In 2003, the United Nations agency for tourism (UNWTO), established a Panel of Tourism Experts, to collect regular information on the short-term development of tourism. Experts’ opinions are since used to... more
In 2003, the United Nations agency for tourism (UNWTO), established a Panel of Tourism Experts, to collect regular information on the short-term development of tourism. Experts’ opinions are since used to estimate a confidence index, which offers fairly accurate information on the current and future development of the tourism sector worldwide and by macro-regions. The significance of this instrument became evident during the 2008/2009 economic and financial crisis, when indications about the impact and duration of the crisis were scarce, but particularly relevant to a sector having experience virtually uninterrupted growth until then. This piece of research intends to achieve a better understanding of confidence index’s contribution to forecasting tourism demand. Results confirm the tourism confidence index as an effective method to improve the accuracy of forecasts.
In 2003, the United Nations agency for tourism (UNWTO), established a Panel of Tourism Experts, to collect regular information on the short-term development of tourism. Experts’ opinions are since used to estimate a confidence index,... more
In 2003, the United Nations agency for tourism (UNWTO), established a Panel of Tourism Experts, to collect regular information on the short-term development of tourism. Experts’ opinions are since used to estimate a confidence index, which offers fairly accurate information on the current and future development of the tourism sector worldwide and by macro-regions. The significance of this instrument became evident during the 2008/2009 economic and financial crisis, when indications about the impact and duration of the crisis were scarce, but particularly relevant to a sector having experience virtually uninterrupted growth until then. As the crisis unfolded, the constant revision of key explanatory variables of tourism demand, such as GDP and inflation, jeopardized the accurateness of model-based forecasts, while soft information collected through the Panel provided accurate indications about the evolution of the crisis. This occurrence renewed interest in the value of such a simple...
Most subjective probability aggregation procedures use a single probability judgement from each expert, even though it is common for experts studying real problems to update their probability estimates over time. This paper advances into... more
Most subjective probability aggregation procedures use a single probability judgement from each expert, even though it is common for experts studying real problems to update their probability estimates over time. This paper advances into unexplored areas of probability aggregation by considering a dynamic context in which experts can update their beliefs at random intervals. The updates occur very infrequently, resulting in a highly sparse dataset that cannot be modeled by standard time-series procedures. In response to the lack of appropriate methodology, this paper presents a hierarchical model that takes into account the expert’s level of self-reported expertise and produces aggregate probabilities that are sharp and well-calibrated both in- and out-of-sample. The model is demonstrated on a real-world dataset that includes over 2,300 experts making multiple probability forecasts over a period of two years on different subsets of 166 international political events.
