Modelling the Seasonality of Hotel Nights in Denmark by County and Nationality

Abstract

Danish time series data on hotel nights exhibit a strong seasonal pattern, with peaks during the summer holiday season and slumps during the winter. However, over the past 30 years holiday preferences have changed from a single summer holiday into several vacation periods spread over the year. This should be reflected in the seasonal pattern of the demand for holiday accommodation such as hotel nights. Consequently, the nature of the seasonal process should have become more stochastic and less deterministic. The paper examines this hypothesis by the use of univariate econometric modelling of seasonality on hotel nights by county as well as by nationality using monthly time series data for Denmark. Special attention is devoted to testing for seasonal unit roots, ie a varying and changing pattern. A research strategy for analysing seasonality including graphical tools is presented. It is found that unit roots are present in many time series on hotel nights at the county level as well as by nationality.