Where Should We Go? Internet Searches and Tourist Arrivals

January 31, 2020

Preview Citation

Format: Chicago

Serhan Cevik. Where Should We Go? Internet Searches and Tourist Arrivals, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 2020) accessed November 21, 2024

Disclaimer: IMF Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to encourage debate. The views expressed in IMF Working Papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of the IMF, its Executive Board, or IMF management.

Summary

The widespread availability of internet search data is a new source of high-frequency information that can potentially improve the precision of macroeconomic forecasting, especially in areas with data constraints. This paper investigates whether travel-related online search queries enhance accuracy in the forecasting of tourist arrivals to The Bahamas from the U.S. The results indicate that the forecast model incorporating internet search data provides additional information about tourist flows over a univariate approach using the traditional autoregressive integrated moving average (ARIMA) model and multivariate models with macroeconomic indicators. The Google Trends-augmented model improves predictability of tourist arrivals by about 30 percent compared to the benchmark ARIMA model and more than 20 percent compared to the model extended only with income and relative prices.

Subject: Economic forecasting, Economic sectors, Foreign exchange, National accounts, Personal income, Real effective exchange rates, Tourism

Keywords: Arrivals to The Bahamas, Caribbean, Forecasting, Google Trends, Google Trends data, Internet search process, Internet search volume, Personal income, Real effective exchange rates, Search data, Time-series models, Tourism, Tourist arrival, Tourist arrivals, WP

Publication Details

Pages:

16
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Working Paper No. 2020/022
Stock No:

WPIEA2020022
ISBN:

9781513526348
ISSN:

1018-5941

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