inbound tourism and domestic tourism

What is inbound tourism explained and why does it matter?

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Inbound tourism is an important type of tourism . Many countries rely heavily on the demand from inbound tourists to fuel the development and operations of their tourism economy.

But what does it actually mean to be an inbound tourist? In this article I will explain what is meant by the term inbound tourism, provide definitions of inbound tourism and I will discuss the advantages and disadvantages of inbound tourism. Lastly, I will provide examples of destinations which have significantly sized inbound tourism markets.

What is inbound tourism?

Inbound tourism definitions, the importance of inbound tourism, uk inbound tourism, advantages of inbound tourism, disadvantages of inbound tourism, inbound tourism: conclusion, further reading on inbound tourism.

Inbound tourism is the act of someone travelling to a country other than that of where they live for the purpose of tourism.

Many countries around the world rely on inbound tourism.

Inbound tourism is often seasonal, meaning that many destinations will have evident peak, shoulder and low seasons. This is often dependant on weather conditions (for example sun or snow ) and school and public holidays.

The most widely utilised definition of tourism , proposed by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and United States (UN) Nations Statistics Division (1994), prescribes that in order to qualify as a tourist one must travel and remain in a place outside of their usual residential environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business or other purposes.

When considering inbound tourism, it therefore makes sense to simply add in the prerequisite of travelling to another country…

Based on this commonly accepted definition (although this is not without its limits- see this post for more details ), therefore, inbound tourism can be defined as:

‘The act of travelling to another country for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business or other purposes.’

Inbound tourism is incredibly important in many destinations.

This is largely because of the economic benefits of tourism . Tourism can bring in a lot of money to a country through foreign exchange. This is particularly beneficial in countries where the currency is weaker than the currency of the tourists ‘ home countries.

It is for this reason that many countries will target their advertising towards certain nationalities. China produces one of the largest outbound tourism markets in the world and Chinese tourists tend to spend more on their holidays than any other nationality. Therefore many countries want to attract Chinese inbound tourists due to the economic value of this market.

Click here to see some interesting statistics demonstrating the growth in the Chinese outbound tourism market.

However, over dependance on inbound tourism can be risky business for destinations. There are many destinations, such as the Maldives , Spain and Greece who rely heavily on people travelling from other countries to their country for tourism.

The problem occurs when the travel industry is disrupted. This has never been more true than during the 2020 pandemic, when the impacts of Coronavirus on tourism were devastating.

Inbound tourism can also be negatively effected as a result of other factors, such as political unrest, natural disasters or economic instability.

In order to ensure sustainable tourism principles are adopted, destinations ideally need to diversify their tourism product to appeal to both the domestic tourism market and the inbound tourism market.

In The United Kingdom, we have a sizeable inbound tourism industry.

Here, inbound tourism is worth £127 billion per year to the UK economy. Inbound tourism creates jobs and boosts the economic throughout the country.

According to the UK tourist board, Visit Britain , inbound visitors to the UK spent £24.5 billion in 2017, and £21 billion of that was spent in England.

Inbound tourism attracts tourists from all over the world including Europe, the USA, Australia , China and Japan.

Inbound tourism markets around the world

Inbound tourism is a significant part of the tourism industry in many countries around the world.

The OECD have some useful data, demonstrating the most recent figures for inbound tourism around the world.

To take a look at the most recent OECD inbound tourism figures click here.

Here are a few tourism markets that have a high number of inbound tourists each year-

According to Statistica , Spain ranked second on the World Tourism Organisation’s list of most visited countries in the world, with its number of international visitors amounting to nearly 89.4 million in 2018.

Most travellers to Spain come from Europe, with the largest amount of tourists being British.

Spain is popular for its beach holidays, package holiday market and city breaks to Barcelona, Madrid and Valencia, amongst others.

The Maldives has been host to a fast-growing tourism industry in recent years. The archipelago attracts visitors all-year round, especially in hubs like Male which is home to an increasing number of modern hotels. 

Statistica reported in February 2019 that there were sharp increases in economic activity in The Maldives resulting from tourism. Figures showed a 16.8% increase in inbound tourism from the same time the previous year.

In total, 168,583 inbound tourists were recorded in The Maldives in 2019. China accounted for 17.8% and European markets accounted for a further 55% of inbound tourism.

The Maldives is renowned for its luxurious beach holidays.

Inbound tourism is one of the biggest economic activities in Thailand .

The National Economic and Social Development Council (NESDC) stated that in February 2019 the tourism industry accounted for 18.4% of GDP. Chinese visitors make up almost one third of all inbound tourists travelling to Thailand , with 10.99 million visits recorded in 2019.

There are many types of tourism found in Thailand and Thailand attracts a range of types of tourists, from backpackers to luxury travellers to business tourists .

Bali is another destination that is reliant on inbound tourism as a key economic contributor.

In 2018, the number of foreign tourists travelling to Bali was over 5 million. This was an increase of approximately 3.5 million from 2008. Figures taken from Statistica .

The inbound tourism market in Bali is dominated largely by Chinese and Australian tourists.

Bali is well-known for its beach escapes and cultural tourism .

There are many advantages of inbound tourism.

One advantage is that inbound tourism is not reliant on weekends in the way that domestic tourism is because people tend to your their annual leave when they take holidays overseas.

Having an inbound tourism market that attracts tourists from a range of destinations can help to minimise risk and diversify income. This way, if for some reason one country does not send many tourists (for example due to political or economic problems) then the host country still has visitors arriving from other countries.

On average, inbound tourists spend more money than domestic tourists. This money then helps boost the economy of the host country.

When we travel overseas we typically book further in advance than if we booked a domestic trip. This allows tourism organisations more time to plan.

Foreign income can really help to boost the economy of a country. Therefore foreign tourists are often welcomed. This especially applies to tourists who come from destinations where the currency is strong (e.g. Britain, USA, Europe, Australia).

Other posts that you might be interested in: – What is tourism? A definition of tourism – The history of tourism – The structure of the tourism industry – Stakeholders in tourism – Dark tourism explained – What is ABTA and how does it work? – The economic impacts of tourism

There are also some disadvantages of inbound tourism.

The main disadvantage of inbound tourism is that the destination is at the mercy of the transport network.

There are many cases of tourism industries being decimated because an airline has stopped operating a particular route.

Inbound tourism can also lead to culture clashes.

For example, British tourists who travel to Dubai are often not aware of Muslim cultural practices. As such, it is common for the local population to be offended by the tourist’s behaviour. In Dubai there are many signs up in the malls, for instance, that requests tourists cover up and dress appropriately .

In conclusion, it can be seen that inbound tourism is a highly effective way for a country to make money from tourism. Whilst this does take some careful management and planning, there are many countries throughout the world who have successful and thriving inbound tourism industries.

