Original Research Article
Year: 2018 | Month: January | Volume: 5 | Issue: 1 | Pages: 61-67
Forecasting Tourism Generated Employment in Sri Lanka: Multivariate Time Series Approach
Konarasinghe Mudiyanselage Udaya Banda Konarasinghe
Institute of Mathematics and Management, Ranala, Sri Lanka.
ABSTRACT
Tourism industry in Sri Lanka is growing over the recent past. As a result, the employment in the industry also shows a rapid growth. But there were very few attempts in forecasting tourism generated employment in Sri Lanka. Hence, the objective of the study was to forecast tourism generated employment in Sri Lanka. Annual employment data for the period of 1970 to 2015 were obtained from the Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (SLTDA). Karl Pearson’s correlation used to test the correlation between total employment and tourist arrivals. Simple Regression Model (SRM) and Auto Regressive Distributed Lag Model (ARDLM) tested for forecasting. The Anderson-Darling, Ljung-Box Q test, Auto-Correlation Functions (ACF) and Durbin-Watson (DW) test used for model validation. Forecasting ability of the models was assessed by both relative and absolute measurements of errors. The SRM was not successful, but the ARDLM satisfied the validation criterion. Both relative and absolute measurements of ARDLM were very low. Hence, the ARDLM is suitable on forecasting tourism generated employment in Sri Lanka. The results of this study will be useful for planning and strategy development to overcome the surplus, shortfall of employment and workforce planning in both public and the private sector in the tourism industry. Further, the finding of the study can be used to assess the economic benefits to the host community in various tourism areas in Sri Lanka.
Key words: Simple Regression Model, Auto Regressive Distributed Lag Model, Measurements of Errors, Employment
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