Tourism Management 22 (2001) 403}409

A practitioners guide to time-series methods for tourism demand

forecasting * a case study of Durban, South Africa
C.J.S.C. Burger , M. Dohnal
, M. Kathrada
*, R. Law
Ecotourism Research Unit, Technikon Natal, P.O. Box 953, Durban 4001, South Africa

Faculty of Business and Management, Institute for Applied Studies, Technical University of Brno. Technika 2, 616 69, Brno, Czech Republic
Department of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong
Received 5 May 1999; accepted 17 October 2000

Abstract

This paper compares a variety of time-series forecasting methods to predict tourism demand for a certain region, and is meant as
a guideline for tourism forecasters at the commencement of any study who do not have access to large databases in order to create
structural models. This study has been conducted at a metropolitan level to forecast the US demand for travel to Durban, South
Africa. A brief description of the tourism attractions and context of this area is provided to give a qualitative feel of the system prior to
the modelling process. A variety of techniques are employed in this survey, namely namK ve, moving average, decomposition, single
exponential smoothing, ARIMA, multiple regression, genetic regression and neural networks with the latter two methods being the
non-traditional techniques. O$cial statistical data from 1992 to 1998 was used in this study. The actual and predicted number of
visitors are then compared. The survey shows that the neural network method performs the best.  2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All
rights reserved.

Keywords: Tourism forecasting; Durban; Genetic regression; Neural networks

1. Introduction South Africa, so much a part of Africa, can play an

Global consumer trends indicate that tourists are be-
coming more discerning in their choice of destinations.
They are furthermore becoming less predictable and
more spontaneous in terms of their consumption pat-
terns. It can be claimed that the need for stimulation and
new experiences are now the most important motivators
for tourism trips. In this respect Africa has much to o!er
as a future tourist destination, provided that it is cured of
ethnic wars, mismanagement and corruption. Tourism
depends entirely on the quality of the resources and
political stability of the destination visited. The &magic' of
Africa is still perceived as a strong selling point and
European and American tourists are attracted due to its
uniqueness, which should be kept intact to preserve bio-
diversity.
* Correspondence address. Ecotourism Research Unit, Technikon
Natal, P. O. Box 953, Durban 4001, South Africa. Tel.: #27-31-2611-
6591; fax: #27-31-203-6633.
E-mail address: staalb@city.ntech.ac.za, shongweni@ananzi.co.za
(M. Kathrada).
important role in the growth and development that
tourism can o!er to improve the quality of peoples' lives,
both as an &escape' for tourists and as a source of employ-
ment and income for local communities. South Africa has
a well-established network of national and private nature
reserves that cater for the environmentally sensitive visi-
tor. The World Tourism Organisation, in its 1995 review
of African tourism, considered South Africa to be `one of
the most promising tourism destinations on the African
continenta (South Africa, 1996). However, South Africa
has not yet been able to realise its full potential in tourism
and the contribution of tourism to employment, small
business development, income and foreign exchange earn-
ings remains limited (South African Government, 1996).
Tourism has become a very competitive business. The
competitive advantage no longer lies in natural resources
only, but increasingly in the level of technology, informa-
tion and innovation o!ered. Therefore, the future of
South African tourism will not be determined by wildlife
parks, beautiful scenery, cultural diversity or other re-
sources, but rather by how well such resources are
managed and to what extent they complement human
skills and innovations.

