A forecasting model of tourist arrivals from major markets to Thailand

Jing Hao, Turgut Var, Jinhyung Chon

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

7 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Since international tourism is a rapidly growing phenomenon worldwide, the tourism industry has become a powerful engine for economic development and a major foreign exchange generator, especially in the East Asia and Pacific Region. With such growth and increased competition, it is vitally important to forecast tourism demand in the region and understand the factors affecting demand. Considering the national importance of tourism, Thailand was chosen as the destination country withnine major markets as the countries of origin. A model was developed for each country to forecast tourism demand from that market. Multiple regression analysis was applied over time series data. The empirical results suggest that independent variables, such as income level in the country of origin, prices of tourism goods in the destination country, currency exchange rate between the origin and destination country, and rooms supply in destination, do affect tourism demand. Qualitative factors, represented by dummy variables, namely special promotional program and political unrest, show slight impact on demand. The study reveals that there are differences in the relative impacts of variablesamong the tourist-generating countries. Thus, country-specific forecasting models and strategies must be formulated to reflect the uniqueness of each country of origin.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)33-45
Number of pages13
JournalTourism Analysis
Volume8
Issue number1
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2003
Externally publishedYes

Keywords

  • Demand
  • Distance
  • Exchange rate
  • Income
  • International tourism
  • Price
  • Thailand
  • Time constraint
  • Tourism forecasting

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Tourism, Leisure and Hospitality Management

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