Modeling and Forecasting the European Tourist Arrivals to Sri Lanka from 2010 to 2020 (With Special Reference to Seasonal Tourism)

Abstract

This study was mainly focused on modeling and forecasting the European tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka from 2010 to 2020: with special reference to seasonal tourism. The empirical analysis was done by using monthly secondary data of all the outbound European tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka. According to the empirical analysis, the Kolmogorov Smirnov test concluded that the European tourist arrivals is normally distributed. The results of the t-test concluded that there is a monotonic trend in European tourist arrivals. In the trend specification analysis, the quadratic trend model had the minimum MAPE, MAD, and MSE values. Therefore, the quadratic trend model was acceptable to describe the trend of the European tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka from 2010 to 2020. According to the results of the ANOVA test, the means between months were not equal. Therefore, it can be concluded that there is a monthly seasonal effect for the European tourist arrivals data. December, January, and March have the highest European tourist arrivals to Sri Lanka. The least European tourist arrivals were reported in the months of May and June. A regression analysis was done to build a model for the seasonal behavior of the European tourist arrivals data. According to the results, it could be identified that 10 out of 12 seasons are significant for the seasonal behavior of the European tourist arrivals. The study forecasted five months ahead forecasting values for the study. Finally, the Mann-Whitney U test concluded that there is a difference between the forecasted values with the effect of the COVID-19 and without the effect of the COVID-19. The policymakers, managers, and decision-makers can make decisions based on the results of the study.