0261-5177/01/$ - see front matter  2001 Elsevier Science Ltd. All rights reserved.
PII: S 0 2 6 1 - 5 1 7 7 ( 0 0 ) 0 0 0 6 8 - 6
404 C.J.S.C. Burger et al. / Tourism Management 22 (2001) 403}409
The African market only grew slightly in 1995 by
1.7 per cent in terms of arrivals and 6 per cent in terms of
receipts while Southern Africa was the fastest growing
destination in Africa as this region's arrivals increased by
17 per cent and receipts by 10.5 per cent (Caras, 1998).
KwaZulu-Natal (Durban lies in this province in South
Africa) dominates the domestic tourism market with
a market share of 26 per cent (Caras, 1998). Durban and
the adjacent areas capture a large proportion of this.
KwaZulu-Natal already attracts the third highest
number of international tourists (only Gauteng and the
Western Cape are visited more often). Foreign visitors
spend on average 5 nights in the Durban area and
7 nights in the rest of the province. Cape Town, the rest of
KwaZulu-Natal, Johannesburg and the Eastern Cape (in
that order) achieve higher average length of stays than
Durban (Muller, Haynes, Totman, & Ferendinos, 1998).
The average number of days spent by foreign tourists
in KwaZulu-Natal increased from 5.05 in 1996 to 7.40 in
1998, but dropped from 6.30 to 5.30 in Durban. Foreign
tourists who visit KwaZulu-Natal spend an average of
R175 000 per individual while they are in the province.
This implies that this province's foreign tourism market
is worth in the order of 2 billion Rand or about 300
million US dollars (KwaZulu-Natal Tourism Authority,
1999). In 1999 about 8 million domestic tourists visited
KZN while the number of international tourists
was about 450 000. It is expected that there will be a
13 per cent increase in international tourists in the year
2000, while domestic and continental tourist arrivals
will grow by 3 per cent and 10 per cent, respectively
(KwaZulu-Natal Tourism Authority, 1999).
Tourism has a signi"cant impact on local economies,
directly and indirectly. Since 1995 a steady growth in job
creation has underlined the importance of tourism as
a job creator. In simple terms, it has been estimated that,
for every eight tourists visiting South Africa, one perma-
nent job is created (SATOUR Media Release, 2000).
Durban has wonderful natural assets like a warm and
sunny all-year-round climate, sub-tropical vegetation,
world-class beaches and marine life. The rich historical
and cultural background, an impressive hotel base and
one of the largest conference centres on the continent are
strong selling points to attract foreign visitors. It is also
the gateway to one of the most ecologically varied desti-
nations in the world and the newly declared World
Heritage Site of St Lucia Wetland. On the negative side,
foreign and even local tourists still perceive Durban and
KwaZulu-Natal as a security risk and a lack of safety
standards is discouraging tourist mobility in many areas
of the city and the province. Extensive measures are
being taken to rectify this problem (KwaZulu-Natal
Tourism Authority, 1999).
Forecasting plays a signi"cant role in tourism plann-
ing and it is crucial for the private sector in avoiding
shortages or surpluses in goods and services. Tourism
investment should be based on professional business
planning, long-term operating viability and an achiev-
able vision of the industry's future (Lundberg, Krishna-
moorthy, & Stavenga, 1995). The tourism industry needs
to reduce the risk of poor decisions. One important way
to reduce this risk is by discerning future events or
environments more clearly (Smith, 1995).
The bene"ts of accurate forecasts are well documented
in forecasting literature (Frechtling, 1996; Smith, 1995).
Accurate forecasts are valuable to both the private and
the public sectors. Forecasting expenditure, for example,
is valuable in "nding tourism's relative contribution to
income or GDP; forecasting tourist numbers is more
helpful in assessing the impact that tourism will make on
resources (Bull, 1995).
The value of forecasting models rests on their ability to
make accurate forecasts. However, as Dharmaratne,
(1995) pointed out, most previous forecasting models
have failed to perform empirical tests of theoretical speci-
"cations. Forecasts are only as good as the assumptions
of the model used. It is important to know what these
assumptions are so that should any of these assumptions
prove to be incorrect, forecasts can be re-evaluated. The
major problem, however, is the unpredictability of eco-
nomic trends and outside events and crises such as
strikes, crime, disease outbreak, wars or disasters. There
is no one, distinct, optimal set of tourism forecasting
methods. Rather, quantitative and qualitative techniques
developed to forecast variables of interest to business
managers and public planners have been used to forecast
phenomena of interest to those interested in tourism
(Frechtling, 1996).
The challenges of successful forecasting are more than
just the technical di$culties of developing an accurate
model. Forecasting models must be developed with
a clear understanding of both the nature of the situation
for which a forecast is desired and the resources available
for making the forecast (Smith, 1995). It is important to
ensure that the variable selected relates directly to the
forecast data needed (Sheldon, 1993). This does not mean
that forecasts are useless, but that those who use them
should be constantly monitoring their operating environ-
ment to detect any factors that indicate any inconsistent
or irregular patterns.
In many instances forecasters and policy makers "nd it
di$cult to develop a structural model of the system they
are dealing with. The problem is mainly due to the many
factors that in#uence the system and acquiring data for
all these factors is very di$cult especially when dealing
with government authorities. Hence, sometimes qualita-
tive models have to be built to gain insight into the
system (Kathrada, Burger, & Dohnal, 1999). In these
situations time-series forecasting can give valuable projec-
tions although it must be emphasised that these projec-
tions are short term only. Chaos theory has largely shown
that long-term forecasting is a futile e!ort. Time series
 C.J.S.C. Burger et al. / Tourism Management 22 (2001) 403}409 405

