A practical forecasting method for a tourism organization

Tourism is a complex system as is the socio-economic system denoted as tourism destination, considered today an essential unit of analysis for the understanding of the whole sector. Probably the most important result of this vision is the claimed impossibility to predict fully the dynamic evolution of the system. As most scholar and practitioners know, forecasting, in the tourism area, is a complicated and difficult activity. As well highlighted in the literature, even the most sophisticated methods fail in giving exceedingly reliable results. Furthermore, the effective use of them requires good experience and a sound knowledge of the mathematical techniques. From a practitioner point of view these are, in many occasions, obstacles difficult to overcome. Objective of this paper is to present a case in which, by combining both quantitative and qualitative methods, a fast and easy to use method is devised. The results show the possibility to predict, for a reasonable time span, the quantities of interest (tourist arrivals), with an accuracy sufficient to draw scenarios which may help in the decision or planning process.