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Economic impacts of COVID-19 on inbound and domestic tourism ☆

COVID-19 has led to an unprecedented disruption in tourism spending. This has propagated through the whole economy, however the scale of these system-wide consequences can be hard to quantify. We calculate direct reductions in spending across domestic and inbound tourism categories and then use a computable general equilibrium model to quantify their economic impacts. The results – illustrated using a model for Scotland and focusing on 2021 - demonstrate the scale of the losses in the tourism industry and the economy as a whole that are attributable to changes in both domestic and inbound tourism demand. We find that the extent to which domestic tourism demand can mitigate the losses in inbound spending depends on the composition of demand.

1. Introduction

Since the start of 2020, the world has been impacted by the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), which has led to over 603 million cumulative cases and 6.48 million deaths ( World Health Organisation, 2022 , as of 8th September 2022 ). Across the globe, there has been an unprecedented national-level policy response to limit the spread of the virus, including restrictions on movement (both inter- and intra-national) and social and business activities where virus transmission could occur, a move to home working, local-, regional- and national-lockdowns, and restrictions on schooling and other normally “in-person” activities.

One of the most immediate consequences of the policy interventions was the “stop” to global tourism, with restrictions on international travel, stay at home orders and a curtailment of tourism activity. As the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (2020) noted in April 2020, “100% of destinations now have restrictions in place”. Niewiadomski (2020, p. 3) puts it more succinctly: “As a result, tourism as we knew it just a few months ago has ceased to exist.” Changes in the ability to undertake tourism activities are likely to have major economic impacts, particularly on regions and nations where tourism supported a substantial amount of economic activity.

While tourism in general was greatly affected by the measures aimed at reducing the spread of the virus, for many regions, domestic travel has seen a faster phased return compared to international tourism in both 2021 and 2022 since local mobility was less restricted than international mobility. Thus, increasing domestic tourism in place of lost international tourism has been identified as a potential strategy to mitigate the negative impacts of reduced tourism demand ( Arbulú, Razumova, Rey-Maquieira, & Sastre, 2021 ). However, recent studies - that have focussed primarily on the impact that COVID-19 had on the hotel industries - find mixed support for the thesis that policies aimed at attracting local tourists can be effective mitigating tools especially at the local level. For instance, Duro, Perez-Laborda, & Fernandez (2022) , finds that domestic tourism had a limited role in explaining the resilience of the accommodation sector in Spanish regions. This result is corroborated by the findings in Boto-García & Mayor (2022) that on average only regions with higher pre-pandemic domestic tourism demand were more attractive to domestic tourists thus had a greater ability to resist the negative demand shock from the loss of international tourists.

These studies have focussed on the regional impact of reduced tourism demand in the accommodation sector only. However, the economic impacts from reduced tourism spending will not only be limited to accommodation or to tourist-facing activities, such as restaurants and museums. The impacts will also be felt in other sectors of the economy such as those which are connected to tourism through supply chain links, or those affected by the corresponding reduction in incomes from a contraction in tourism activity. For this reason, some studies use multi-sectoral macroeconomic models, such as computable general equilibrium, which are particularly useful in understanding the propagation of changes in tourism behaviour and expenditure to the economy as a whole (see Dwyer, Forsyth, Madden, & Spurr, 2000 ; Dwyer, Forsyth, & Spurr, 2004 ; Wickramasinghe & Naranpanawa, 2021 for some general review of the usefulness of such models).

Of the growing literature to date that use computable general equilibrium modelling to analyse the economy-wide impact of COVID-related changes in tourism, two key papers are Pham, Dwyer, Su, and Ngo (2021) and Henseler, Maisonnave, and Maskaeva (2022) . Both these papers are mostly concerned with changes in inbound arrivals (i.e., trips and spending associated with non-residents of those areas). Whilst this is perfectly sensible for places that rely primarily on inbound travel for tourism demand, domestic tourism demand (i.e., trips and spending by residents) may play a major role for tourism recovery of regions with a strong domestic-facing tourism economy. This is particularly important as travel intentions, and attitudes to attitudes to risk and uncertainty about international travel have been made more complex in the COVID-19 crises ( Williams, Chen, Li, & Baláž, 2022 ).

In this paper, we use a computable general equilibrium model of Scotland to understand the impact that changes in domestic and inbound tourism spending in 2021, the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, have had on the Scottish economy. That is, we do not seek to estimate the overall economic impact of the pandemic on the Scottish economy, but we propose a methodology to capture the impact of variations in domestic and inbound tourism spending. Scotland makes an interesting empirical case for analysing tourism, given the importance of the sector for the economy, and the central place for tourism in its economic strategy ( Scottish Government, 2015 ; Scottish Government, 2021a ). Our focus on 2021 is to better understand the links between the evolution of COVID-19 policies in this period, which begins with the second national lockdown and evolves with changes in case numbers and the roll-out of the vaccine programme. Whilst our focus is on Scotland, we believe that the main lessons learned for this economy can be transferred to any region where domestic tourism demand is an important element of the tourism industry and can be used to further extend the micro literature on domestic tourism demand (Duro et al., 2022; Boto-García & Mayor, 2022 ) by exploring the role of composition of demand by tourism categories and by adding a macroeconomic dimension. In addition, the method used here is directly applicable to other regions where the data is available.

We make two main contributions in this paper. First, we develop a method that can be used for the short-run economic analysis of variations in both domestic and inbound tourism spending. This method can be replicated for other regions and countries provided the existence of spending data by each tourism category. Second, we contribute to the growing literature on whether additional domestic tourism demand can mitigate the loss in inbound spending at the macroeconomic level due to COVID-19. Specifically, we add to the existing literature by a) focussing on a set of aggregated industries, that are both tourism facing or linked to tourism via supply chain, b) explaining the role of the composition of demand of domestic and international tourism spending in determining resistance of local economies to unpredicted economic shocks (e.g., Allan, Lecca, & Swales, 2017 ).

We try to overcome some of the weaknesses of computable general equilibrium modelling. Typically, computable general equilibrium models are limited in the ability to represent the geographic and temporal origin of shocks as they rely on annual country-level data. However, many countries' COVID policies in 2021 have seen tourism demand vary significantly by regions - in accordance with infection rates and the evolution of the pandemic - and by month, following the rollout of vaccination programmes. For this reason, we first carry out a bottom-up analysis of tourism expenditure in Scotland disaggregated by place of residence of tourists, namely Scotland (including a distinction between day visits and overnight stays), the rest of the UK (day trips and overnight) and international, and by destination of spending at local authority level for each of the 2021 months. This lets us identify the different contribution of five categories of tourism expenditure in Scotland pre-COVID-19, which can then be “shocked” by observed changes in relevant proxies during 2021. Crucially, when restrictions are applied to sub-regional areas of the country, we are able to capture shocks that are proportionate to the spending profile of different tourism categories in that region. Second, by introducing proxies for each category's movement during 2021, we identify changes in tourism expenditure attributable to COVID-19, by local authority and month, which are then aggregated and introduced as disturbances to a computable general equilibrium model for Scotland, to show how these propagate through the Scottish economy to produce impacts on aggregate economic indicators and on different sectors.

