Tourism demand forecasting for Antalya province through the use of primary and secondary data

The tourism sector plays a key role for the nations, because it has not only a positive impact on the problems of economic, social and regional imbalances, but also has a leverage effect for the related industries. Therefore, with its historical variation, growth and the dynamism, the tourism sector has the key element for the states. It is argued that there is a strong correlation between the globalisation and the tourism. In other words, with the globalisation movement, the international tourism activities have been intensely triggered; and hence, the growth on the volume of the tourism industry has been increased. Due to the efforts of the nations on having a greater share from the growing volume of the international tourism, the competition has been becoming more intense in the global arena day by day. The importance of the tourism has been realised by the nations. In this respect, it has been seen as a significant opportunity for the sustainable growth. The nations, who aim to gain a competitive advantage in the tourism sector and to make a holistic contribution to the sustainable growth, accept the tourism sector as the priority area and prepare the strategic plans for the tourism industry to achieve their goals. Turkey, with its characteristic features, has an important place both in the region and world. In order to protect and to improve the existing situation in Turkey, the effective planning and the tourism demand forecasting that underlies the effective planning and is based on a scientific foundation seem to be essential. It is argued that with the work of the tourism demand forecasting, the maximum benefit will be provided in a micro and macro sense throughout the country in the sector. In this study, the tourism demand forecasting of Antalya, which has an important place in terms of tourism and the highest number of visitors in Turkey, will be performed and indicated. In this context, the forecasting has been performed by using the primary data that is obtained from the actors within the sector and the secondary data that is obtained from the different sources. After making a prediction that is based on the primary data, the forecasting has been carried out with the methods of the vector error correction and the seasonal autoregressive integrated moving average (SARIMA) that are based on the secondary data. The obtained results are comparatively evaluated. Key Words: 1. The Tourism Demand, 2. The Tourism Demand Forecasting 3. Primary and Secondary Data 4. Antalya