Travel Data & Forecasting

A Forward-Looking View of Demand

We build custom lodging and visitor forecasts that help organizations understand where demand is heading and plan with confidence.

Your Data Shows Where You’ve Been. But Do You Know What’s Ahead? 

Most travel and lodging-related organizations have access to historical performance data. What they often lack is a credible, forward-looking view of how demand is likely to change, and what that means for planning, investment, operations, and stakeholder decisions. 

Occupancy, ADR, RevPAR, room revenue, and visitor demand are shaped by forces that are difficult to interpret in isolation: economic conditions, air service, new supply, event calendars, group business, policy changes, and shifting traveler behavior. 

A reliable forecast brings those moving parts together. Done well, it does more than predict a number. It explains what is driving the outlook, helps teams plan for multiple scenarios, and gives stakeholders a clearer basis for decisions, especially in uncertain times. 

Custom Forecasts, Built Around Your Questions 

Our team produces forecasts calibrated to your specific market, geography, or portfolio. From a city, district, or resort area to a region, state, province, or country, we customize the work to your market. 

Each forecast projects the measures that shape lodging and travel decisions. For example, our lodging forecasts include hotel supply, demand, room revenue, occupancy, ADR, and RevPAR. Depending on the engagement, forecasts can also include lodging tax revenue, visitor volume and spending, short-term rental inventory, added geographies, extended horizons, and custom scenarios. 

Because a forecast is only useful if it reflects the market it serves, we incorporate local intelligence from your team. This may include group booking pace, major events, convention activity, supply changes, and known shifts in demand.  

What you can do

  • Understand future performance and how new supply, events, travel trends, and economic conditions may affect outlooks 
  • Model what-if scenarios for policy changes, tax changes, market shifts, supply growth, or changes in demand 
  • Extend the view with visitor volume and spending, short-term rentals, added geographies, or longer forecast horizons 
  • Communicate with stakeholders, providing a forecast that reflects local conditions and explains the outlook 
A smiling hotel front desk agent hands a room key card to a guest checking in, with a second guest waiting nearby in a warmly lit, upscale hotel lobby with marble and wood accents.

Aerial view of the Radcliffe Camera in Oxford, England, at dusk, with its iconic domed rotunda illuminated against a deep blue sky, surrounded by historic university buildings and glowing street lights.

Grounded in Globally Recognized Economic Modeling 

Every forecast combines industry-standard hotel performance data, supply and pipeline research, event research, local market intelligence, Oxford Economics’ macroeconomic outlook, and Tourism Economics’ travel demand forecasts. 

The result is a forward-looking view calibrated to the structure of your market—not a national average applied across the board. 

As an independent, third-party research firm, Tourism Economics brings an objective perspective, deep travel-sector expertise, and a team that works across markets globally. Each forecast is supported by an economist who can answer questions, explain the drivers behind the outlook, and help your team communicate the results with confidence. 

How Teams Use It 

Plan Around Demand 

Use a credible forecast to inform budgets (including lodging tax revenue), staffing, pricing, marketing, investment, and long-range planning. 

Test Multiple Scenarios 

Model what-if scenarios, from occupancy tax changes to shifts in marketing spend or travel demand, to understand the impact before decisions are made.  

Lead as the Local Authority 

Share an independent outlook that positions your organization as the go-to industry expert and aligns stakeholders around a shared view of what’s ahead.   

What’s Inside the Service 

  • Hotel supply and demand: Projected room supply and demand for your defined market 
  • Occupancy, ADR, and RevPAR: Core performance metrics, estimated monthly, quarterly, and annually 
  • Room revenue and lodging tax revenue: A forward view of total market room revenue and the lodging tax revenue available for organizations that need to plan around tourism-related funding 
  • Forecast horizon: The remainder of the current year plus the next two years, with options to extend to five or ten years 
  • Scenario modeling: A baseline outlook plus what-if scenarios for tax, policy, and market changes, including interactive tools that let your team test different assumptions 
  • Visitor volume and spending (optional): A forward-looking view of visitation and visitor spending, by segment, for a fuller picture of travel demand 
  • Ask us about customizations: Added geographies, short-term rental inventory, extended horizons, and stakeholder presentations 

Delivered as a concise report and, for Symphony clients, loaded directly into your dashboard, where the forecast adds the forward-looking outlook that live data alone does not provide.  