The paper proceeds as follows. Section 2 sets out an overview of the tourism industry in Scotland and the economic contribution of different categories of tourism expenditure and presents a timeline of the key phases of the COVID-19 pandemic and policies in Scotland, focusing on 2021. Section 3 summarises recent papers which have used computable general equilibrium analysis to understand the wider impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly through the policies targeted at travel and the tourism industry. Section 4 sets out our methodology and simulation strategy. Section 5 presents the results, including their sensitivity to key modelling assumptions. 6 , 7 discuss our results and provide conclusive remarks respectively.

2. Tourism industry in Scotland and COVID-19 policies

2.1. the economic role of tourism in scotland pre-pandemic.

Tourism is an important economic sector for Scotland: indeed, the Scottish Governments' Economic Strategy ( Scottish Government, 2015 ) identified tourism as a sector where Scotland has a distinct comparative advantage. The statistics bear out this sector's economic importance. In 2019, around 8.8% of employment and more than 15,000 registered businesses in Scotland were in the tourism industry, 1 contributing around £4.5 billion to Scottish gross value added.

Another perspective on tourism in Scotland comes from an analysis of the spending behaviour of tourists. Table 1 shows spending in Scotland by tourists' place of residence and whether the trip is an overnight or day trip for the most recent (pre-COVID) year of 2019, and shows that a total of £11.64 billion was spent by tourists in Scotland in that year. Comparing the totals of the first and second columns we can see that total day trip expenditure is only around £90 million lower than spending by tourists who stayed overnight. This reflects a greater frequency of overnight trips and the importance of day trips in tourist spending, which is dominated by Scottish residents (77% of total spending on day trips in 2019). We can see how the pattern of spending by place of residence is reversed in the case of overnight trips. Here, those residents living outside of the UK provides the largest element of expenditures and comprised 43% of the total spending on overnight tourism.

Tourist spending in Scotland by place of residence, 2019, £millions.

Sources: Visit Britain, 2020a , Visit Britain, 2020b and Office for National Statistics (2020) Notes: “Day trips” relate to all tourism day trips, e.g., non-regular activities, outside the place of residence) and so differ from leisure trips. Some totals may not match those in other UK sources due to inclusion of spending which cannot be matched to place of residence in the latter publications. Any errors and omissions are the responsibility of the authors.

2.2. A timeline of key events on COVID-19 impacting travel and tourism in Scotland during 2021

Since the identification of the SARS-Cov-2 virus in late 2019 the most immediate non-health interventions were felt through restrictions on travel: the introduction of stay-at-home orders, region- and city-specific lockdowns and the closure of borders. In Scotland, the first positive case was recorded on the 28th of February 2020, and public health measures were immediately put in place. 2 Public heath advice, restrictions and guidance have evolved in line with the number of cases, hospitalisations, and deaths, the capacity in the health system, the identification of any new variants of COVID-19 and (since December 2020) the roll out of the vaccination programme. 3

The restrictions impacting on tourism activity in Scotland through 2021 can be divided into three distinct phases. First, from the 4th of January until April, Scotland was in its second national lockdown, initially from the rise in the spread of the Alpha variant in late December 2020. In this phase there were restrictions on all travel (international and internally between local authorities in Scotland) for all but essential business, with the Scottish population under a “stay at home” order. By the middle of February, the Scottish Government 4 announced the plan for relaxing lockdown restrictions on an authority-by-authority basis in response to changes in closely watched indicators, including case numbers.

The second phase – roughly from April until July - saw the gradual unlocking of restrictions, the return of in-person schooling for all age groups, and the recommencement of non-essential journeys (including tourism trips). Initially, such trips were only permitted within a resident's local authority area, with movements between local authorities relaxed from 16th April. Subsequently, hospitality was permitted to reopen in some areas from the 26th of April, with restrictions in place including the use of “Track and Trace” for customers, and rules on ventilation and social distancing between individuals and staff in indoor settings. By July, all of Scotland's local authorities had moved “beyond Level 0”, which permitted wider travel within Scotland and the UK. In the third phase, from August until December, guidance remained in place for testing, the continued rolling out of booster vaccines and, from October, the use of vaccine certificates for entry to some events and venues.

During 2021, rules on international arrivals (set for the UK as a whole) placed a burden on the traveller to comply with the rules in place at the time. For those arriving in the UK from overseas, their origin country would be on either a “green”, “amber” or “red” lists which set out the required process to be followed. The required restrictions for arrivals depended on the list the origin country was on, which were based on coronavirus rates in those countries, and the passenger's vaccination status, among other considerations, and set out the requirements for pre- and post-travel testing and/or quarantine. From May 2021, arrivals from “green” list countries had quarantine-free travel to the UK, while restrictions for travellers from “amber” countries were dependant on their vaccination status. As of June 2021, most countries which UK nationals visited overseas were on “amber” or “red” lists, which was expected to significantly dent international tourism activity to and from the UK ( Office for National Statistics, 2021a ). From August onwards, countries were gradually moved towards green and amber lists, as case numbers fell, opening up the possibility for travel to and from the UK. From October, for instance, fully vaccinated travellers arriving from countries outside of the “red” list required proof of vaccination, and did not need to provide a negative test upon arrival. By October, the UK government replaced the “amber” and “red” lists with a “rest of the world” list ( UK Government, 2021 ), while from November, no country was on the “red” list, which was subsequently dropped in December 2021.

3. Economic modelling of impacts of COVID-19 and tourism

The literature on specific episodes of tourism crises is quite developed for specific events such as natural disasters – where tourists may avoid an impact area due to not wanting to hinder the recovery effort, for instance Rosselló, Becken, & Santana-Gallego (2020) – and for identifying “breaks” in tourism series linked to such events ( Cró & Martins, 2017 ). A variety of papers have examined the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic using computable general equilibrium models. Keogh-Brown, Jensen, Edmunds, and Smith (2020) look at the impact of COVID-19 on the UK in 2020 through health, virus mitigation and suppression scenarios. Each simulation introduces a disturbance affecting productive labour supply and factors of production employed in tourism and other “non-essential” activities. Walmsley, Rose, and Wei (2021) explore different mechanisms through which the COVID-19 pandemic could affect economic activity, including closure of businesses, and increased morbidity. They find that reductions in demand due to the inability to spend could offset policies which reduced the ability of businesses to trade and limited social interactions.

