The Tourism and Hospitality Section of the International Institute of Forecasters (THS–IIF) has announced its involvement as a joint organiser of Tourism Forecasting Competition III, scheduled to run from December 2026 to April 2027. Researchers, forecasting practitioners and data enthusiasts are invited to express their interest by 15 November 2026 at 23:59 Beijing time (UTC+8).

The competition will focus on forecasting daily inbound visitor arrivals to Hong Kong. Participants will work with 20 daily time series covering 10 control points, testing their methods against tourism demand as it unfolds.

The challenge comprises five rolling rounds, each requiring forecasts for the following 15 days. Its ex-ante format means participants must generate predictions before the corresponding arrival figures become available.

Teams may enter the point forecasting track, the interval forecasting track, or both. These tracks allow participants to test methods that produce individual estimates as well as ranges representing uncertainty around future arrivals.

Winning teams will be invited to present their work in a webinar and submit research to the Curated Collection on Tourism Demand Forecasting in Annals of Tourism Research.

The initiative aims to strengthen connections between forecasting research and tourism practice through a shared challenge using daily visitor-arrival data.

Competition details · Expression of interest form