An Integrative Approach to Tourism Forecasting: A Glance in the Rearview Mirror

In 1996, the South Australian Tourism Commission initiated a tourism forecasting and economic impact study to assess their future tourism industry potential. The integrative forecasting approach adopted advocates a combination of quantitative top-down and bottom-up approaches, along with a qualitative delphi survey to gather key industry input to the forecasting process. The article provides a retrospective assessment of the forecast accuracy for South Australia’s domestic and international tourism markets. Consideration of the most appropriate methods for updating existing state tourism forecasts, based on the South Australian experience, is also made. The findings suggest that the forecast accuracy for both international and domestic visitors was quite high overall. However, this apparent accuracy disguises some significant inaccuracies for particular segments, such as New Zealand and Other Asia, illustrating the difficulty of using time-series-type approaches to tourism forecasting in situations where the numbers are quite small and subject to significant volatility.

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