‘Modelling’ UK tourism demand using fashion retail sales

The United Kingdom (UK) is a world-renowned fashion hub where the economic importance of the tourism sector was recording continuous growth prior to the pandemic. Interestingly, tourism shopping is widely experienced yet seldom discussed from a tourism demand forecasting context. Driven by the potential relevance of tourism shopping and hoping to motivate increased collaboration between the tourism and fashion industries, we analyse whether fashion retail sales can be a leading indicator for inbound tourism demand in the UK. Using the Multivariate Singular Spectrum Analysis leading indicator algorithm, we forecast UK tourism demand and compare the results with six benchmark forecasting models. We find statistically significant evidence for the existence of cross-sector relations between the UK's fashion and tourism industries.