嚴重急性呼吸道症候群(SARS)的爆發造成臺灣近年來最大的災害，其中尤以觀光業所受之衝擊最為嚴重。臺灣自從民國七十六年政府解除多項開放國民出國觀光之限制以來，出國人數成長快速，加以國民所得增加，生活水準提高，外匯存低豐裕，出國旅遊已蔚為風氣。因此，本研究之研究目的欲探討自SARS爆發一年以來，臺灣出國觀光業所受之衝擊及其恢復之狀況。本研究以時間數最建立國人出國觀光之Box-Jenkins SARIMA預測模型，並預測在SARS爆發後之出國旅遊人數，預測值再與實際值進行比較以分析其所受之影響。研究結果顯示，在SARS爆發期間，臺灣出國觀光業遭受到嚴重之衝擊，爾後經過政府和觀光業者之努力，已有恢復之趨勢。研究結果實際反映一件真實災難事件後，出國觀光人數實際變化情形，並對於觀光業及後續研究亦提出相關之建議。

The Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) outbreak caused the most catastrophic disaster in Taiwan’s recent past, and the greatest effects were felt instantly in the tourism industry. Following the easing in 1987 of government restrictions toward traveling abroad by citizens of the Roc, stable increasing has been recorded in outbound tourism. Furthermore, overseas travel has become popular due to increased per capita incomes, and enhanced standard of living and plentiful foreign exchange reserves. Thus, the purpose of this study is to assess the impact and recovery of the epidemic in Taiwan’s outbound tourism industry. This research establishes on model for outbound tourism demand to predict the volume of tourist departures during and following the outbreak. The forecasts are based on the time series of Box-Jenkins SARIMA models, which are then compared with the actual volume of tourist departures to analyze the impact. The empirical results indicate Taiwan’s outbound tourism industry was devastated brutally by this disease during the outbreak. After the Taiwan government and tourism practitioners’ aggressive efforts, outbound tourists continued to progress energetically. The results will likely shed more light on how the numbers of outbound departures are influenced by a real-life hazard; furthermore, implications and recommendations are provided to the tourism authorities, and future research possibilities are also devoted.