Tourism Demand Modeling and Forecasting: A Review of Literature Related to Greater China

Abstract

Greater China, including Mainland China, Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan, contributes significantly to both regional and global tourism developments. Empirical research on tourism demand modeling and forecasting has attracted increasing attention of scholars both within and beyond this region. One hundred eighty articles are identified that were published in both English‐ and Chinese‐language journals since the beginning of the 1990s. This study presents the largest scale of literature survey on tourism demand studies. Furthermore, this is the first attempt in tourism demand review studies that focuses exclusively on one geographic region and covers bilingual literature. Particular emphasis of this review is placed on research development, geographic focus, data type and frequency, measurement of tourism demand, modeling and forecasting techniques, demand elasticity analysis, forecasting exercises, and emerging research trends. Comparisons between the two bodies of literature published in two languages show a number of research gaps, such as the diversity and sophistication of the research methodology, rigor of the modeling and forecasting process, and theoretical foundations of demand analysis. Correspondingly, constructive recommendations are made to further advance tourism demand studies related to Greater China.

包括中国内地、香港、澳门和台湾在内的整个大中华区对亚洲及全球的旅游发展一直贡献巨大。大中华地区内外的学者对旅游需求建模和预测的实证研究也越来越重视。自90年代初以来，共有180篇关于旅游需求模型和预测的实证研究在中文和英文期刊发表。本文是对旅游需求文献所作的一次最大规模的述评。本文也是首篇集中研究一个地理区以及涵盖中英文文献的旅游评论文章。本文的评论重点包括研究发展、地理焦点、数据类型和频率、需求弹性分析、预测活动以及研究趋势。通过比较分析中文和英文文献发现两种语言的文献在许多研究方面都存在差距，如研究方法的多样性和复杂性、建构模型和预测过程的严谨程度以及需求分析的理论基础。本文最后提出相应的建议，以期进一步推进大中华旅游需求研究的质量。

Keywords:

• Greater China
• tourism demand
• forecasting
• modeling
• review
• 大中华
• 旅游需求
• 预测
• 建模
• 述评

Notes

1. Macau is excluded from the discussion on research trends because there has been only one study focusing on this region and therefore no trends could be summarized.