Sri Lanka – the wonder of Asia: analyzing monthly tourist arrivals in the post-war era

Using the monthly time series data, ranging over the period June 2009 to December 2018, the study applied the generalized Box-Jenkins SARIMA approach in an attempt to model and forecast international tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka.The ADF tests indicate that the tourism series is I (1). The study identified the minimum MAPE value and subsequently presented the SARIMA (0, 1, 1)(0, 1, 1)12 model as the optimal model to forecast tourist arrivals in Sri Lanka. Analysis of the residuals of the SARIMA (0, 1, 1)(0, 1, 1)12 model indicate that the selected model is stable and acceptable for forecasting tourism demand in Sri Lanka. The forecasted international tourist arrivals over the period January 2019 to December 2020 show a generally upward trend.In order to accommodate the forecasted growing numbers of international tourists, there is need for the construction of more infrastructure facilities