Basic Tourism Units and Concepts
Visitor, Purpose of Trip and
Usual Environment
Paul V. Kern
Section Chief
Services Branch
paul.kern@bea.gov
UNWTO/UNSD Madrid
July 17-20 2006
Topics
 Data sources and methodology used to
estimate the Travel and Tourism
Satellite Accounts (TTSAs)
 BEA interpretation of core concepts:
visitor, purpose and environment, using
available data
www.bea.gov
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Data constraint
 The United States does not collect
information specifically for estimating
TTSAs
 We have sources that provide
information on travel and tourism, and
adjust these data for use in the TTSAs
www.bea.gov
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Data sources for the U.S. TTSAs
 Input-Output Accounts (BEA)
 Personal Consumption Expenditures
(BEA)
 In-Flight Survey (ITA)
 Consumer Expenditure Survey (BLS)
 Private data (travel research firm)
 Employment data (BLS)
www.bea.gov
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Data sources for the U.S. TTSAs
 The U.S. TTSAs are extensions of the
U.S. Input-Output (I-O) Accounts
 I-O accounts provide production and
consumption data by item
 An item is a detailed commodity
 Can tell us how much is spent on movies
but cannot tell us how many movie-goers
are tourists
www.bea.gov
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Data sources for the U.S. TTSAs
 Personal Consumption Expenditures
(PCE) from BEA
 Allows the most recent I-O data (2004) to
be brought forward to 2006
 Provides price indexes to calculate
constant-price TTSAs
www.bea.gov
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Data sources for the U.S. TTSAs
 In-Flight Survey from ITA
 Provides information on international
travelers to and from the United States
 About 80,000 surveys each year
 Allows separation of U.S. vs. non-U.S.
international travelers
www.bea.gov
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Data sources for the U.S. TTSAs
 Consumer Expenditure Survey (CEX)
from BLS
 General purpose household survey used to
weight the Consumer Price Index (CPI)
components
 Questions on travel are at the end of the
survey
www.bea.gov
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Data sources for the U.S. TTSAs
 CEX from BLS
 Because of these limitations we adjust the
CEX data by using a three year moving
average of the detailed components
 This is our primary source to estimate the
percent of a commodity’s supply that is
sold to tourists
www.bea.gov
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Data sources for the U.S. TTSAs
 Private data (travel research firm)
 Provides expenditures
 Transportation by mode
 Hotel
 Meals
 Other
 Provides ratios to break aggregates into
 Leisure travelers
 Business travelers
 Government travelers
www.bea.gov
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Concepts
 Do these data allow us to produce
TTSAs that are consistent with the
UNWTO “Recommended Methodological
Framework”?
www.bea.gov
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Concepts
 Visitor is a person who travels outside
of their usual environment for pleasure
or business
 We exclude those who will be
compensated at this new location and
students and medical tourists
 Fully consistent with UNWTO?
We cannot differentiate inbound visitors
(leisure, business or government) with the
current data
www.bea.gov
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Concepts
 UNWTO recommends the following
classifications for purpose






www.bea.gov
Leisure, recreation and holidays
Visiting friends and relatives
Business and professional
Health treatment
Religion, pilgrimages
Other
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Concepts
 We measure three types of visitors by
their purpose for travel
 Leisure
 Business
 Government
 Fully consistent with UNWTO?
We cannot differentiate among categories of
inbound visitors (leisure, business or
government) and outbound visitors can be
divided into leisure and business only
www.bea.gov
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Concepts
 UNWTO states National statistical
organizations may wish to establish the
boundaries of the usual environment
in statistical terms by referring to
distances traveled, frequency of visits
or the formal boundaries of localities
or territories
www.bea.gov
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Concepts
 For the BEA, the usual environment is the
area of normal, everyday activities within
50-75 miles of home
 CEX (BLS) uses 75 miles, or overnight of any
distance
 Private data uses 50 miles, or overnight of any
distance
 Fully consistent with UNWTO?
It is not possible to reconcile the two sources
www.bea.gov
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Results
Billions of chained
(2000) dollars
Chart 1. Real Tourism Output and Tourism Employment, Q2002:I - Q2006:I
Thousands of
employees
600
5,700
580
5,650
560
5,600
540
5,550
520
5,500
500
5,450
480
5,400
460
5,350
440
5,300
Q2002:I
Q2002:III
Q2003:I
Q2003:III
Real tourism output
Q2004:I
Q2004:III
Q2005:I
Q2005:III
Q2006:I
Tourism employment
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
www.bea.gov
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Results
Chart 2. Quarterly Growth in Real Tourism Output, Q2005:I - Q2006:I
20.0
15.0
Percent
10.0
5.0
0.0
-5.0
-10.0
Q2005:I
Q2005:II
All tourism goods and services
Q2005:III
Passenger air transportation
Q2005:IV
Q2006:I
Traveler accommodations
U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis
www.bea.gov
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Conclusions
 BEA has done a good job of bridging
the UNWTO concepts and goals to the
existing data on travel and tourism in
the United States
 These accounts are improving and we
have additions and refinements under
review or in development
www.bea.gov
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Q&A
 BEA TTSAs
http://www.bea.gov/bea/dn2/home/
tourism.htm
 paul.kern@bea.gov
www.bea.gov
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