methods are also easy to implement. Cyclical and sea-
sonal e!ects can distinctly be seen in time series data as
well as long-term upward or downward trends.
This paper reports a study that was undertaken using
time-series data of tourist arrivals from the US to Dur-
ban, South Africa over the time period 1992}1998 in an
attempt to create models that can predict the expected
number of tourist arrivals over de"ned future periods.
2. Modelling methods
The moving-average model uses the average of the last
3 months as a forecast value:
F "(¸ #¸ #¸ )/3. (2)
R R\ R\ R\
The decomposition method involves "rst creating a 12
month moving average that is then centred after which
seasonal ratios are calculated. The actual rates are then
divided by these ratios to give a forecast one year into the
future. The following set of equations describe the de-
composition method. Frechtling (1996) has a detailed
spreadsheet method outlining the procedure.

Monthly data over the time period 1992}1998 was A12 "Average(¸ , 2, ¸ #11) t"1, 2, n!12,
R R R
obtained from the national tourism authority SATOUR.
C12 "Average(A12 #A12 ) t"1, 2, n!6,
Fig. 1 shows the actual data used in the model building R R R>
process, and illustrates the high degree of nonlinearity, sr "¸ /C12 t"1, 2, n!6, i"1, 2, n!12,
seasonality and upward trend in time. Ten per cent of the G R> R
data were selected randomly to be used as a validation SR "Average(sr , sr , sr , sr , sr )
set for all the models in order to provide a fair compari- G R R> R> R> R>
son of the e!ectiveness of the models built. The rest of the t"1, 2, n!6, i"1, 2, 12,
data were used in constructing the models.
F "¸ /SR t"1, 2, n!12, i"1, 2, 12. (3)
The modelling methods used are namK ve, moving aver- R> R G
age (3 and 6 months), decomposition, single-exponential In the exponential smoothing model, the number of tour-
smoothing, ARIMA models, multiple regression, genetic ists for the next month is predicted using
regression and neural networks. The "rst "ve models are
of the type commonly used in the tourism industry F "F (x)#¸ (1!x) 0(x(1 (4)
R R\ R\
(Frechtling, 1996; Witt & Witt, 1992).
The namK ve model operates on the assumption that the to "nd a best "t value of x. An extension to single-
number of visitors at time t is the same as the value at exponential smoothing models is the ARIMA type mod-
time t!1, denoted by ¸ . els (Duke University Department of Statistics, 2000;
R\ Montgomery & Zarnowitz, 1998). ARIMA is an acro-
F "¸ . (1) nym for `Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving-Averagea.
R R\

Fig. 1. USA visitor arrivals to Durban, South Africa.

