FORECASTING TOURIST ARRIVALS IN MATI CITY USING SEASONAL AUTOREGRESSIVE INTEGRATED MOVING AVERAGE (SARIMA)

This study forecasted monthly tourist arrivals in Mati City, Davao Oriental, to support evidence-based tourism planning and management. Using a quantitative time-series research design, monthly tourist arrival data from January 2013 to December 2023 were analyzed using the Seasonal Autoregressive Integrated Moving Average (SARIMA) model following the Box–Jenkins methodology. Results revealed strong and consistent seasonality, with peak tourist arrivals occurring during April, May, and December, and lower arrivals during August and September. The best - fit SARIMA (1,1,3) (0,0,2) [12] model demonstrated satisfactory diagnostic results, including white-noise residuals and low information criteria values, indicating good model adequacy and forecasting reliability.