The Advanced Econometrics of Tourism Demand

Tourism demand is the foundation on which all tourism-related business decisions ultimately rest. Governments and companies such as airlines, tour operators, hotels, cruise ship lines, and recreation facility providers are interested in the demand for their products by tourists. The success of many businesses depends largely or totally on the state of tourism demand, and ultimate management failure is quite often due to the failure to meet market demand. This book introduces students, researchers and practitioners to the modern developments in advanced econometric methodology within the context of tourism demand analysis, and illustrates these developments with actual tourism applications. The concepts and computations of modern advanced econometric modelling methodologies are introduced at a level that is accessible to specialists and non-specialists alike. The methodologies introduced include general-to-specific modelling, cointegration, vector autoregression, time varying parameter modelling, panel data analysis and the almost ideal demand system (AIDS). In order to help the reader understand the various methodologies, extensive tourism demand examples are provided throughout the volume.

Stephen F Witt is a Visiting Professor in the School of Hotel and Tourism Management at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and is an Emeritus Professor at the University of Surrey, UK. Prior to this he was Professor of Tourism Forecasting in the School of Management at the University of Surrey, UK. He has published 150 journal articles and book chapters, as well as 20 books. The latter include: the Tourism Marketing and Management Handbook; The Management of International Tourism; Modeling and Forecasting Demand in Tourism; Tourism Demand Modelling and Forecasting: Modern Econometric Approaches; Tourism Forecasts for Europe 2001-2005; and Asia Pacific Tourism Forecasts 2006 -2008 .

Gang Li obtained his BA and MSc degrees from the Dongbei University of Finance and Economics (DUFE) in China and PhD from the University of Surrey in England. His research interests include tourism economics, statistics and Chinese economy. He has published a number of articles in such academic journals as: International Journal of Forecasting, Journal of Travel Research, Tourism Management, and Tourism Economics.

Haiyan Song has a background in Economics and his main research area is tourism economics with a particular focus on tourism demand modeling and forecasting. He was educated both in China and the UK and has extensive research experiences in such areas as foreign direct investment (FDI) in China and economic issues related to China's tourism sector. Song joined the Hong Kong Polytechnic University as Chair Professor in Tourism in 2004 and before that he was Professor of Economics (Tourism) at the University of Surrey in the UK.