Other papers have sought to identifying channels through which sectorally-defined disturbances impact on the wider economy. Porsse, Souza, Carvalho, and Vale (2020) use a dynamic interregional computable general equilibrium model of Brazil to quantify the consequence of COVID-19 impacting through labour supply and the reduction in output of specific activities. They introduce output reductions of 50% in sectors where social distancing can be maintained and 100% in sectors where this is not possible, including transport and accommodation. In a similar vein, Wang, Meng, Siriwardana, and Pham (2022) look at the impacts on China of a combination of shocks related to COVID-19, including to labour supply, investment, and household consumption, as well reductions in inbound and domestic tourism demand. In their “non-control” scenario, they forecast the same reduction in domestic tourism demand and inbound tourism, with a smaller reduction in domestic tourism in a scenario where policies act to reassure tourism demand.

We find a smaller number of papers which isolate the pure direct impacts of changes in tourism from the COVID-19 pandemic and the policy response using computable general equilibrium models. The majority of these focus on a single country. For instance, of the peer-reviewed published papers, Deriu, Cassar, Pretaroli, and Socci (2021) focuses on Sardinia, Henseler et al. (2022) on Tanzania, Wang et al. (2022) on China, Malahayati, Toshihiko, and Lukytawati (2021) on Indonesia and Pham et al. (2021) on Australia.

An exception is the early work of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (2020) which takes a global approach and was also one of the first analyses in 2020. This paper assumes that COVID-19 directly impacts on two sectors - accommodation, food and services and recreation and other services - through simulations corresponding to output reductions of 80% for 5 months, 80% for 10 months and 100% for 12 months in “moderate”, “intermediate” and “dramatic” scenarios. In their scenarios, global gross domestic product in 2020 falls by between $1.2 trillion and $3.3 trillion, with countries where tourism provides a large share of gross domestic product most heavily affected in percentage terms, such as Jamaica, Thailand and Croatia, with the largest absolute impacts in the USA and China. However, this paper is limited in that the dataset used does not have information to identify inbound tourism spending, which in their dataset is aggregated with exports.

The recent single-country studies mentioned above focus predominantly on reduction in inbound tourism. For instance, Pham et al. (2021) , analyse the consequence of the projected reduction in inbound tourism demand in 2020 for Australia in a short-run framework where capital stocks are fixed, and nominal wages remain unchanged. Their estimate of the direct shock to tourism spending is calculated from a Tourism Satellite Account, which then becomes the disturbance modelled in the computable general equilibrium framework. Henseler et al. (2022) explore how various international channels of transmission, including a drop in inbound tourism, could affect the Tanzanian economy.

However, the response of inbound and domestic tourism could be different in the face of a disaster. As Hall (2010, p. 410) notes “there is a need for much greater attention on the effects of crises on domestic tourism, which on a global scale makes up the vast majority of tourism anyway, and the extent to which it may be able to compensate for the loss of international revenue.” This is particularly relevant as the domestic tourism may return more quickly than inbound tourism as countries ease their lockdown restrictions. Whilst it is perfectly sensible to focus on international channels for regions and countries that rely primarily on external arrivals such as in the case of Henseler et al. (2022) , for regions with potentially strong domestic demand for touristic activities especially in times where inbound travel is restricted, it is fundamental that domestic demand is considered as well ( Arbulú et al., 2021 ).

For this reason, in this paper we extend the previous studies such as Henseler et al. (2022) and Pham et al. (2021) to consider the system-wide impact of changes in domestic alongside inbound tourism spending. We are primarily concerned to see what additional impacts the loss of domestic demand brings. The critical issue in such models is then three-fold. First, how has COVID-19 impacted on tourism activity in Scotland in 2021, and are there differential impacts across inbound and domestic tourism categories? Second, how can such impacts be appropriately captured in a computable general equilibrium model of Scotland? Third, what are the wider impacts on the whole economy of COVID-related changes through the tourism industry? We set out our methodology to answering these questions in the next Section.

4. Methodology

4.1. computable general equilibrium model.

We model the system-wide impacts of COVID-19 disruptions to tourism in Scotland by using a computable general equilibrium model of the Scottish economy. The computable general equilibrium framework is ideal for the simulation of the economy-wide consequences of shocks which impact on a particular sector (or sectors) of an economy, but which could have wider impacts (see for instance, Meng & Siriwardana, 2017 ). There are three elements which make computable general equilibrium a particularly useful lens for tourism analysis. First, they have a multisectoral basis and encompass the whole economy, and so are ideal for looking at shocks which impact initially on specific sectors – such as tourist-facing activities - but where there is interest in the aggregate consequences. Second, they can reflect constraints in the supply of inputs in production which could limit the ability of an economy to adapt to a shock in the short term. Third, and relating to its value as a simulation tool, they can simulate ex ante the impacts of disturbances against a counterfactual scenario, typically that of “no change”. The consequences of specific shocks can be isolated from other disturbances which might be impacting an economy, so that the pure impact of a specific disturbance can be analysed. This use as a simulation tool can be valuable in the case of an economy being impacted by several disturbances at the same time, or in the case where unprecedented, rapid and multiple policy interventions are simultaneously taking place.

Our model is based on the AMOS framework which has previously been used in several applications, including tourism (see for instance Allan et al., 2017 ). Our model considers economic transactions of 30 industries, 5 where each industry produces output using a combination of intermediate inputs and non-produced factors of production, namely capital and labour, that minimizes costs. This is represented in a nested constant elasticity of substitution (CES) production function. Domestic and imported intermediate inputs used by industries are imperfect substitutes ( Armington, 1969 ). Each industries' output is sold either domestically - to Scottish households, non-residents (i.e., tourists) and government - or exported to the rest of the UK and rest of the World.

The model's configuration reflects the specific needs of our research question in at least three crucial aspects: the dataset, the labour market and the temporal dimension of the analysis.

4.1.1. Dataset

The model is calibrated on a 30-industry Social Accounting Matrix purposely built for this project ( Allan, Connolly, Figus, & McFarlane, 2021 ). The dataset is based on the most recent annual Scottish Input-Output table available at the time of the research (for the year 2017) which was aggregated to 30 sectors. Our aggregation retains details of different categories of tourism demand, and of those sectors supplying products to tourism consumption, at the highest level of detail possible. It identifies five tourist-facing industries, namely accommodation, food and beverages services, creative services, cultural services, and sports and recreation. On the demand side, final demand in Scotland of non-residents (inbound) from the rest of the UK and rest of the World is separately identified from exports in the Scottish Input-Output table. This is an advantage compared to other studies based on the Global Trade Analysis Project database - such as United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (2020) - because it allows us to model shocks to domestic and inbound tourists separately. This distinction is important not only because the magnitude of the shocks to each category will be different but also because of differences in the spending patterns by sector of these tourism categories.

