Initially Testing an Improved Extrapolative Hotel Room Occupancy Rate Forecasting Technique

Abstract

SUMMARY The existing time series forecasting models either capture the informationof the last few data in the data series or the entire data series is used for projecting future values. In other words, the time series forecasting models are unable to take advantage of the last trend in the data series, which always have a direct influence on the estimated values. This paper proposes an improved extrapolative time series forecasting technique to compute future hotel occupancy rates. The performance of this new technique was tested with officially published room occupancy rates in Hong Kong. Forecasted room occupancy rates were compared with actual room occupancy rates in several accuracy performance dimensions. Empirical results indicate that the new technique is promising with reasonably good forecasting results.