來華觀光旅客人數的多寡，直接影響本地觀光業者與政府相關單位對觀光事業軟硬體設施的投資，如：觀光旅館的興建、導遊人員的培訓等，以及整體策略的規劃，不當的評估或不精確的需求預測，都將導致大量觀光資源的閒置或浪費。本文主要在應用簡算法、時間趨勢模式、指數平滑法、時間序列模式、計量經濟模式等預測方法，建立來華觀光旅客需求預測模式，並針對總體或各主要市場的需求，利用各種模式評估準則，提出最佳預測模式，以供政府相關單位與觀光業者作為往後政策釐定以及投資計劃擬定時的參考。

Tourism demand directly affects the decisions of government and private sectors on their investments for the software/hardware facilities of tourism industry. If the demand forecast is seriously overstated, high levels of investments in transportation and accommodations can result. Conversely, an area which underestimates its tourism potential will develop less capacity, discouraging some tourists from visiting. Therefore, the ability to accurately forecast tourism demand can be very beneficial in their decision making. In this article, we investigate various forecasting methods such as naive method, trend curve analysis, time series models, and econometrics models to construct forecasting models for tourism forecasting. We also consider several well-known model selection criteria for the selection of these candidate forecasting models. We hope that these research conclusions can be of use to the policy decisions of government and private sectors for their future planning on tourism industry.