11th global forum on tourism statistics observations and conclusions

11th Global Forum on Tourism Statistics: Observations and Conclusions

Reykjavik, Iceland 14-16 November 2012

Evolution of the Global Forum Debate

• The debate continues on:

– how to bring recognition and confidence to tourism through increased awareness;

– how to generate usable, practical information and reliable and credible tools for different stakeholders; and

– the role and credibility of the sector: how to communicate.

11th Global Forum on

Tourism Statistics

Evolution of Debate Cont.

• Link between statistical issues and political agenda growing, including:

– focus on what is relevant for political agenda, and how statistics and economic analysis can be used;

– rich and informed vision of the “tourism system”;

– effects of “external shocks”, including changes in other sectors;

– the importance of marketing campaigns and measuring the effects of policies;

11th Global Forum on Tourism Statistics

Evolution of Debate Cont.


• Improved approach towards established issues:

– Better understanding of tourism profile and behaviour

– Seasonality, which reinforces the the need for an integrated approach

• Increased attention to the need for improved instruments and methods to collect information:

– Tourism statistics in 21st century constantly evolving; allowing and requiring changes to data collection

– Focus on providing robust and comparable data that take into account budget constraints


Roundtable Discussion: Monitoring Progress in Tourism - What’s next? • Key outcomes:

– Solid evidence base and a common language for discussion is required for effective tourism policy making.

– Statistics necessary for transparency – how is money spent and for what outcome?

– Need to demonstrate the importance of the sector to government and the community to justify and secure ongoing funding.

– A need to make quantitative data user friendly for a wide range of stakeholders with diverging interests and needs.

– Need to move from measurement to informing decision-making.


Session 1: Effects of External Shocks on Tourism and Tourism Statistics • Shocks can be direct or indirect in nature - not limited

to natural disasters; • Events that significantly disrupt established industry

equilibrium (+vely or –vely); • Effects not always as expected and, as such, can

represent an opportunity; • Flexibility and adaptability to changes in the external

environment is key, however; • A need for timely information to better understand

tourist motivation and behaviour, and to monitor effects of the “shock/s”;

• Likely to be some trade-off between quality of data in situations of rapid response;

• Never waste a good crisis?


• Large swings in seasonal demand an issue for many destinations – reducing seasonality a key priority.

• Important due to impacts on tourism infrastructure (overuse V underuse), the effects on employment (stability V quality), and on natural resources.

• Seasonality is caused by a variety of natural (e.g. weather/climate) and institutional factors (e.g. Institutional holidays).

• Need to measure and understand in order to develop counter-seasonal strategies.

• Tools such as the Gini Coefficient can be used to measure and benchmark seasonal concentration.

• Decomposition can help to identify and target ‘reducing’ markets and simulate outcomes.

Session 2: Seasonality in Tourism


• It may be argued that ‘natural’ factors influencing seasonality are a reflection of visitor perceptions and as such, can be influenced.

• It’s important to know your customer/market in order to inform product development.

• Seasonality can lead to complacency, and a resultant negative impact on innovation (e.g. in relation to environmental management).

• Standards to measure seasonality are still required.

Session 2: Cont.


• Mobile positioning data can be used to improve tourist statistics and to monitor business use and use for other visitors and in that way increase the quality of tourist data.

• Mobile data complements traditional statistics allowing the understanding of itineraries and activities of tourists.

• More methodological work on utilisation of mobile data is needed.

• Web analytics can be useful tool to monitor the performance of websites and Adwords campaigns helpful to design successful online advertising strategies by measuring visability and performance.

Session 3: Tourism Statistics in the 21st Century


• Electronic data collection can provide significant gains for firms by lowering response burden, resulting in higher quality data and more timely delivery for statistical offices.

• Further research into methods used in tourism demand surveys is needed especially when there is rapid decrease in listed land-lines.

• As an element of regional TSA a supply-side tourism statistic survey can be improved using hedonic analysis.

• Using register based or LFS employment data already available is a promising method, also in understanding quality aspects of tourism jobs.

Session 3: Cont.


• Regional TSA provide a promising economic basis for policy making but it remains difficult to obtain data on a disaggregated level and to take into account indirect/induced effects.

• Propensity to travel dependent upon a range of demographic, social, cultural household characteristics and such analysis are of important to inform policy making and marketing strategies.

• To develop effective policies/responses to support sustainable tourism it is necessary to understand specific sustainability related problems and tourism indicators need to be homogeneous, well-defined, continuous and flexible.

Session 4: Using Tourism Statistics to Inform Business and Policy Decisions


• DMOs should follow an approach to improving destination competitiveness, that optimises the use of public resources. Such an approach focusing effectiveness and efficiency evaluation depends on the type of action, objectives, effects to be measured and availability of data.

• Tourist expenditure in open areas can be under-estimated due often to a focus on accommodation stats only which risks being incompatible with macro estimates if a bottom-up approach is used.

Session 4: Cont.



Session 5: Coherence and Comparability of Tourism Statistics

• Day trippers contribute to the tourism economy through their use transportation, tourist guides, restaurants and shops in the country according to their motivation and profile.

• Regular trips need to be quantified separately as they provide a relevant economic contribution and require regular monitoring by comparing supply and demand data in order to take into account underground production.

• To empower tourism stakeholders and provide them with the market and benchmarking information they need – use available harmonised data; provide access to original sources; put data into context.

• Benchmarking regions offers significant benefits to industry and policy makers (including shared experiences), but to ensure comparability, a range of issues need to be addressed: boundaries; coverage; differing research methodologies and definitions; and frequency and timeliness of data.


Conclusions and Food for Thought... • How to monitor the effects of external shocks and the provision of

timely and robust data in order to develop quick and flexible response strategies.

• Improve the understanding of tourist profiles and behaviour – demand segmentation by different variables (e.g. holiday habits, expenditure patterns etc.), marketing and policy development.

• New instruments to collect information (e.g. mobile and automated data) require methods to explore potentialities and rules for robust and comparable data.

• Regional analysis and transfer of methods and instruments to collect information from the national level.

• Methodological guidelines for economic impact at the regional level and approaches to measure the black economy.

• In all areas there is the need to focus on improving the effectiveness and efficiency and promoting their value to stakeholders and to inform the policy debate.

11th global forum on tourism statistics observations and conclusions

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