Adaptive tourism modeling: experience, problems and prospects of application at the regional level

Introduction. The crisis of the tourist industry caused by the COVID-19 pandemic emphasized the existing regional asymmetry in the development of Russian tourism. Despite the diversity of tourist and recreational potentials in the regions, the main reason for such significant differences in the efficiency of the field of industry and hospitality lies in the tourist activity management. The most important tool for regional policies is forecasting. The purpose of the article is to consider the prognostic capabilities of adaptive models in relation to tourist studies at a regional large-scale level based on data from official statistics. Materials and Methods. The study is based on the adaptive modeling method, which has proven itself to obtain short-term forecasts of a number of small samples developing under uncertainty. As the objects of modeling were the series of the dynamics of indicators characterizing tourist activities in the Baikal region. Modeling was based on the series inherent in the regional tourism with a pronounced seasonal component and time series with annual indicators, where only the trend component is detected during decomposition. Results. Adaptive models have shown high prognostic capabilities with the exception of series in which a sharp collapse of the indicator caused in this case by the introduction of restrictions on tourist mobility occurs during one last time step. The model under these conditions objectively does not have time to adapt. If there is a temporary possibility of to “learning”, the forecast even of a sharp decline in the tests under study has a confirmed high accuracy. Discussion and Conclusion. According to the results of the study, it is confirmed by the possibility of using adaptive modeling to predict the series of dynamics of tourist activity indicators at the regional level, undergoing sharp changes in the conditions of uncertainty. The results of the work may be useful to specialists in the field of regional policies, in particular to employees of tourist administrations, a business community, as well as scientific and pedagogical personnel in the relevant area and can be used in the preparation of specialists of higher and secondary vocational education in tourism.