Modeling and Forecasting of Tourism Demand in Malaysia

Abstract

The pattern of foreign tourist demand to Malaysia is analysed and forecasted using time series method and non-linear technique. There are nine selected countries that contribute a lot to tourist arrivals to Malaysia, namely Australia, Brunei, China, Indonesia, India, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, and the United Kingdom. Box-Jenkins time series method and Singular Spectrum Analysis are conducted and compared to study the best model to forecast the foreign tourist demand to Malaysia. Monthly data of tourism arrival in 1990 to 2014 were used and the forecasting were compared with 2015. Based on the results obtained, the forecasting model of Box-Jenkins time series method is the best model based on the percentage accuracy in forecasting the tourist demand to Malaysia.