406 C.J.S.C. Burger et al. / Tourism Management 22 (2001) 403}409
Lags of the di!erenced series appearing in the forecasting
equation are called `auto-regressivea terms, lags of the
forecast errors are `moving averagea terms, and a time
series which needs to be di!erenced to be made station-
ary is said to be an `integrateda version of a stationary
series. Random-walk and random-trend models,
autoregressive models, and exponential smoothing mod-
els (i.e., exponential-weighted moving averages) are all
special cases of ARIMA models.
A non-seasonal ARIMA model is classi"ed as an
`ARIMA (p, d, q)a model, where
E p is the number of autoregressive terms,
E d is the number of non-seasonal di!erences, and
E q is the number of lagged forecast errors in the
prediction equation.
ARIMA (0, 1, 0) is a random walk function
F "
#¸ ,
R R\
where the constant term
is the average di!erence in >.
Since it includes (only) a non-seasonal di!erence and
a constant term, it is classi"ed as an `ARIMA (0, 1, 0)
model with constant.a
ARIMA (1, 1, 0) is a di!erenced "rst-order autoregres-
sive model: If the errors of the random walk model are
autocorrelated, the problem may be addressed by adding
one lag of the dependent variable to the prediction equa-
tion. This would yield the following prediction equation:
F "
#¸ #
(¸ !¸ ), (6)
R R\ R\ R\
where
is optimally found from a solver as found in
most spreadsheets.
ARIMA (0, 2, 1) or (0, 2, 2) without a constant is termed
linear exponential smoothing. Linear exponential
smoothing models are ARIMA models which use two
non-seasonal di!erences in conjunction with MA terms.
The second di!erence of a series > is not simply the
di!erence between > and itself lagged by two periods, but
rather it is the "rst di!erence of the "rst di!erence, i.e. the
change-in-the-change of > at period t. A second di!er-
ence of a discrete function is analogous to a second
derivative of a continuous function: it measures the `ac-
celerationa or `curvaturea in the function at a given point
in time.
The ARIMA (0, 2, 2) model without a constant predicts
that the second di!erence of the series equals a linear
function of the last two forecast errors. This is essentially
the same as Brown's linear exponential smoothing
model,
F "2¸ !¸ !2(1!a)E #(1!a)E .
R R\ R\ R\ R\
The other standard technique used is multiple regression.
Here the input variables are the previous 12 months and
the output variable the following month. The same vari-
able selection style was used for the genetic regression
technique and the neural network. The multiple regres-
sion equation generated is of the form
F "a #a ¸ #a ¸ #a ¸ #a ¸
R   R\  R\  R\  R\
#a ¸ #a ¸ #a ¸ #a ¸ #a ¸
 R\  R\  R\  R\  R\
#a ¸ #a ¸ #a ¸ . (8)
 R\  R\  R\
The multiple-regression technique is used here mainly to
compare its e!ectiveness against the neural network as
both are essentially interpolating tools. This is done so as
to justify whether or not a more sophisticated technique
like neural networks should be used whereas multiple
regression is relatively quick and easy to implement.
The input to the neural network model is the same as
the input to the multiple regression procedure. A short
discussion is given as follows on the non-traditional
(5)
techniques used.
2.1. GMDH (Group method of data handling * genetic
regression) algorithm
2.1.1. Polynomial support Function
This method involves sorting, that is successive testing
of models selected out of a set of candidate models
according to a speci"ed criterion. Nearly all known
GMDH algorithms use polynomial support functions.
General connection between input and output variables
can be found in the form of a functional Volterra
series, whose discrete analogue is known as the
Kolmogorov}Gabor polynomial (Lemke & Mueller,
1997; Ivakhnenko & MuK ller, 1995),
+ + +
y"a # a x # a x x
 G G GH G H
G G H
+ + +
# a xx x , (9)
GHI G H I
G H I
where X(x , x ,2, x ) is the vector of input variables
  +
and A(a , a ,2, a ) is the vector of the summand coe$-
  +
cients. The complexity of the model structure is estimated
by the number of polynomial terms used. The sorting
procedure consists in computing the criterion as the
structure of the model gradually changes.
The input data sample is a matrix containing N levels
(points) of observations over a set of M variables. The
sample is divided into two parts. Two-thirds of points
having a high variance make up the learning sub-sample
(7) N , and the remaining one-third of points from the check

sub-sample N . The learning sample is used to derive
estimates for the coe$cients of the polynomial, and the
check sub-sample is used to choose the structure of
the optimal model, that is, one for which the regularity
 C.J.S.C. Burger et al. / Tourism Management 22 (2001) 403}409 407

