7.95. A population census encompasses the total process of collecting, compiling, evaluating, analysing and publishing or otherwise disseminating demographic, economic and social data pertaining, at a specified time, to all persons in a country or in a well‑delimited part of a country.
7.96. In addition to investigating such topics as household demographic characteristics, social characteristics and educational characteristics, population censuses also collect data on the following economic characteristic of the population: activity status, occupation, industry, and status in employment; and, in addition, may be specially designed to capture, inter alia, time worked, income, and employment in the informal sector and the like. The census is also a source for information on a person’s previous job, if he or she is unemployed or out of the labour force at the time of the observation. This is useful for analyses entailing persons who formerly had a job in the tourism sector. Further, it can be a source of valuable information on an individual’s nationality, ethnicity and immigration status, where appropriate.
7.97. It should be noted that in the case of tourism, the census information on the economic characteristics of the population classified by occupation, industry, status in employment and educational level is of particular usefulness and importance. The population census is one of the best if not the best source of complete and detailed data, covering the total population, on occupations, cross‑classified by type of economic activity (industry) and level of education.
7.98. This being the case, countries are encouraged to use counts from their population censuses in combination with data from other sources to produce tables on employment in the tourism industries classified by a full range of the economic characteristics mentioned above.