Forecasting the Number of Passengers Serviced at the Maritime Ports in Bulgaria

The maritime transport in Bulgaria is controlled and coordinated by the Executive Agency "Maritime administration". This institution is a legal entity on budget support to the Ministry of transport, information technology and communications, a second level user of budget credits, based in Sofia with regional offices in Bourgas, Varna, Lom and Rousse (where are the Bulgarian major ports) . EAMA status is regulated by the Merchant Shipping Code - Art. 360, para.1. The problem of forecasting in the new strategic documents is crucial to the formation of proper infrastructure policy which has to be innovative and for the future strategic development of the tourism in the country. This paper is aimed at presenting the lack of real forecasting in many of the strategic documents and projects adopted for the development of the maritime transport in Bulgaria (i.e. Directive 2008/106/EC of European Parliament and Council on the minimum level of training of seafarers; Ordinance No 9 of 2013 on the requirements for operational suitability of ports and specialised port facilities; Ordinance No 10 of 2014 on the scope and content, preparation, approval and amendment of the general plans of the public transport ports). There are also many Mutual Agreements for Recognition of Seafarers" certificates. The paper provides a practical example for the use of the so called single or simple exponential smoothing without the presence of any seasonality and the lack of cyclicity on the number of passengers arrivals at the Bulgarian maritime ports.