criterion AR(s) takes on a minimal value 3. Results and analysis

1 ,
AR(s)" (y !>K (B))Pmin. (10) The accuracy of the models discussed was assessed
N G G using the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE) and
G
To obtain a smooth exhaustive-search curve, which the Pearson product moment correlation coe$cient (r):
would permit one to formulate the exhaustive-search MAPE"X !> /n;100% (i"1, 2, n) (13)
termination rule, the exhaustive search is performed on G G
models classed into groups of an equal complexity. The r"[n(X > )!(X )(> )]/([nX!(X )]
"rst layer uses the information contained in every col- G G G G G G
umn of the sample, that is, the search is applied to models ;[n>!(> )] (i"1, 2, n). (14)
G G
of form:
Table 1 shows the empirical results of the di!erent mod-
y"a #a x (i"1, 2, M). (11) els. The namK ve, moving average and single-exponential
  G
The output variable must be speci"ed in advance by the models perform fairly similarly and with reasonably
experimenter. Only a small number of variables (usually, good accuracy. Similar results in using these models were
F"3), showing the best results in the "rst layer, are obtained by (Law & Au, 1999). The best value of x ob-
allowed to form second-layer candidate models of the tained in the single-exponential smoothing was 0.2. The
form decomposition method performed poorly (r!0.791).
This is probably due to the fact that decomposition
y"a #a x #a x ( j"1, 2, M). (12) method cannot calculate reasonable seasonable ratios on
  G  H
such a highly non-linear dataset, which is showing an
2.2. Neural networks increasing trend.
The ARIMA models all performed similarly indicating
Neural networks are being increasingly used in various very much that once they are e!ective in removing the
industries with many recent applications in the tourism seasonal component. The MAPE achieved is approxim-
industry (Law & Au, 1999; Uysal & Sherif El Roubi, ately 11.4 per cent and r of 0.995 for all the ARIMA
1999). A brief account of neural networks is given here. models. The ARIMA (0, 1, 0) had a
of 190, showing that
A more in depth account can be obtained from Masters the data is fairly stationary, hence the reason for all the
(1993). In recent years the application of arti"cial neural ARIMA models behaving similarly. The ARIMA (1, 1, 0)
networks has been the subject of much study. This new had a
of !0.17 and the ARIMA (0, 2, 2) had and a of
interest in approach to modelling is due to the fact that 1.445. In these cases the values of
and a were found
neural networks generally have high degrees of freedom, using the built in solver in a spreadsheet program.
thus they can capture the non-linearity of a process being In comparing the two regression procedures, multiple
studied much better than regression techniques. In addi- regression (MAPE!7.20) produces better results than
tion, neural networks have the ability to model systems the GMDH regression procedure (MAPE!20.58). This
with multiple inputs and multiple outputs. Arti"cial neu- is mainly due to the GMDH algorithm setting aside
ral networks are composed of many elements called neur- a large part of the input data for the validation set hence
ons. Neural networks have one input layer, one output
layer and one or more hidden layers. A set of input and
output variables are entered and the network attempts to Table 1
map (train) the process by which the input variables are Accuracy comparison in sample for di!erent time-series models
linked to the output variables.
Neural networks are trained by adjusting the con- r MAPE
nection weights (= ) by some suitable optimisation
GHI NamK ve 0.908 11.24
algorithm such as genetic optimisation or simulated 3-month MA 0.853 12.85
annealing so that the di!erence between the predicted 6-month MA 0.907 10.89
and the observed outputs is made as small as possible. Single-exponential smoothing (0.2) 0.870 10.04
A common algorithm used for training is the back- Decomposition 0.791 20.56
propagation algorithm with momentum. The output ARIMA (0, 1, 0) 0.995 11.30
ARIMA (1, 1, 0) 0.995 11.33
from one neuron is calculated by applying a transfer ARIMA (0, 2, 2) 0.993 11.50
function to the weighted summation of its input to give GMDH 0.702 20.58
an output, which in turn can serve as inputs to other Multiple regression 0.944 7.20
neurons. Commonly used transfer functions in the Neural networks (1 month forecast) 0.979 5.07
hidden layer is the sigmoid function which gives values in Neural networks (3 month forecast) 0.779 14.37
Neural networks (6 month forecast) 0.789 15.56
the range from 0 and 1 while it is common to have Neural networks (12 month forecast) 0.892 11.00
a linear function in the output layer.