4.1.2. Labour market

Similar to previous studies (for instance Pham et al., 2021 , and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development, 2020 ), we identify two labour markets: one for high-skilled and one for low-skilled workers, each with a pool of unemployed workers. To identify high- and low-skill workers we follow the methodology outlined in Ross (2017) to split the Scottish Input-Output accounts. This uses the UK Labour Force Survey 6 ( Office for National Statistics, 2021b ) to estimate the skill level for each industry based on the highest qualifications of employees. For simplicity, any employee with a qualification at UK National Framework of Qualifications level 3 7 or higher is classified as high-skill, whereas employees with qualifications below National Framework of Qualifications level 3 are classified as low-skill. There is labour mobility between industries for workers within the same skill level. Firms employ a combination of both high- and low-skill labour but the two are considered imperfect substitutes. The total labour force (high skill plus low skill plus unemployed workers) is fixed.

4.1.3. Temporal dimension

We use a set of short-run closures in our analysis, following Pham et al. (2021) . First, we assume that sectoral capital stocks are fixed as there is not enough time for capital stocks to accumulate or decumulate. However, investment responds to changes in the value of capital, and this will have an impact on capital stocks in the following years if the shock persists.

Second, we assume that nominal wages are fixed. This is because wages do not adjust rapidly enough to have a significant impact in the first year of the shock. Third, we assume that exports are initially price insensitive. Typically, a negative demand shock would put downward pressure on the demand for factors of production which would lower their price. In our model, this would in turn reduce the costs of producing goods in Scotland relative to the rest of the world. Whilst these competitiveness effects may take place, we believe that one year is too short a period for exports to respond as a result to changes in relative prices (in addition, the COVID-19 related fall in economic activity is not only hitting Scotland, so that prices could also be falling in other countries from the pure effects of the fall in demand). Fourth, we keep government expenditure fixed, and assume that governments do not adjust current spending instantaneously following a change (reduction) in their revenue. Scotland is a devolved UK nation with a complex fiscal system and tax/spending rebalancing mechanism (see Lisenkova, Greig, McGregor, Roy, and Swales (2021) for details). This allows us to separate out the impact of the reduction in tourism demand and their propagation through the economy from any government stimulus programme.

Later in the paper, we test the importance of these assumptions for our results by running the central case scenario with two alternative closures. First, we relax our assumption of a fixed nominal wage and let wages adjust according to a conventional wage curve specification, in which wages are inversely related to the unemployment rate. In our second alternative closure, we let export demand adjust to changes in relative prices.

4.2. Model inputs: the demand for tourism before and during the pandemic

To derive the economy-wide impacts of changes in domestic and inbound tourism demand during 2021 we follow two steps. First, we estimate a baseline of tourism spending in Scotland by different categories of tourist demand in Scotland in 2019. As the year immediately preceding the pandemic, this gives us the detail of the counterfactual tourism behaviour in the absence of COVID-19 in 2021. Second, we identify the changes in each category of tourism demand during 2021 by month, relative to the “no-pandemic” baseline, which provides us with the overall changes in spending by domestic and inbound tourists in Scotland.

4.2.1. Baseline counterfactual scenario

The baseline is constructed using publicly available information and consists of monthly spending in Scotland for five tourism categories: domestic day trips, domestic overnight, rest of UK day trips and rest of the UK overnight and (non-UK) international overnight. As set out in the Introduction, we use the term “domestic” to related to the first two categories, i.e., spending by Scottish residents, and “inbound” to refer to the final three categories.

To derive the baseline counterfactual tourism expenditure in 2019 for day trips, overnight trips and international spending we use information from the Great Britain Day Visitor survey, Great Britain Tourism Survey ( Visit Britain, 2020a , Visit Britain, 2020b ) and International Passenger Survey ( Office for National Statistics, 2020 ) (see Table 1 ). The Great Britain Day Visitor survey contains information on the geographic pattern of day trip spending across Scotland's 32 local authorities averaged over the period from 2017 to 2019. We aggregate these to estimate total day trip spending in 2019 in Scotland by Scottish and rest of the UK residents. For the domestic and rest of the UK baseline we use information from Table 1 and Visit Britain, 2020a , Visit Britain, 2020b . International tourism spending estimates come from the International Passenger Survey Office for National Statistics, 2021a , Office for National Statistics, 2021b .

To disaggregate tourism spending categories by month, we use information contained in the Great Britain Tourism Survey ( Visit Britain, 2020a ). This reports monthly spending for overnight tourism but not for day and international tourism. Thus, we assume that the spending patterns for overnight also apply to day trips and international. 8 Applying these adjustments, we can show our resulting pattern of spending by tourism category across the months of the year ( Fig. 1 ), from which we can see the important peaks of tourism spending in July and August, coinciding with the northern hemisphere summer.

Monthly breakdown of tourism spending in Scotland in 2019, £m.

Source: Author’s calculations based on VisitScotland (2021) and VisitBritain (2020a) .

4.2.2. Central scenario calculation

Our central scenario for 2021 is based on observed changes in travel and tourism behaviour during that year. Recall from Section 2.2 that public health restrictions in Scotland eased over the first half of 2021, from a national lockdown which lasted until April, and the subsequent return of movement permitted between local authorities with the return of some international travel from August onwards. In the absence of real-time monthly tourism spending data, we calculate monthly changes for tourism spending in 2021 relative to our pre-pandemic counterfactual by looking at three indexes, which we match to different categories of tourism spending: day trips, overnight and international. Here we set out how we calculated the changes in these indexes during 2021 relative to their pre-pandemic levels.

Changes in spending in Scotland by (Scottish and Rest of the UK) day trip tourists in 2021 are estimated using monthly fuel sales in Scotland data from the UK Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy ( Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, 2021 ) (see Fig. 2 ). 9 To isolate fuel used for day trip purposes, we calculate an “essential fuel use” baseline from the observed data during the lockdown period between January and March 2021. This is then subtracted from total fuel used over the rest of the year, under the assumption that the fuel used during the full lockdown represents the level of fuel consumption that persists in the absence of any other movements. 10

Scottish monthly fuel sales, litres, January 2018 to December 2021.

Source: Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (2021)

For changes in spending in Scotland by (Scottish and Rest of the UK) overnight tourists in 2021, we set the overnight spending between January and April to zero (i.e., a 100% reduction from 2019). From May onward, we use data from the monthly series on room occupancy in Scotland ( VisitScotland, 2021 ) (see Fig. 3 ). 11 We calculate the room occupancy ratio between comparable months in 2019 and 2021 to see changes in the level of hotel use during 2021 relative to the pre-pandemic levels by month. We adjust for the changes in pricing by multiplying the room occupancy rate by the average room rate, to get the change in spending relative to 2019.

