Forecasting performance of cruise passengers: the Spanish ports case

This contribution examines the passenger forecasting performance of the SARIMA method applied to cruise activities in the main Spanish ports. In this port system, the cruise activity market is characterized by different seasonal patterns (i.e., once- or twice-yearly peaks, which means unimodal or bimodal behavior) due to repositioning strategy. The outcome of standard indicators for accuracy testing reveals inconsistent prediction performances among ports. These inconsistencies are analyzed using an index of bimodality and seasonal variability. The forecasted values for a high-level of bimodality and seasonal variability show worse prediction performances than unimodal patterns and low seasonal variability. Ports with less passenger activity entail larger predictions errors. Exponential and linear models were adjusted between the error metrics and the mentioned indexes.