Christine A. Witt

Forecasting tourism demand: A review of empirical research

Abstract Accuracy is particularly important when forecasting tourism demand on account of the perishable nature of the product. The main methods used to forecast tourism demand which are reported in published empirical studies are discussed, together with the empirical findings. The vast majority of such studies are concerned with econometric modelling/forecasting, and the most appropriate explanatory variables are examined. Particular emphasis is placed on empirical comparisons of the accuracy of tourism forecasts generated by different techniques. Considerable scope exists for improving the model specification techniques employed in econometric forecasting of tourism demand. Furthermore, no single forecasting method performs consistently best across different situations, but autoregression, exponential smoothing and econometrics are worthy of consideration as alternatives to the no change model.

Why Productivity in the Hotel Sector is Low

Productivity growth in service industries has generally tended to be lower than in manufacturing industries, and the hotel sector is no exception. Problems of measuring productivity are discussed, together with specific reasons for low productivity in the hotel sector. It is suggested that increased usage of operations management techniques by hotel management is likely to result in improved productivity, and various examples are presented of situations in which these techniques can be successfully employed.

Forecasting international tourist flows

Abstract Previous research suggests that the “no change” model is relatively accurate when annual data are used to forecast international tourism demand, whereas more complex models are relatively accurate when seasonal data are used to forecast domestic tourism demand. The difference in accuracy rankings could be due to the international versus domestic dimension of the data or the difference in data frequency. This study demonstrates that the results obtained for international tourism using annual data also hold for seasonal data, so the previously obtained difference in accuracy rankings appears to be attributable to the use of international as opposed to domestic tourism demand data.

The implementation of total quality management in tourism: some guidelines

Abstract The importance of total quality management (TQM) has been recognized in Western Europe for a number of years, since its earlier origins in Japan. Indeed it has had an impact in a significant number of manufacturing organizations, with some notable successes, as well as some less publicized failures. This paper examines some of the ‘models’ of the TQM process and the literature on reported applications in manufacturing to attempt to develop guidelines for successful application in any type of organization. The key differences between manufacturing and services provide the basis for establishing how well the various TQM models cope with these idiosyncracies. Finally an assessment of the effectiveness of the reported TQM applications in tourism management is used to develop a composite picture of the steps which must be taken if TQM is to be successful in this environment. These steps will assist organizations in tourism-related areas in adopting TQM, facilitating the implementation process and reducing the likelihood of failure.

Econometric forecasts: tourism trends to 2000.

Abstract A complete system of demand equations is specified in order to generate forecasts of tourism imports and exports for various major geographical areas. The forecasts are presented for the period 1991–2000 under three alternative assumptions — there is no change in the external environment (baseline scenario), the completion of the single internal market of the European Community takes place, and the recent liberalization and general creation of market economies in Eastern Europe is allowed for. A comparison of the latter two scenarios with the baseline scenario permits the calculation of the effects of these changes on tourism demand.

Appraising An Econometric Forecasting Model

This article examines whether the information obtained on estimating an econometric model of international tourism demand is sufficient to enable conclusions to be drawn regarding theforecastingperformance ofthe model. It appears that criteria such as model goodness offit and statistical significance of the coefficients of the explanatory variables give little guidance with regard to relative forecasting ability.

Measures of forecasting accuracy - turning point error v size of error.

Abstract Previous work has shown that the naive ‘no change’ extrapolation model generates forecasts with lower average percentage errors over a one-year time horizon than six other quantitative forecasting methods. This study examines whether any of the other models outperform the ‘no change’ model when accuracy is measured in terms of turning point errors. The empirical results show that the model performance ranking varies considerably between these two measures. Econometric models yield the most accurate results according to the turning point error criterion, followed by exponential smoothing models, and are thus useful planning indicators for the international tourism industry.