Scottish monthly room occupancy rate for all accommodation services, March 2019 to December 2021.

Source: VisitScotland (2021) .

To calculate the change in spending in Scotland from international tourists in 2021, we use monthly data on international passenger numbers at Scottish airports (see Fig. 4 ). Similarly to the other two categories, we calculate an “essential travel” baseline from the data between January and April (the lockdown period) and subtract this from each monthly value for 2019 and 2021, before calculating the change in the monthly values between these two years from May 2021 onwards (when non-essential international travel could return). For instance, in August 2021 (adjusted) passenger numbers were 16% of their value in August of 2019 (an 84% reduction). Finally, we note that our use of passenger data as a proxy for spending assumes the reduction in international spending is proportional to the reduction in passenger numbers, in the absence of better information.

International terminal passengers at airports in Scotland by month, 2019 to 2021.

Source: UK Civil Aviation Authority (2022) .

Using each of these monthly series, the calculated reductions of tourism spending in Scotland by category and month in 2021 related to the pre-pandemic levels is presented in Table 2 .

Reduction in fuel sales, room occupancy and international travel by month during 2021 relative to adjusted pre pandemic baseline.

Source: Authors calculations.

4.3. Annual shocks and computable general equilibrium simulation strategy

We aggregate changes in spending at the monthly level by our five different tourism categories (as set out in Section 4.2.2 ) to a set of total demand shocks for 2021. A summary of the shocks is presented in Table 3 . We estimate that in total, Scotland saw a £6.3 billion (in 2017 prices), or 54.3%, reduction in all tourism spend in 2021 compared to the pre-pandemic baseline. This is introduced to the computable general equilibrium model through a direct shock to final demand, which subsequently captures how this shock propagates across the Scottish economy.

Summary of simulations input.

Source: Authors' calculation.

The total shock is distributed across sectors of the Scottish economy in proportion to the spending by each category ( Scottish Government, 2021b ). Spending patterns by sector (what each category of tourist purchases from Scottish industries) depend on the type of tourist category, for example day trip tourists will not spend money on accommodation. The simultaneous reduction in domestic and inbound tourism demand constitutes our central case scenario. To demonstrate the different impacts that reduction in domestic and inbound tourism demands have, and facilitate the interpretation of results, we present economy-wide results for the two shocks separately and together.

Domestic changes (both day trips and overnight) are introduced as a reduction in household consumption. This occurs as within the standard Scotland Input-Output table, tourism spending by Scottish residents is included in the household spending column. However, domestic demand is endogenously linked to income and is price responsive. Thus, we introduce a wedge between disposable income and final demand by calculating a price increase that would deliver the desired reduction in household demand. 12 The difference between disposable income and final demand is then considered as savings and these are exogenous in the model, as (following Lecca, McGregor, & Swales, 2013 ) we do not assume that savings equal to investment in the short run. Inbound tourists' income is exogenous to our single region model and so it is possible shock international tourism demand directly.

5.1. Central case scenario: aggregate impacts

Table 4 presents the results of reduced tourism demand on key macroeconomic indicators in our central case scenario. These are short-run results that represent the first year of the shock, which is assumed here to be 2021. It is important to recall that the total final demand shock is a combination of two different shocks, one to inbound tourism spending and one to domestic tourism spending. These shocks are aggregated in the “All” simulation in Table 3 , with the results presented in the final column of Table 4 .

The economic impact of tourism demand reduction in 2021 on key macroeconomic indicators, % changes from base unless otherwise specified.

Source: Authors' calculations. Note: absolute numbers for gross domestic product and employment changes are rounded to the nearest £100 million and 1000 respectively.

The fall in domestic and inbound tourism demand due to COVID-19 restrictions leads to an overall reduction in economic activity, indicated by a 1.76% fall in gross domestic product. Firms adjust their output to accommodate lower demand. The lower output leads to a reduction in the requirement for capital and labour. Whilst capital stocks are fixed in the short run, their value falls, causing a sharp reduction in investment. However, labour demand falls by 3.83% and the unemployment rates increase by 3.63 percentage points. 13 Unsurprisingly, there is a larger impact on low-skill employment (which falls by 5.10%) over their high-skill counterparts which reduces by only 2.78%, due to the nature of industries that are directly adversely affected by the shock employing a greater proportion of low-skill labour.

The loss of labour and of value of capital results in lower income within the economy. This affects households' disposable income, which falls by 1.50%. However, the overall reduction in demand puts downward pressure on domestic prices, resulting in a decrease in the Consumer Price Index by 1.49% which in turn leads to an increase in the real wage by 1.51%. Recall that in this scenario we are keeping the nominal wage fixed. This partly dampens the erosion in household nominal income. However, due to restrictions in activities liked to COVID-19, households' consumption falls by 4.36%, whilst households' net savings sharply increase (62.54%). Since the model assumes that exports are price irresponsive in the central case, the fall in prices – which would otherwise improve the competitiveness of Scottish products - has no impact on exports. Government expenditure is held fixed. However, government revenues (from taxes) fall by 2.62%.

The first and second columns of Table 4 present results from simulations where domestic and inbound tourism demands are shocked individually. The qualitative impact of results is comparatively similar to when these shocks are aggregated. However, it is interesting to notice that the reduction in inbound tourism has a larger overall impact. Moreover, the overall impacts (in the “All” simulation) are slightly larger than the summation of the two individual shocks, due to the ripple effect that one has on the other.

5.2. Central case scenario: sectoral results

The macroeconomic results can be decomposed at the sectoral level, to see what industries are expected to be more impacted by the fall in tourism demand. Fig. 5 reports the absolute change in employment expressed in full time equivalent jobs. The combined reduction in domestic and inbound tourism demand leads to a potential loss of 100,000 jobs ( Table 4 ). These are primarily concentrated in the food and beverage services and accommodation services sectors, which together account for approximately 56% of the aggregate employment loss. The decomposition of the shock between domestic and inbound demonstrates that the accommodation services sector is particularly impacted by the reduction in inbound tourism, as domestic tourism is mainly based on daytrips, while the food and beverage services sector is impacted roughly in similar ratios as other sectors. The wholesale and retail sector is the third most impacted sector while the other 27 sectors account for approximately 29% of the employment loss.

Absolute change in employment by industry, full time equivalent.

Source: Authors’ calculations.

