Foreign Tourists Arrival Forecasting at Major Airports in Indonesia:

Abstract

Purpose: This research purports to forecast the number of foreign tourists arriving at major airport in Indonesia. The airports chosen are Soekarno Hatta, Juanda, I Gusti Ngurah Rai, and Kualanamu international airports.
 Design/methodology/approach: The data used were foreign tourists arrival at major airports located in Jakarta, Surabaya, Medan, and Denpasar. The data extended from January 2014 until December 2018. Two time-series methods were employed, namely Holt-Winter Seasonality and Exponential Smoothing with maximum likelihood. The forecasts would reveal the fitted numbers of foreign tourists arriving from January 2019 until December 2019. The fitted numbers would then be compared to the actual numbers of January 2019 to December 2019.
 Findings: The results showed that, overall, Holt-Winters seasonality excel at forecasting foreign tourists arrival at Soekarno Hatta and Juanda international airports. While Exponential Smoothing perform better for prediction at I Gusti Ngurah Rai and Kualanamu international airports. The MAPE for Holt-Winters at Soekarno Hatta and Juanda international airports were 26.1585% and 14.538%. The MAPE for Exponential Smoothing at at I Gusti Ngurah Rai and Kualanamu international airports were 7.76% and 15.6791%.
 Research limitations/implications: Forecasting for foreign tourist arrival at Soekarno Hatta and Juanda international airports should employ Holt-Winters approach. Forecasting for foreign tourists arrival at I Gusti Ngurah Rai and Kualanamu international airports should employ Exponential Smoothing with maximum likelihood.
 Practical implications: Certain forecasting methods work better than the others at certain international airports. Many forercasting methods are available. Two methods are specifically prominent for detecting seasonality and trend, i.e Holt-Winters and Exponential Smoothing with maximum likelihood.
 Originality/value: Most research focus on one method at a time. This research compares two methods so that we can know better which method is suitable for certain airports. Four international airports are sampled in this study. Not many research focus on several places at a time.
 Paper type: Research paper