408 C.J.S.C. Burger et al. / Tourism Management 22 (2001) 403}409
not being able to completely follow all the patterns that
are evident in this relatively small dataset. GMDH algo-
rithms work best for large datasets involving industrial
online applications.
The neural network performs the best achieving the
highest r (0.979) and lowest MAPE (5.07%). This can be
attributed to the complexity of neural network models, in
that they have a high degree of freedom, due to the large
number of interconnections between the nodes. Hence
there is a larger parameter space that can be searched in
order to obtain a higher r. Regression models are con-
strained by the number of coe$cients in the model, which
is usually small. The neural network outperforms the
multiple regression procedure by an MAPE of just over
2 per cent.
Thereafter an attempt was made to forecast 3, 6 and 12
months into the future using the neural network, since
this was the best performing model. This yielded interest-
ing results. The prediction for 3 and 6 months into the
future was poorer that the prediction one month in the
future, which is intuitive as usually the uncertainty into
the future increases with time. However the prediction for
12 months into the future was better that the 3 and
6 month prediction. Here it must be noted that, since the
neural network was trained on the last 12 months of
visitor arrivals as an input, a similar pattern due to
seasonal variations would be expected 12 months into
the future. Hence the better performance of the network
arises form an inherent bias within the model.
Depending on the desired level of accuracy, relatively
simple models can be initially used to obtain a &quantitat-
ive feel' of their predictive strengths, and serve as a basis
for comparing against other more complex models. In
practice, it is suggested that several simple spreadsheet
models be built and if the results are not satisfactory, then
more complex models like neural networks can be
used.
4. Conclusions
This research has attempted to examine the forecasting
accuracy of various time series tourism forecasting mod-
els. Tourist arrivals from the United States to Durban in
South Africa were used for model calibration and testing.
The Pearson product moment correlation coe$cient and
mean absolute percentage error were adopted as the
measurements for forecasting accuracy. Experimental re-
sults indicated that the neural network attained the high-
est forecasting accuracy among all the involved models.
Time series analysis can be a valuable tool for tourism
forecasters at the beginning of a forecasting project. It
allows the forecaster to view trends in visitor behaviour,
both long-term and cyclical. The various methods out-
lined in this paper have tried to capture these trends to
predict the number of visitor arrivals.
A tourist forecaster or policy maker can at least make
a good estimate of visitor arrivals in the absence of
structural data by just using the available time series
data. Relatively simple methodologies can be used on
a spreadsheet and can give reasonable estimates albeit
a short time period into the future. More complex
methods like neural networks can give reasonable esti-
mates further into the future. From the point of view of
Durban, the forecaster has a con"dent estimate of the
visitor arrivals that subsequently can be used in reports
to decision makers. Moreover the model is such that it
can easily be updated as time goes on; hence a constant
track can be kept of the expected number of visitor
arrivals. The models can be extended to cover more
regions or even predict the total expected number of
visitor arrivals.
The neural network performed best of all the method-
ologies and it is suggested that this method be used in
time series forecasting as the innate model complexity is
far better able to handle non-linear behaviour. It was also
found that the longer the forecasting period the poorer
will be the prediction, but, interestingly, if the forecast
period is exactly one year into the future the network
performs fairly well, due to repetitions of expected similar
seasonal patterns occurring.
While positive research "ndings have been obtained,
further work needs to be done to generalise the "ndings
to other tourist receiving destinations. That is, future
studies can employ the same forecasting models, but with
di!erent data series, for forecasting accuracy testing.
Moreover, additional forecasting techniques can be
incorporated into future studies, particularly chaos
theory if large enough data sets are available (Kantz
& Schreiber, 1997). It would also be interesting to
compare the accuracy of time-series models with casual
regression models.
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