UHERO is proud to announce that “Forecasting in a Mixed Up World: Nowcasting Hawaii Tourism” by Ashley Hirashima, James Jones, Carl Bonham and Peter Fuleky was awarded the Polzin Prize for Best Paper at the 2016 AUBER fall conference!
We evaluate the short term forecasting performance of methods that systematically incorporate high frequency information via covariates. Our study provides a thorough introduction of these methods. We highlight the distinguishing features and limitations of each tool and evaluate their forecasting performance in two tourism-specific applications. Our results indicate that compared to the exclusive use of low frequency aggregates, including timely intra-period data in the forecasting process results in significant gains in predictive accuracy. Anticipating growing popularity of these techniques among empirical analysts, we present practical implementation guidelines to facilitate their adoption.
The AUBER Polzin Prize is named for Paul Polzin, emeritus director of the University of Montana Bureau of Business and Economic Research and was offered for the first time in 2016. AUBER is a professional association of business and economic research centers in public and private universities. Founded in 1947, it strives to unite its members in the shared purpose of advancing economic research, promoting the collection and dissemination of economic information, facilitating the improvement in the services of its members, and demonstrating the importance of the economic development, outreach and research roles of its members. The annual AUBER conference was held in Honolulu in 2012.
