Forecasting tourist arrivals

Various exponential smoothing models are estimated over the period. 1975-19 99 to forecast quarterly tourist arrivals to Australia from Hong Kong, Mala ysia, and Singapore. The root mean squared error criterion is used as a mea sure of forecast accuracy. Prior to obtaining the one-quarter-ahead forecas ts for the period 1998 to 2000, the individual arrival series are tested fo r unit roots to distinguish between stationary and non-stationary time seri es arrivals. The Holt-Winters Additive and Multiplicative Seasonal models o utperform the Single, Double, and the Holt-Winters Non-Seasonal Exponential Smoothing models in forecasting. It is also found that forecasting the fir st differences of tourist arrivals performs worse than forecasting its vari ous levels. .