Fig. 6 reports the change in value added by industries. Value added is defined as the contribution of labour and capital (factors of production) to the value of a product and is directly dependent on the total production in the economy. As demand falls, output decreases and so does sectoral value added. The resultant shock leads to a reduction in value added of about £2500 million, of which 48.3% is concentrated in the food and beverage services and accommodation sectors (approximately £1.2 billion). Wholesale and retail contributes an additional £378 million loss and these three industries together account for a total of 63% of the aggregate loss in value added across the Scottish economy. Land transport services, public admin and health and construction services account for a further 15% of the total loss.

Absolute change in value added by industry, £millions.

5.3. Impact of alternative model specifications

The results presented in 5.1 , 5.2 are sensitive to the modelling decisions made to reflect short-run economic impacts of the changes in tourism demand. However, given the level of complexity with which COVID-19 impacts the economy, it is difficult to understand whether a degree of price responsiveness is likely to take place in the aftermath of the shock or in subsequent years. For this reason, we relax the assumptions of 1) fixed nominal wage and 2) export price inflexibility, in a separate set of simulations and use these as sensitivity checks. Results are presented in Table 5 . We look at three alternative model specifications and compare to our central case scenario: the first (“Endogenous exports”) considers the case where exports react to changes in relative prices; the second (“Endogenous wage”) considers a situation where wages adjust according to a conventional wage curve; the third combines both endogenous wages and flexible exports. In all three specifications, we repeat the same shocks to both domestic and inbound tourism final demand used in the previous section (“All”) so that they are directly comparable and that all changes in results can be attributed to the different model specifications.

Sensitivity of results to changes in macroeconomic closures.

Source: Authors' calculations. Notes: 1. the first numerical column in this table corresponds to the third numerical column in Table 4 ; 2. absolute numbers for gross domestic product and employment changes are rounded to the nearest £100 million and 1000 respectively.

When exports are sensitive to change in relative prices (column 2), the demand for Scottish products from the rest of the world and the rest of the UK increases by 1.22% and 1.15% respectively due to the reduction in Scottish prices. This increase in exports helps to cushion the impact of the reduced tourism demand, thus the gross domestic product reduction is smaller than the “central case scenario” and gross domestic product falls by 1.50% rather than 1.76%.

When wages adjust according to the wage curve (column 3), nominal wages fall by 5.43%. With fixed capital stocks, cost minimising firms reduce their use of the non-fixed input (i.e., labour), thus unemployment increases, and wages fall. This has three consequences. First, household's nominal income is impacted by the lower wage. Thus, consumption falls by 5.55% as opposed to 4.36% in the central case scenario. Second, the cost of labour falls. This is reflected in an overall reduction in the prices of Scottish goods, which then positively affects other components of final demand, including capital formation. Investment falls by 4.96% compared to 6.84% in the central case scenario. Finally, Scottish firms and consumers partly substitute imports in place of Scottish products. Thus, gross domestic product reduces by 0.62%. The combination of both flexible wages and exports (column 4) further dampens the negative impact, as demand for exports increases by approximately 2.09%. In this case, gross domestic product only falls by 0.41%.

6. Discussion

The results demonstrate that COVID-19 related changes in tourism spending have serious economic consequences for a region like Scotland where tourism is an important sector. Whilst there is no certainty that these will be the actual impacts on the economy - given that a series of other forces that are operating simultaneously in the economy have not been considered - we are able to draw some lessons and recommendations for the future.

First, the reduction in inbound tourism demand has a larger impact than the reduction in domestic demand. This is for two reasons. First, in our modelling we expect inbound tourism demand (which includes spending by residents of the rest of the UK) to experience a slightly greater contraction in expenditure ( Table 3 ). Second, domestic tourism demand has a greater content of imported goods, thus the impact of its reduction partly spills over internationally (i.e., through reductions in spending on goods produced outside of Scotland), and it is not captured by our single region model.

This contradicts the view that the loss in inbound travel can be compensated fully by an increase in domestic tourism. The previous work of Bonham, Edmonds, and Mak (2006) suggests that domestic tourism trips can be substitutes for inbound trips. However, non-UK residents spending in Scotland in 2019 was over £2.5 billion ( Table 1 ), which is equivalent to almost 50% of spending on tourism activities by Scottish residents in Scotland. Domestic tourism spending would therefore require to increase substantially if it was to mitigate the lost inbound tourism expenditure. Further, we know that the spending patterns of Scottish and non-Scottish residents are very different, so that even if total spending was maintained, spending across sectors would be different and this would have positive and negative knock-on effects on different sectors. For instance, our results show that the accommodation services sector is much more reliant on inbound spending.

This result is not only consistent with Boto-García & Mayor (2022) and Duro et al. (2022) that find mixed support for the role of domestic tourism demand in creating regional resilience in regional tourism, but it provides a further explanation for their finding in the different demand composition of domestic and inbound tourists. In the case of Scotland for instance, we find that one pound spent by international tourists has a larger macroeconomic impact than one pound spent by domestic tourists because domestic spending has a higher import content. Thus, an understanding of the composition of demand by different categories of tourists is fundamental in determining their economic contribution.

As one of the first papers which has considered the economy-wide impact on COVID-19 on the impact separately on inbound and domestic tourism activity and spending, it is difficult to directly compare our results to others which have focused purely on inbound tourism. Indeed, this focus on both categories is fundamental to exploring the extent to which increased domestic tourism could mitigate the impacts of losses in inbound travel as we note above. In this sense, our framework offers a suggestion to studies of the impacts of pandemics on tourism beyond either regions or Scotland. The use of a computable general equilibrium framework which is explicitly built on a set of Input-Output tables means that structural characteristics of the tourism economy in the country under consideration, including its size and embeddedness into the rest of the economy, can be captured. These will be critical for the propagation of shocks from changes in demand to the whole economy impacts and will reflect country- or region-specific details of the nature of the tourism economy.

Second, these short-run results give a series of indications about the direction of potential future impacts. We focus on household savings, employment, government revenue and investment in our results discussed above. The increase in household savings indicates that (at the aggregate level, and ignoring any distributional concerns which could be significant) the economy has built some resilience that can be used in the future to replenish consumption and help economic recovery, provided that these funds are spent domestically. We may expect for instance that if international travel remains uncertain Scottish residents may decide to spend their holiday budgets in Scotland. However, if the spending is directed towards sectors that are not directly tourist-facing, the sectoral composition of spending will change and so will output.

Our model suggests a significant reduction in employment. Being now 2022, we know that this is likely going to be less substantial. This is for several reasons, including the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme (more commonly termed “furlough”) that has preserved a significant portion of labour income and protected workers from job losses during the COVID-19 pandemic. This UK-wide scheme has been an especially important element for tourism sectors. For instance, in June 2021, 22% of employment in the accommodation and food services sector was on furlough ( Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs, 2021 ). However, should these shocks become recurring and/or persistent we may see an actual reduction in employment that goes in the direction of our simulation. Nevertheless, by focusing on the pure consequences of changes in tourism demand during 2021 we can isolate the knock-on effects across the whole economy from the other factors which will have affected the Scottish economy, including the policy response including the Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme.

