Visitor arrivals forecasts amid COVID-19: A perspective from the Europe team

In a context in which the tourism industry is jeopardised by the COVID-19 pandemic, and potentially by other pandemics in the future, the capacity to produce accurate forecasts is crucial to stakeholders and policy-makers. This paper attempts to forecast the recovery of tourism demand for 2021 in 20 destinations worldwide. An original scenario-based judgemental forecast based on the definition of a Covid-19 Risk Exposure index is proposed to overcome the limitations of traditional forecasting methods. Three scenarios are proposed, and ex ante forecasts are generated for each destination using a baseline forecast, the developed index and a judgemental approach. The limitations and potential developments of this new forecasting model are then discussed.