Package for R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 27(i03).
    3. Makridakis, Spyros & Hibon, Michele & Lusk, Ed & Belhadjali, Moncef, 1987. "Confidence intervals: An empirical investigation of the series in the M-competition," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 3(3-4), pages 489-508.
    4. Kwiatkowski, Denis & Phillips, Peter C. B. & Schmidt, Peter & Shin, Yongcheol, 1992. "Testing the null hypothesis of stationarity against the alternative of a unit root : How sure are we that economic time series have a unit root?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 54(1-3), pages 159-178.
    5. Hyndman, Rob J. & Koehler, Anne B. & Snyder, Ralph D. & Grose, Simone, 2002. "A state space framework for automatic forecasting using exponential smoothing methods," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 439-454.
    6. Kim, Jae H. & Wong, Kevin & Athanasopoulos, George & Liu, Shen, 2011. "Beyond point forecasting: Evaluation of alternative prediction intervals for tourist arrivals," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 887-901.
    7. Taylor, James W., 2003. "Exponential smoothing with a damped multiplicative trend," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 19(4), pages 715-725.
    8. Bonham, Carl & Gangnes, Byron & Zhou, Ting, 2009. "Modeling tourism: A fully identified VECM approach," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 531-549, July.
    9. West, Kenneth D., 2006. "Forecast Evaluation," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 3, pages 99-134, Elsevier.
    10. Assimakopoulos, V. & Nikolopoulos, K., 2000. "The theta model: a decomposition approach to forecasting," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 521-530.
    11. Anne B. Koehler & Rob J. Hyndman & Ralph D. Snyder & J. Keith Ord, 2005. "Prediction intervals for exponential smoothing using two new classes of state space models," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(1), pages 17-37.
    12. Sims, Christopher A, 1980. "Macroeconomics and Reality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(1), pages 1-48, January.
    13. Witt, Stephen F. & Witt, Christine A., 1995. "Forecasting tourism demand: A review of empirical research," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 11(3), pages 447-475, September.
    14. Hyndman, Rob J. & Koehler, Anne B., 2006. "Another look at measures of forecast accuracy," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 679-688.
    15. Diebold, Francis X & Kilian, Lutz, 2000. "Unit-Root Tests Are Useful for Selecting Forecasting Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 18(3), pages 265-273, July.
    16. Haiyan Song & Stephen F. Witt & Gang Li, 2003. "Modelling and Forecasting the Demand for Thai Tourism," Tourism Economics, , vol. 9(4), pages 363-387, December.
    17. Robert Fildes & Paul Goodwin, 2007. "Against Your Better Judgment? How Organizations Can Improve Their Use of Management Judgment in Forecasting," Interfaces, INFORMS, vol. 37(6), pages 570-576, December.
    18. Ord, J.K. & Koehler, A. & Snyder, R.D., 1995. "Estimation and Prediction for a Class of Dynamic Nonlinear Statistical Models," Monash Econometrics and Business Statistics Working Papers 4/95, Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics.
    19. Fildes, Robert & Wei, Yingqi & Ismail, Suzilah, 2011. "Evaluating the forecasting performance of econometric models of air passenger traffic flows using multiple error measures," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 902-922.
    20. Makridakis, Spyros & Hibon, Michele, 2000. "The M3-Competition: results, conclusions and implications," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 451-476.
    21. Kulendran, N. & King, Maxwell L., 1997. "Forecasting international quarterly tourist flows using error-correction and time-series models," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 319-327, September.
    22. Athanasopoulos, George & Ahmed, Roman A. & Hyndman, Rob J., 2009. "Hierarchical forecasts for Australian domestic tourism," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 146-166.
    23. Kim, Chang-Jin, 1993. "Sources of Monetary Growth Uncertainty and Economic Activity: The Time-Varying-Parameter Model with Heteroskedastic Disturbances," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 75(3), pages 483-492, August.
    24. Garcia-Ferrer, Antonio, et al, 1987. "Macroeconomic Forecasting Using Pooled International Data," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 5(1), pages 53-67, January.
    25. Anthony Tay & Kenneth F. Wallis, 2000. "Density Forecasting: A Survey," Econometric Society World Congress 2000 Contributed Papers 0370, Econometric Society.
    26. Hyndman, Rob J. & Billah, Baki, 2003. "Unmasking the Theta method," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 287-290.
    27. Song, Haiyan & Witt, Stephen F. & Jensen, Thomas C., 2003. "Tourism forecasting: accuracy of alternative econometric models," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 123-141.
    28. Athanasopoulos, George & Vahid, Farshid, 2008. "VARMA versus VAR for Macroeconomic Forecasting," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 26, pages 237-252, April.
    29. Goodrich, Robert L., 2000. "The Forecast Pro methodology," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 16(4), pages 533-535.
    30. Osborn, Denise R. & Heravi, Saeed & Birchenhall, C. R., 1999. "Seasonal unit roots and forecasts of two-digit European industrial production," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 15(1), pages 27-47, February.
    31. Greenslade, Jennifer V. & Hall, Stephen G., 1996. "Modelling economies subject to structural change: The case of Germany," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 13(4), pages 545-559, October.
