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6.25.                  There are two broad categories of visitor accommodation providers: 

  • Market providers, which receive payment for their services (see sects. B.1.1 and B.1.2 below) 
  • Non‑market providers, which accommodate visitors free of charge (see sects. B.1.3 and B.1.4 below) 

The subcategories described in sections B.1.1 and B.1.2 are defined in ISIC terms; the subcategories described in sections B.1.3 and B.1.4 are not. Additionally, the subcategory covered in section B.1.4 (“owner‑occupied vacation homes and timeshares”) is a TSA concept: its definition requires an understanding of National Accounts and their conceptual underpinnings and, in particular, why and how the services provided by fully owned or other types of arrangements such as timeshares, should be measured (see TSA: RMF 2008, chapt. 2, sect. B.3.3). 

6.26.                  Most overnight visitors use paid or free accommodation services, but may spend some nights travelling (on a train, airplane or boat, in a car, or elsewhere). Cruise ships represent a particular case (see para. 3.39). Often viewed as “floating hotels”, they combine accommodation and transportation services as a single product, whose components cannot be identified or measured separately.

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B.1.3.  Providers of non market accommodation services free of charge: visitors staying with friends and relatives and barter transactions

6.30.                  National Accounts consider that all dwellings give rise to housing services. These services are included within the production boundary, regardless of whether the dwellings are occupied by the owners or are rented on the market. Dwellings are deemed to provide a service that is implicitly acquired by the households that own them. A rent is imputed in such cases whose value depends on, inter alia, the dwelling’s physical conditions, amenities and location, but not on the conditions under which it is occupied. As a consequence, receiving a guest in one’s home free of charge does not generate additional economic production. The production associated with a dwelling depends solely on its physical conditions and surroundings. Consequently, in the case of a visitor staying free of charge with a resident household in the latter’s main dwelling or vacation home, no increase in demand and no effect on the supply of accommodation services should be recorded. If a payment is made for the service, then a corresponding decrease in services on own account should be made.

6.31.                  The same is true of barter transactions: there is no increase in the accommodation services provided within the economy, and for the sake of consistency with GDP measurement in National Accounts, no value should be imputed. 

6.32.                  Although accommodation for visitors in homes of relatives and friends does not generate output to the economy in the framework of the National Accounts, countries might give particular attention to these tourist activities, if staying at homes of relatives and friends is more common than staying at hotels, motels and similar establishments (for example, the substitution of the service of visitor accommodation with staying with friends and family indirectly influences new investments in the sector).

B.1.4.  Providers of non market accommodation services for own final use: owner occupied vacation homes and timeshares

6.33.                  The reasoning in paragraph 6.30 with respect to main dwelling applies also to vacation homes, whether fully owned or subject to other types of arrangements, such as timeshares. Ownership is in itself sufficient to be considered to entail the production of a service, whether visited or not. This production is not currently valued in tourism statistics but should be within the context of a TSA.