ARIMA model to forecast international tourist visit in Bumthang, Bhutan

The number of visitors to Bhutan increases each year making tourism industry the third largest revenue contributor to the nation. The country being the beneficiary of tourism it is very important to forecast tourist visit in the coming future. The monthly number of international visitors in Bumthang, Bhutan from January 2012 to December 2016 is modelled by using Box-Jenkins seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (ARIMA) model. The best fitting ARIMA model is constructed based on Bayesian Information Criterion. The fitted seasonal ARIMA (0, 0, 0) × (1, 1, 0)₁₂ is able to forecast international tourist visit of period Jan 2017-Jun 2017 with 91% accuracy. The forecasted result can be used as a tool to handle future challenges and to bring further development in tourism industry.