Practical time series forecasting for the hospitality manager

One of the most basic pieces of information useful to hospitality operations is gross sales, and the ability to forecast them is strategically important. These forecasts could provide powerful information to cut costs, increase efficient use of resources, and improve the ability to compete in a constantly changing environment. This study tests sophisticated, yet simple‐to‐use time series models to forecast sales. The results show that, with slight re‐arrangement of historical sales data, easy‐to‐use time series models can accurately forecast gross sales.