19-35

• Panagopoulos, Anastasios
• Παναγόπουλος, Αλκιβιάδης
• Nikas, I.
• Grapsa, T.

In this work, a comparative study, based on tourism behavior of Western Greece region and its contiguous areas, is investigated. In particular, the inherent seasonality, as well as the future of tourism demand of region of Western Greece is explored, in comparison with its adjacent regions, which are the region of Epirus, Ionian Islands, Peloponnese and Central Greece. The study of seasonality utilizes the concentration ratio, while the forecasting models of each region are constructed using the well-known ARIMA models. The development of these models is based on a mechanistic methodology and the goodness of fit of the proposed models is confirmed using some appropriate statistical tests. The models are evaluated using a data set collected over a period of 8 years (2005-2012), describing overnight stays of the hotels of the corresponding regions. The main objective of the presented comparison is to study the region of Western Greece along with each of its contiguous regions, in respect of seasonality and future trend.

• Economics and Business

• Economics

Western Greece tourism, contiguous regions, overnight stays, tourism demand forecasting, forecasting model, time-series

JEL Classification: C22, C53, This research has been co-financed by the European Union (European Social Fund – ESF) and Greek national funds through the Operational Program "Education and Lifelong Learning" of the National Strategic Reference Framework (NSRF) - Research Funding Program: ARCHIMEDES III. Investing in knowledge society through the European Social Fund. The data that involves the monthly occupancy of all tourist accommodations of both foreign and domestic tourists came from the official records of the Hellenic Statistical Authority (EL. STAT., www.statistics.gr).

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