(including the use of credit card information)
Balance of International Payments Division
November 9 th , 2011

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 Total travel services relatively small, but volatile, portion of the current account
 Significant impact on trade in services balance
 Travel series used in several System of National
Accounts components
 Current travel estimates combine traveller surveys and traveller counts
 Alternative sources to validate or replace current sources
• Potential sources
• Advantages and issues
Statistics Canada • Statistique Canada 2020-04-11

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 25 million foreign travellers to Canada in 2010
• 82% from United States (mostly by automobile of which half on same-day trip)
• 45% of the spending from United States travellers
 54 million Canadian travellers abroad in 2010
• 84% to United States (mostly by automobile of which two-thirds on same-day trip)
• 60% of the spending made in United States
 Increase in the travel deficit of Canada
• Deficit rose from C$2.1 billion to C$14.3 billion between 2001 and 2010 ... Mostly on larger deficit with United States
Statistics Canada • Statistique Canada 2020-04-11

 Balance of payments
• Travel spending by purpose of the trip; details on medical, education, and non-resident workers; passenger fares by mode of transport; quarterly series with geographical breakdown
 Gross domestic product
• Exports-imports of services; personal expenditures (spending by broad category); provincial allocation
 Canadian Tourism Satellite Account
• Supply (industry side) and demand (tourist side); domestic and international travellers; spending by broad category
 Input-Output System
• Household versus business spending; detailed spending by category ... converted into about 150 commodities; provincial distribution
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 Volumes of Canadian and foreign travellers are estimated through administrative data (frontier counts)
 Air travellers
• Customs declaration card
• Residency of the traveller
• Length of stay
• Some information about the destination (for Canadian travellers)
• Large sample of the cards are processed for statistics
 Land travellers
• Counts of people crossing the borders
• Split between same-day and overnight trips
Statistics Canada • Statistique Canada 2020-04-11

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 Questionnaires distributed at borders and in airports
 Five versions of the survey
• Canadians returning from abroad (long questionnaire)
• United States travellers (long questionnaire)
•
Foreigners from countries other than U.S. (long questionnaire)
• Canadian returning from United States on same-day trip by automobile
(short questionnaire)
• United States travellers returning from Canada on same-day trip by automobile (short questionnaire)
 Key questions
• Country of residence; purpose of trip; length of trip (covers commuters)
 Air Exit Survey of Overseas Visitors
• Interviews conducted directly in airports while passengers wait for flights
(target flights to specific destinations)
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 Questions on spending
• Broken down by 5 categories of spending
• Share of spending paid by sector (personal-business split)
• Countries visited
 Characteristics of the respondents combined with characteristics of the “population” (frontier counts)
• Representation of travellers by ports of exit
• Travel spending published quarterly for 6 areas
• Further details on annual basis
Statistics Canada • Statistique Canada 2020-04-11

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 Questions on fares
• Fares paid
• Name of the carrier
• Type of fare
• Origin / destination
 Characteristics of the respondents combined with characteristics of the “population” (frontier counts)
• Passenger fares estimated on a quarterly basis but integrated under total transport services for publication purposes
• Some details available annually
Statistics Canada • Statistique Canada 2020-04-11

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 Any of the alternatives discussed would need to retain frontier counts
 Consolidation of the questionnaires from 5 to 2 versions
• Will simplify the distribution
• Reduce printing costs
 Increase the distribution of questionnaires at certain ports of exit
 Air exit survey for United States travellers
 Review imputation strategies
 Internet version of the questionnaires (distribute cards with link)... As a means ↓ response burden and ↑ response rates
Statistics Canada • Statistique Canada 2020-04-11

Alternatives:
 Survey of air passenger origin and destination (quarterly)
• Number of passengers, by airlines (all having activities in Canada), by
Canadian and foreign origin-destinations
• Data compiled for air scheduled and air charter services
• No breakdown between Canadian and foreign passenger
 Not seen yet as an alternative to traveller questionnaires
• No country of residence for the travellers
• Does not capture the full journey
 Fare basis survey (quarterly)
• Collects sample of ticket fares from major Canadian air carriers
• Average fares for different type of fare
• Domestic and international journeys
 Could be used to validate questionnaire results
• Although no information on foreign airline fares
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Statistics Canada • Statistique Canada 2020-04-11

