IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/touman/v58y2017icp301-306.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The Baidu Index: Uses in predicting tourism flows –A case study of the Forbidden City

Author

Listed:
  • Huang, Xiankai
  • Zhang, Lifeng
  • Ding, Yusi

Abstract

Tourist overcrowding of sites during the ‘Golden Week’ is a not an uncommon situation in China today. Consequently the prediction of tourist numbers is important for tourist attractions management and planning. Most existing methods rely on well-structured statistical data published by the government. However, this approach is limited in two aspects: 1) there may be significant delays in the publication of such data and 2) the sample size can be small, leading to inaccurate predictions. This paper proposes a novel approach for predicting tourist flows based on the Baidu Index. The Index provides search history containing different keywords on a daily basis dating back to 2006. The approach uses co-integration theory and Granger causality analysis to find the relationship between the internet search data and the actual tourist flow. The paper compares analysis results obtained by two kinds of predictive models, with or without considering Baidu Index. The study shows that there is a long-term equilibrium relationship and Granger causal relation between the observed number of tourists and a set of related keywords in the Baidu Index. It indicated a positive correlation between the increasing Baidu keyword search index and the increasing observed tourist flow.

Suggested Citation

  • Huang, Xiankai & Zhang, Lifeng & Ding, Yusi, 2017. "The Baidu Index: Uses in predicting tourism flows –A case study of the Forbidden City," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 58(C), pages 301-306.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:touman:v:58:y:2017:i:c:p:301-306
    DOI: 10.1016/j.tourman.2016.03.015
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0261517716000315
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.tourman.2016.03.015?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Nikolaos Askitas & Klaus F. Zimmermann, 2009. "Google Econometrics and Unemployment Forecasting," Applied Economics Quarterly (formerly: Konjunkturpolitik), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 55(2), pages 107-120.
    2. Zhi Da & Joseph Engelberg & Pengjie Gao, 2011. "In Search of Attention," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 66(5), pages 1461-1499, October.
    3. Hyunyoung Choi & Hal Varian, 2012. "Predicting the Present with Google Trends," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 88(s1), pages 2-9, June.
    4. Simeon Vosen & Torsten Schmidt, 2011. "Forecasting private consumption: survey‐based indicators vs. Google trends," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(6), pages 565-578, September.
    5. Jeremy Ginsberg & Matthew H. Mohebbi & Rajan S. Patel & Lynnette Brammer & Mark S. Smolinski & Larry Brilliant, 2009. "Detecting influenza epidemics using search engine query data," Nature, Nature, vol. 457(7232), pages 1012-1014, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Martin Obschonka & Mingjie Zhou & Yixin Zhou & Jianxin Zhang & Rainer K. Silbereisen, 2019. "“Confucian” traits, entrepreneurial personality, and entrepreneurship in China: a regional analysis," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 53(4), pages 961-979, December.
    2. Zhongchen Song & Tom Coupé, 2023. "Predicting Chinese consumption series with Baidu," Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 429-463, July.
    3. Wen, Fenghua & Xu, Longhao & Ouyang, Guangda & Kou, Gang, 2019. "Retail investor attention and stock price crash risk: Evidence from China," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    4. Jianchun Fang & Wanshan Wu & Zhou Lu & Eunho Cho, 2019. "Using Baidu Index To Nowcast Mobile Phone Sales In China," The Singapore Economic Review (SER), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 64(01), pages 83-96, March.
    5. Ziqi Yuan & Guozhu Jia, 2022. "Systematic investigation of keywords selection and processing strategy on search engine forecasting: a case of tourist volume in Beijing," Information Technology & Tourism, Springer, vol. 24(4), pages 547-580, December.
    6. Schaer, Oliver & Kourentzes, Nikolaos & Fildes, Robert, 2019. "Demand forecasting with user-generated online information," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 197-212.
    7. Guo, Mengmeng & Kuai, Yicheng & Liu, Xiaoyan, 2020. "Stock market response to environmental policies: Evidence from heavily polluting firms in China," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 306-316.
    8. Bi, Jian-Wu & Liu, Yang & Li, Hui, 2020. "Daily tourism volume forecasting for tourist attractions," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    9. Ling Tang & Chengyuan Zhang & Tingfei Li & Ling Li, 2021. "A novel BEMD-based method for forecasting tourist volume with search engine data," Tourism Economics, , vol. 27(5), pages 1015-1038, August.
    10. Katerina Volchek & Anyu Liu & Haiyan Song & Dimitrios Buhalis, 2019. "Forecasting tourist arrivals at attractions: Search engine empowered methodologies," Tourism Economics, , vol. 25(3), pages 425-447, May.
    11. Kulshrestha, Anurag & Krishnaswamy, Venkataraghavan & Sharma, Mayank, 2020. "Bayesian BILSTM approach for tourism demand forecasting," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 83(C).
    12. Liu, Yuan-Yuan & Tseng, Fang-Mei & Tseng, Yi-Heng, 2018. "Big Data analytics for forecasting tourism destination arrivals with the applied Vector Autoregression model," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 130(C), pages 123-134.
    13. Wang, Chen & Chu, Zhongzhu & Gu, Wei, 2021. "Assessing the role of public attention in China's wastewater treatment: A spatial perspective," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 171(C).
