5.4. As already mentioned (see paras. 4.48-4.49 above and IRTS 2008, chap. 4, sect. D), from a practical perspective, it cannot be expected that visitors participating in a survey, who are presented with a long list of products classified by physical qualities and industrial origin (such as those based on CPC), will be able to choose among them. Visitors are more likely to understand a classification of expenditure according to purpose or activities, inter alia, accommodation, transport and food. For instance, transportation expenditure (from a purpose perspective) might include public transportation and taxi fares as well as car rental, tolls, gasoline, small repairs and spare parts. Each of these elements belongs to a different CPC category. In addition, visitors will probably classify trips according to “tourism products”, which are actually a grouping of activities and purposes.
5.5. Therefore, the classifications of final consumption usually used by countries in household income/expenditure surveys are derived from COICOP.
5.6. This is why, in respect of observing tourism expenditure through surveys of individuals (IRTS 2008, para. 3.41), IRTS 2008 recommends consistency with the COICOP classification and use of the following categories (para. 4.26):
- Package travel, package holidays and package tours
- Accommodation
- Food and drink
- Local transport
- International transport
- Recreation, culture and sporting activities
- Shopping
- Others
5.7. These IRTS categories maintain a type of categorization that is familiar to most visitors. They do not focus on the specific nature of a good or service but rather on the need to which it responds (the only exception being “package travel, package holiday and package tours”, discussed directly below). For instance, food purchased for preparation by the visitor and food served in a restaurant are classified in the same category (iii. Food and drink), since both respond to the need for food. The corresponding COICOP classification comprises class: “11.1.1 - Restaurants, cafés and the like” in group “11.1 - Catering services” and all nine classes (“bread and cereals”, “meat”, “fish and seafood”, “milk, cheese and eggs”, “oils and fats”, “fruit”, “vegetable”, “sugar, jam, honey, chocolate and confectionery” and “food products n.e.c”) in group “01.1 – Food”. Similarly, the purchase of gasoline for a vehicle, the rental of a car or the payment of taxi fare, as previously mentioned, are classified in the same category as local transport, even though one is a good and the other a service.
5.8. The first category listed, “Package travel, package holidays and package tours”, does not correspond to a function as such; it represents a mix of services acquired at the same time for a single payment. To permit comparisons and analysis of the level and structure of visitor expenditure, whether they travel on packages or not, it is recommended that this category be further broken down into its components (e.g., transport, accommodation and food) (see paras 4.34-4.41 and 4.74 for more information on package tours).
5.9. A special issue arises when international visitors are surveyed because, often, the Balance‑of‑Payments classifications would also need to be considered (as when the survey needs to provide information for both tourism statistics and the Balance of Payments). As already mentioned (see para. 4.44), various differences still exist between the classification recommended in the observation of tourism expenditure[1] and the breakdown suggested as a memorandum item for BPM6 (see appendix 9 of BPM6, entitled “Standard components and selected other items”, and IRTS 2008, paras. 8.22-8.25). The breakdown is as follows:
Goods
Local transport services
Accommodation services
Food‑serving services
Other services: Health services
ducation services
Some insights related to measurement of the “travel” and “passenger transportation” Balance of Payments items are provided below.
5.10 As explicitly mentioned in IRTS 2008, para. 8.25:
International organizations have recognized the importance for countries to work internationally in a coordinated manner in order to foster joint observation procedures that would provide information for the compilation of both balance of payments and tourism statistics. This collaboration should be the basis for a better understanding of the similarities and the differences of the two focuses.
5.11 The Balance of Payments “travel” item does not include the purchase of international transportation services, which is included under “international passenger transport”.
5.12 The Balance of Payments classification requires the breakdown of package tours, which entails an additional procedure similar to the one proposed above (see para. 5.7).
5.13 The Balance of Payments classification stresses the difference between goods and services, a difference that is not viewed as essential in the recommended tourism classification. “Transport”, for instance, would include the purchase of gas, considered a good under the Balance of Payments classification. Within the tourism statistics classification, “Others” might also include certain goods, though most goods should be included in “Shopping”, which could be considered a preliminary estimate of inbound/outbound tourism expenditure on goods for the purpose of Balance of Payments compilation. Nevertheless, in a first approximation, it might be sufficient to simply classify all expenditure other than “shopping” as services, that is, to treat “shopping” as including all purchases of goods.
5.14 Regarding the breakdown of health and education services, countries willing to use the information collected for both tourism analysis and Balance of Payments compilation will need to obtain information about those services through the inclusion of a distinct question in the questionnaire. Additional information will need to be collected from providers of education and health services and from the institutions financing the acquisition of such services, such as universities and social insurance systems, in order to cross‑check that information, since in many cases there will be too few observations (in the survey of visitors) to prevent large sampling errors.
5.15. It should be recalled finally that the Balance of Payments “travel” item is closer conceptually to “tourism consumption” than to “tourism expenditure”, as it also includes imputed values that are excluded from tourism expenditure (see para. 4.3 and IRTS 2008, paras. 8.10-8.25).
5.16 When compilers reach the stage ‑ usually prior to developing a TSA ‑ of checking coherence and consistency between sources on demand and those on supply, all these groupings must be further disaggregated and their components linked to CPC categories .
[1] See chap. 4, sect. B.3.1, on the proposed set of question for the expenditure module of a border survey.