Modelling and forecasting international tourist arrivals to mainland China

The general-to-specific modelling approach is used to forecast tourist flows to mainland China from eight major origin countries/regions over the period 2006-2015. The existing literature shows that the general-to-specific methodology is a useful tool in modelling and forecasting tourism demand at the destination level. With the aid of econometric models, the factors which contribute to the demand for mainland China tourism have been identified. Empirical results reveal that the most important factor that determines the demand for mainland China tourism is the economic condition in the origin countries/regions. The “word of mouth” effect, the costs of tourism in mainland China and the price of tourism in the competing destinations also have noticeable influence on the demand for mainland China tourism. The generated forecasts suggest that mainland China will face increasing tourism demand by residents from all the origin countries/regions concerned while the growth rate of tourist arrivals from Korea is the most significant one. The demand elasticities and the forecasts of tourist arrivals obtained from the demand models form the basis of policy formulation for the tourism industry in mainland China.