    14. Yang, Yang & Fan, Yawen & Jiang, Lan & Liu, Xiaohui, 2022. "Search query and tourism forecasting during the pandemic: When and where can digital footprints be helpful as predictors?," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 93(C).
    15. Chumnumpan, Pattarin & Shi, Xiaohui, 2019. "Understanding new products’ market performance using Google Trends," Australasian marketing journal, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 91-103.
    16. Eden Xiaoying Jiao & Jason Li Chen, 2019. "Tourism forecasting: A review of methodological developments over the last decade," Tourism Economics, , vol. 25(3), pages 469-492, May.
    17. Gu, Fu & Wang, Jiqiang & Guo, Jianfeng & Fan, Ying, 2020. "Dynamic linkages between international oil price, plastic stock index and recycle plastic markets in China," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 68(C), pages 167-179.
    18. Chuan Zhang & Ao‐Yun Hu & Yu‐Xin Tian, 2023. "Daily tourism forecasting through a novel method based on principal component analysis, grey wolf optimizer, and extreme learning machine," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(8), pages 2121-2138, December.
    19. Chuan Zhang & Yu-Xin Tian & Ling-Wei Fan, 2020. "Improving the Bass model’s predictive power through online reviews, search traffic and macroeconomic data," Annals of Operations Research, Springer, vol. 295(2), pages 881-922, December.
    20. Gang Xie & Xin Li & Yatong Qian & Shouyang Wang, 2021. "Forecasting tourism demand with KPCA-based web search indexes," Tourism Economics, , vol. 27(4), pages 721-743, June.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. D’Amuri, Francesco & Marcucci, Juri, 2017. "The predictive power of Google searches in forecasting US unemployment," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 801-816.
    2. Bangwayo-Skeete, Prosper F. & Skeete, Ryan W., 2015. "Can Google data improve the forecasting performance of tourist arrivals? Mixed-data sampling approach," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 454-464.
    3. Gomes, Pedro & Taamouti, Abderrahim, 2016. "In search of the determinants of European asset market comovements," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 44(C), pages 103-117.
    4. Jichang Dong & Wei Dai & Ying Liu & Lean Yu & Jie Wang, 2019. "Forecasting Chinese Stock Market Prices using Baidu Search Index with a Learning-Based Data Collection Method," International Journal of Information Technology & Decision Making (IJITDM), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 18(05), pages 1605-1629, September.
    5. Yang, Xin & Pan, Bing & Evans, James A. & Lv, Benfu, 2015. "Forecasting Chinese tourist volume with search engine data," Tourism Management, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 386-397.
    6. Götz, Thomas B. & Knetsch, Thomas A., 2019. "Google data in bridge equation models for German GDP," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 45-66.
    7. Long Wen & Chang Liu & Haiyan Song, 2019. "Forecasting tourism demand using search query data: A hybrid modelling approach," Tourism Economics, , vol. 25(3), pages 309-329, May.
    8. Oestmann Marco & Bennöhr Lars, 2015. "Determinants of house price dynamics. What can we learn from search engine data?," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 66(1), pages 99-127, April.
    9. Juan Camilo Anzoátegui-Zapata & Juan Camilo Galvis-Ciro, 2020. "Disagreements in Consumer Inflation Expectations: Empirical Evidence for a Latin American Economy," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 16(2), pages 99-122, November.
    10. Zhongchen Song & Tom Coupé, 2023. "Predicting Chinese consumption series with Baidu," Journal of Chinese Economic and Business Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 21(3), pages 429-463, July.
    11. Coble, David & Pincheira, Pablo, 2017. "Nowcasting Building Permits with Google Trends," MPRA Paper 76514, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. Jaroslav Pavlicek & Ladislav Kristoufek, 2015. "Nowcasting Unemployment Rates with Google Searches: Evidence from the Visegrad Group Countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(5), pages 1-11, May.
    13. Fabio Milani, 2021. "COVID-19 outbreak, social response, and early economic effects: a global VAR analysis of cross-country interdependencies," Journal of Population Economics, Springer;European Society for Population Economics, vol. 34(1), pages 223-252, January.
    14. Hamid, Alain & Heiden, Moritz, 2015. "Forecasting volatility with empirical similarity and Google Trends," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 62-81.
    15. Olivier Gergaud & Victor Ginsburgh, 2016. "Evaluating the Economic Effects of Cultural Events," Working Papers ECARES ECARES 2016-24, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    16. Hantzsche, Arno, 2022. "Fiscal uncertainty and sovereign credit risk," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    17. Siliverstovs, Boriss & Wochner, Daniel S., 2018. "Google Trends and reality: Do the proportions match?," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 1-23.
    18. Thomas Dimpfl & Tobias Langen, 2019. "How Unemployment Affects Bond Prices: A Mixed Frequency Google Nowcasting Approach," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 54(2), pages 551-573, August.
    19. Serhan Cevik, 2022. "Where should we go? Internet searches and tourist arrivals," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(4), pages 4048-4057, October.
    20. Meshcheryakov, Artem & Winters, Drew B., 2022. "Retail investor attention and the limit order book: Intraday analysis of attention-based trading," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 81(C).

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:touman:v:58:y:2017:i:c:p:301-306. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.journals.elsevier.com/tourism-management .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.