Alternatives:
 Leverage any available airlines administrative data
• Likely that high frequency airlines administrative data is available for internal purposes ... Marketing and route planning purposes as demand evolves
 Possible detail
•
Origin and destination of travellers
• Nationality
• Personal travel or business travel
• Domestic and international journeys
• Duration of trips
 Likely only domestic carriers and affiliates
Statistics Canada • Statistique Canada
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Alternatives:
 Adding questions on international travel through current
Statistics Canada’s surveys
• Survey of Household Spending
• Possibly supplementary module on higher frequency surveys
• Would only cover Canadian travel abroad
• Lack of spending details
• Good control total for non-business spending ... acceptable to estimate average spending
 Modelling data
• Based on counts, exogenous variables and established patterns
• Likely used in combination with other alternatives
• Challenge: The need to generate sufficient detail for the national accounts programs
Statistics Canada • Statistique Canada
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Alternatives:
 Partial aggregated monthly statistics available ... Data are timely ≤ 15 business days after the end of the reference period
 Used as an indicator and data confrontation tool for Household final consumption expenditures (GDP)
 Class of card holder (personal / commercial) ... With 6 classes of detail:
• Personal credit card purchases made in Canada by Canadian residents
• Commercial credit card purchases made in Canada by Canadian residents
• Personal credit card purchases made in Canada by non-residents
• Commercial credit card purchases made in Canada by non-residents;
• Personal credit card purchases made outside Canada by Canadian residents;
•
Commercial credit card purchases made outside of Canada by
Canadian residents.
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Statistics Canada • Statistique Canada 2020-04-11

 Transactions are grouped for about 40 different merchant classes such as:
Accommodation, Airline, Car rental, Full-service restaurants, Other retail, Travel agencies, etc.
 Challenges:
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• Not all credit suppliers included ... Key as market shares evolve
• No formal agreement in place to secure data on an ongoing basis
• Residency of the card holder limited
• Location of the transaction (only in Canada or abroad)
• Transaction detail not perfect: More industry than commodity ...
Possibly not standardized across all credit suppliers
• Commercial-personal use determined by type of card
• Difficult to estimate spending per trip (even with # of transactions and/or # of trips per cardholder)
• Difficulty comparing estimates to survey results
Statistics Canada • Statistique Canada 2020-04-11

 Challenges (cont`d)
• Purchases at Canadian or foreign business represent transactions while travelling, by phone or by internet → more than travel spending
• Capital purchases (e.g., deposit on timeshares) may be included
• Timing may be an issue, as transactions reflect the date of the purchase ... Not necessarily the date of travel (e.g., air tickets)
• No way to identify if the purchase was done from home or abroad
• Purchases from Canadian travel agencies shown as purchases made in Canada, but part may be for travelling outside the country
• No information about exact country of purchase
• No information about country of origin of foreign travellers
• Credit cards do not cover all travel transactions
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Statistics Canada • Statistique Canada 2020-04-11

Gaps
 Debit card transactions (withdrawals while travelling) likely account for a not insignificant share of travel spending
 Further, debit cards maybe used differently than credit cards while travelling
• credit cards for accommodation and other expenditures
• debit card withdrawals for a percentage of meals, leisure activities and shopping
 Further, debit cards maybe used differently than credit cards while travelling
 Implications for expenditure allocations by commodity
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Statistics Canada • Statistique Canada 2020-04-11

 Going forward implies a large amount of work and data development
• Determine if additional country detail could be made available ...
Country of residency for the cardholder and merchant
• Determine if we can obtain the Canadian region of the merchant and cardholder
• Establish a better understanding of credit suppliers merchant classifications in relation to standard industry-commodity classifications
• Determine if there is a flag/indicator identifying (i) internet, (ii) telephone and (iii) merchant location
• Establish an approach to estimate average expenditure, per cardholder, per trip
• Extend efforts to include debit cards
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Statistics Canada • Statistique Canada 2020-04-11

 Statistics on international travel are important not only for balance of payments / trade purposes
 Canada’s estimates are derived from a combination of travellers surveys and travellers counts
 Alternative sources require be further studied to validate or replace current sources
 More work on credit-debit cards, in particular
 Questions ... Comments?
Statistics Canada • Statistique Canada
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