The forecasting of regional tourism is a newer and increasingly important area of tourism forecasting study. This study expands the analysis to expenditure data to assess the relative economic impact of tourism into regional areas. Data from China is used for 13 main source markets into the 31 provinces of mainland China and an attempt is made to develop newer effective regional demand variables that can accurately aid in the expenditure forecasts. Five time series models—the Naïve，Holt，ARMA and Basic Structural Model（BSM）with and without intervention，and three econometric models，the Vector Autoregressive（VAR）model and the Time Varying Parameter（TVP）with and without intervention are used for testing comparison. The research also provides practical management outcomes by providing new methods for forecasting tourist expenditure as an indicator of economic growth in China’s provinces. The research concludes with the findings on the most appropriate model for regional forecasting and potential new types of variables suitable to the regional level.