Built for Businesses That Plan Around Travel Demand 

Tourism Economics produces lodging and visitor forecasts for a wide range of organizations: destinations, tourism improvement districts, convention centers, hotels and ownership groups, and tourism offices, as well as industry associations, real estate owners and investors, and retailers that plan around visitor and lodging demand.  

Whatever your role, the forecast is built around your questions and the decisions you need to make.

A hotel guest uses a key card to unlock a room door, with a neatly furnished room visible in the background.
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Tourism Economics has been an invaluable partner. Symphony helps us cut through the noise of complex data and identify the trends that matter most, while their consulting team serves as a true extension of our organization. Whether we are evaluating market performance, benchmarking against national trends, or pressure testing strategic decisions, their team is always accessible, insightful, and committed to our success.

Dustin Arnheim

Chief Sales Officer, Choose Chicago

Tourism Economics is an invaluable partner whose insights inform decision-making across our entire organization – from Symphony’s data visualization and strategic planning, to media and website attribution that informs our marketing investments, to forecasting that gives us a clear view of where the market is headed.

Pat Remming

Director of Research & Analytics, Explore St. Louis

TE has a remarkable ability to make economic trends digestible, even to those who insist they do not understand economics.

Berkeley Young

Young Strategies

Frequently Asked Questions

What are lodging and visitor forecasts, and who are they for?

Lodging and visitor forecasts are forward-looking projections of how hotel performance, lodging demand, and visitation are likely to evolve. They are used by destinations, tourism offices, hotels and ownership groups, convention centers, investors, associations, real estate owners, retailers, and other organizations that plan around travel demand. 

What measures does the forecast include, and how far ahead does it look?

Each forecast can project hotel supply, demand, room revenue, occupancy, ADR, and RevPAR, with lodging tax revenue, visitor volume, visitor spending, short-term rental inventory, added geographies, and custom scenarios available depending on the engagement. Figures are typically estimated monthly, quarterly, and annually for the remainder of the current year and the next two years, with options to extend the horizon to five or ten years. 

What data and methodology power the forecast?

Forecasts combine industry-standard hotel performance data, supply and pipeline research, event research, convention pace, local market intelligence, Oxford Economics’ macroeconomic outlook, and Tourism Economics’ travel demand forecasts. The result is a forecast calibrated to the structure of your market rather than a national average applied across the board. 

Can the forecast model scenarios or what-if questions?

Yes. Forecasts can include scenarios that reflect the decisions and risks your market is weighing, such as changes in tax policy, new supply, event calendars, marketing investment, short-term rental regulation, air service, economic conditions, or shifts in domestic and international demand. Scenarios help show the likely effect on demand, revenue, performance, and funding before decisions are made. 

How often are forecasts delivered and updated?

Many clients receive either quarterly or semiannual updates under a one-year agreement. Each update is delivered as a concise report, and for Symphony clients, it can be loaded directly into the dashboard so the forward-looking outlook sits alongside live market data. 

Can the forecast be customized to our market?

Yes. Every forecast is calibrated to the geography, market definition, and business question at hand. Forecasts can be built for cities, districts, resort areas, regions, states, provinces, countries, portfolios, or custom market areas, with options to add geographies, short-term rental inventory, lodging tax forecasts, extended horizons, visitor volume and spending, scenarios, and stakeholder presentations. 

How is this different from the hotel data we already receive?

Standard hotel data tells you what has already happened. Tourism Economics forecasts show what is likely to happen next, and why. We combine historical data with economic modeling, supply and event research, travel demand forecasts, and expert interpretation to produce a forward view your team and stakeholders can plan against.