    32. JS Armstrong, 2004. "Should We Redesign Forecasting Competitions?," General Economics and Teaching 0412001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    33. Armstrong, J. Scott, 2006. "Findings from evidence-based forecasting: Methods for reducing forecast error," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 583-598.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Hyndman, Rob J. & Khandakar, Yeasmin, 2008. "Automatic Time Series Forecasting: The forecast Package for R," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 27(i03).
    2. Petropoulos, Fotios & Apiletti, Daniele & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios & Babai, Mohamed Zied & Barrow, Devon K. & Ben Taieb, Souhaib & Bergmeir, Christoph & Bessa, Ricardo J. & Bijak, Jakub & Boylan, Joh, 2022. "Forecasting: theory and practice," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 705-871.
      • Fotios Petropoulos & Daniele Apiletti & Vassilios Assimakopoulos & Mohamed Zied Babai & Devon K. Barrow & Souhaib Ben Taieb & Christoph Bergmeir & Ricardo J. Bessa & Jakub Bijak & John E. Boylan & Jet, 2020. "Forecasting: theory and practice," Papers 2012.03854, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    3. De Gooijer, Jan G. & Hyndman, Rob J., 2006. "25 years of time series forecasting," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(3), pages 443-473.
    4. Jan G. De Gooijer & Rob J. Hyndman, 2005. "25 Years of IIF Time Series Forecasting: A Selective Review," Monash Econometrics and Business Statistics Working Papers 12/05, Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics.
    5. Theodosiou, Marina, 2011. "Forecasting monthly and quarterly time series using STL decomposition," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 1178-1195, October.
    6. Alysha M De Livera, 2010. "Automatic forecasting with a modified exponential smoothing state space framework," Monash Econometrics and Business Statistics Working Papers 10/10, Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics.
    7. Fildes, Robert & Petropoulos, Fotios, 2015. "Simple versus complex selection rules for forecasting many time series," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(8), pages 1692-1701.
    8. E. Vercher & A. Corberán-Vallet & J. Segura & J. Bermúdez, 2012. "Initial conditions estimation for improving forecast accuracy in exponential smoothing," TOP: An Official Journal of the Spanish Society of Statistics and Operations Research, Springer;Sociedad de Estadística e Investigación Operativa, vol. 20(2), pages 517-533, July.
    9. Spiliotis, Evangelos & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios & Makridakis, Spyros, 2020. "Generalizing the Theta method for automatic forecasting," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 284(2), pages 550-558.
    10. Song, Haiyan & Qiu, Richard T.R. & Park, Jinah, 2019. "A review of research on tourism demand forecasting," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 75(C), pages 338-362.
    11. Hess, Alexander & Spinler, Stefan & Winkenbach, Matthias, 2021. "Real-time demand forecasting for an urban delivery platform," Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Elsevier, vol. 145(C).
    12. Kourentzes, Nikolaos & Petropoulos, Fotios & Trapero, Juan R., 2014. "Improving forecasting by estimating time series structural components across multiple frequencies," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 291-302.
    13. Meira, Erick & Cyrino Oliveira, Fernando Luiz & de Menezes, Lilian M., 2022. "Forecasting natural gas consumption using Bagging and modified regularization techniques," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C).
    14. R Fildes & K Nikolopoulos & S F Crone & A A Syntetos, 2008. "Forecasting and operational research: a review," Journal of the Operational Research Society, Palgrave Macmillan;The OR Society, vol. 59(9), pages 1150-1172, September.
    15. Kourentzes, Nikolaos & Saayman, Andrea & Jean-Pierre, Philippe & Provenzano, Davide & Sahli, Mondher & Seetaram, Neelu & Volo, Serena, 2021. "Visitor arrivals forecasts amid COVID-19: A perspective from the Africa team," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    16. Makridakis, Spyros & Hyndman, Rob J. & Petropoulos, Fotios, 2020. "Forecasting in social settings: The state of the art," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 15-28.
    17. Sbrana, Giacomo & Silvestrini, Andrea, 2023. "The RWDAR model: A novel state-space approach to forecasting," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 922-937.
    18. Ulrich Gunter, 2021. "Improving Hotel Room Demand Forecasts for Vienna across Hotel Classes and Forecast Horizons: Single Models and Combination Techniques Based on Encompassing Tests," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 3(4), pages 1-36, November.
    19. Makridakis, Spyros & Spiliotis, Evangelos & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios, 2020. "The M4 Competition: 100,000 time series and 61 forecasting methods," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 54-74.
    20. repec:jss:jstsof:27:i03 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Kim, Jae H. & Wong, Kevin & Athanasopoulos, George & Liu, Shen, 2011. "Beyond point forecasting: Evaluation of alternative prediction intervals for tourist arrivals," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 887-901, July.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ARIMA Exponential smoothing State space model Time varying parameter model Dynamic regression Autoregressive distributed lag model Vector autoregression;

    JEL classification:

    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection
    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:intfor:v:27:y::i:3:p:822-844. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijforecast .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.