Forecasting tourist arrival in Surigao del Sur: basis for tourism development

Abstract

The study attempted to forecast the number of tourist arrivals in the province of Surigao del Sur using the historical monthly tourist arrival data from 2012-2016 using three time series. The study employed the time series analysis as a tool in forecasting the tourist's arrival in the province of Surigao del Sur. The historical monthly tourist arrival data from 2012-2016 was collected and analyzed using the Moving-average method and Time Linear Regression which are part of a Time Series Analysis. Results revealed that the tourist arrival in the province is likely to be increasing, as more foreign and local tourist arrivals are expected as a result of forecast model. It showed that there was a long term increasing trend of the tourist arrival in the province. Furthermore, results revealed that the Mean Absolute Percentage Error (MAPE) of the forecasted tourist arrival data yielded an error of 11 % which means that the predicted data is closer to the actual data. Given the findings of the study, Intervention plan was proposed to address the requirement and needs of the tourism industry of Surigao del Sur. Keywords: economics, forecasting, multiplicative decomposition, regression, tourist arrival, time series analysis, Philippines