In this study, we consider the problem of forecasting the number of inbound foreigners visiting Korea. Forecasting tourism demand is an essential decision to plan related facilities and staffs, thus many studies have been carried out, mainly focusing on the number of inbound or outbound tourists. In order to forecast tourism demand, we use a seasonal ARIMA (SARIMA) model, as well as a SARIMAX model which additionally comprises an exogenous variable affecting the dependent variable, i.e., tourism demand. For constructing the forecasting model, we use a search procedure that can be used to determine the values of the orders of the SARIMA and SARIMAX. For the exogenous variable, we introduce factors that could cause the tourism demand reduction, such as the 9/11 attack, the SARS and MERS epidemic, and the deployment of THAAD. In this study, we propose a procedure, called Measuring Impact on Demand (MID), where the impact of each factor on tourism demand is measured and the value of the exogenous variable corresponding to the factor is determined based on the measurement. To show the performance of the proposed forecasting method, an empirical analysis was conducted where the monthly number of foreign visitors in 2019 were forecasted. It was shown that the proposed method can find more accurate forecasts than other benchmarks in terms of the mean absolute percentage error (MAPE).

To investigate the perception and preference of foreign visitors to Korean traditional foods, 206 visitors(male 142, female 61) were surveyed with questionnaires translating in English, Chinese and Japanese. Subjects had various nationality such as China(77.4%), America(20.9%), Japan(16.0%), Canada(6.5%), Southeast Asia(2.5%) and Europe(2.5%). The 70.2% of the respondents had been tried Korean dishes before visiting Korea on the recommendation of friends or acquaintances(59.9%) or by the advertisement, articles, and travel agency. Bulgogi and Kimchi were the most popular menu that they had been tried in their country and Bibimbop, Kalbi, Korean dumpling, Samgaetang and Chapchae were following. 29.8% of the respondents had never tried Korean dishes because of they didn't have a chance to try(43.1%) or there were no Korean restaurant near their place(25.5%) or they had no interest in Korean dishes(23.5%). As expected, Kimchi and Bulgogi were well known food, showing rank of highest recognition. Chun and Dduck were the dishes that they had heard or saw but not eaten and Goojeolpan and Shinsunro were the dishes that they had not heard or saw. Preference to Korean dishes shows the same tendency as perception, Bulgogi, Bibimbop, Kalbi and Kimchi were the highly preferred group and Samgaetang, Bindaedduck, Chapchae, Dumpling and Raengmyon were mildly preferred one and Cucumber Kimchi, Kalbitang, Chun, Namul, Dduck were lower group of preference and Shinsunro and Goojeolpan were rarely preferred. These result shows that it is needed to advertise Korean dishes and to make events for globalization of Korean food.