Abstract:

Reliable and accurate estimates of demand are necessary for the effective planning of all activities related to the tourism sector, particularly in accommodation, transportation and travel. In this study , it is aimed modeling inbound tourism demand for Muğla as a major tourism destinastion in Turkey by Exponential Smoothing and Box-Jenkins methods and forecasting monthly tourism demand of Muğla for years 2012 and 2013 via the method providing the highest accuracy . As a consequence of the analy sis and evaluations, it has been observed that Holt-Winter’s Exponential Smoothing model has presented best performance and by the means of this model it has been forecasted the monthly inbound tourism demand to Muğla for y ears 2012 and 2013. Number of foreign tourists ta ken as a measure of tourism demand in the study . Monthly statistics of foreign tourist arrivals within the borders of Mugla were utilized

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