Our model calculates a loss in government revenue in all scenarios from reduced tax income. Whilst we do not expect the Government to adjust public expenditure in Scotland instantaneously, this could impact the level of public services or taxation in the medium and long-term depending on the speed of the recovery from COVID-19. Finally, the initial reduction in investment indicates that capital stocks may start to decumulate in the subsequent years. This would increase the value of these stocks and partially reduce any initial gain in competitiveness driven by the overall reduction in Scottish prices relatively to the world prices.

7. Conclusions

In this paper we have sought to examine how the disruption to tourism during the COVID-19 pandemic could be quantified in terms of lost tourism expenditure and the subsequent economy-wide consequences using a computable general equilibrium model. In addressing this, we have developed a detailed framework for spending by different tourism categories – domestic and inbound day and overnight tourists, respectively – disaggregated by month and location of spending to calculate the change in tourism expenditure in Scotland throughout the COVID-affected year of 2021. We have shown how the easing of public health restrictions over the course of the year are reflected in changes in proxies for tourism spending, and how these can be used to provide the inputs to demand-side simulations in a computable general equilibrium model.

In our calculations, the changes in restrictions and tourism behaviour during 2021 led to a reduction in tourism spending in Scotland of 54.3% (relative to pre-pandemic levels) which translates to a reduction in gross domestic product of 1.76% (or £2.4 billion in absolute terms, in 2017 prices), and puts at risk 100,000 jobs throughout the economy. The most important sectors for the employment fall are, perhaps unsurprisingly, food and beverages services and accommodation, however negative effects are felt on employment across all sectors of the economy. We show that in all cases where we vary the model specification that the economic impact is always negative.

Crucially, we show that for the case of Scotland, the reduction in inbound spending tends to have a greater economic impact than the reduction in domestic tourism spending due to the composition of non-domestic spending which consists of a higher proportion of Scottish goods. This indicates that whilst additional spending by Scottish families may help to offset the loss in inbound travel, it is unlikely to be sufficient to completely mitigate the effects of the fall in spending by non-residents.

This research provides further lines for enquiry. First, our results assume that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism industry is only felt through changes in tourism demand. We know that the major consequence of a health pandemic comes through changes in labour supply, so to the extent that we omit this route, we would underpredict the direct negative consequence on the tourism industry of the pandemic. Second, we do not currently consider any policy response mitigating the changes in tourism spending (see for instance, the proposals by the Scottish Tourism Recovery Taskforce (2020) ). To the extent that policy actions might have encouraged additional domestic tourism in place of Scottish residents taking holidays abroad, our results would overpredict the hit to tourism spending. Our analysis reinforces that changes in domestic and inbound spending by tourists should be watched closely as this will be critical for the medium and long term consequences of COVID on the global tourism industry.

Funding sources

This work was undertaken with funding from the ESRC through the “UKRI Ideas to Address COVID-19” call (Grant reference: ES/W001195/1).

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgements

The authors acknowledge comments and suggestions from participants at Fraser of Allander Institute modelling workshop (online, May 2021), European Regional Science Association conference (online, August 2021) and the International Association of Tourism Economics conference (Perpignan, June 2022) as well as input from Chris Greenwood and Raymond Macintyre (VisitScotland) and Kevin Brady (Scottish Government). Furthermore, the authors are grateful for the comments of four anonymous reviewers. For the purposes of open access, the authors have applied a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) licence to any Author Accepted Manuscript version arising from this submission.

Editor: Lorenzo Masiero

☆ Grant Allan, Kevin Connolly, Gioele Figus and Aditya Maurya are all based in the Fraser of Allander Institute and Department of Economics at the University of Strathclyde in Glasgow (Scotland). They all have research interests in applied regional analysis and multisectoral modelling, including Input Output and Computable General Equilibrium techniques, and in the application of these to policy-relevant issues, including tourism, energy, trade and fiscal policies.

1 The figures reported above related to Scottish Government's “preferred definition of tourism related industries” termed “Sustainable tourism” and differs slightly from the Office for National Statistics internationally comparable “Tourism Industries” measure. Both metrics identify specific industries as “tourism” based on the Standard Industrial Classification.

2 A much more detailed and regularly updated timeline of Coronavirus in Scotland is available online here: https://spice-spotlight.scot/2021/08/27/timeline-of-coronavirus-covid-19-in-scotland/

3 The evolution of travel and public health restrictions in Scotland, Wales and England can be found at the Coronavirus Government Policy Tracker ( Hale et al. (2021) . This section provides a brief overview of the key developments in public health measures during 2021.

4 The initial levels approach was set in October 2021 (Scottish Government, 2021, https://www.gov.scot/publications/covid-19-scotlands-strategic-framework/ ). This consisted of four levels, where 4 indicated a full lockdown and 0 a minimum level of restrictions and it was applied for specific local authorities based on the evolution of the spread of the virus.

5 We use the terms sectors and industries as synonyms.

6 We use data from 2017 to 2019 to increase the sample size for Scotland.

7 National Framework of Qualifications levels 3 and above correspond to qualifications achieved after the UK minimum mandatory education period (11 years).

8 This is done in absence of better information. However, should better data become available, we are able to update our estimates.

9 As the series is published in litres we do not need to adjust for inflation, however over a longer period we would expect that changes in the efficiency of the vehicle fleet would make it necessary to adjust this metric to take account of the distance equivalent of the fuel consumption. As we are comparing the relatively short period from 2019 to 2021 we assume an unchanged vehicle fleet, so that we can use the series on fuel sales as a proxy for movement.

10 Recall that during these months the Scottish Government issued a ‘Stay at home’ order, limiting all but essential travel.

11 Although this is a very good proxy for spending by overnight tourists, one limitation is that it is published with a lag of approximately four months.

12 This is conceptually equivalent to the “phantom tax” used by Walmsley et al. (2021) (and introduced by Dixon and Rimmer (2001) ).

13 Note that this implies that if foreign workers become unemployed they stay in the country. However, it may be the case that they decide to return to their home country thus leaving the Scottish labour force.

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What is Inbound and Outbound Tourism?

by Hammad Ur Rehman | Oct 25, 2021 | Travel Guide | 6 comments

Don’t you just love traveling around the world and exploring different places? Staying or visiting different countries or states for the sake of fun-filled holidays or work-related visits, are termed tourism. Tourism can be of two types, Inbound tourism or Outbound Tourism. Now the question arises that what is inbound and outbound tourism?

Well, the difference between the two is just a matter of perspective, that is, from where and how you see it. In simple words, if we look from the USA tourism perspective, the outbound tourism would be Robert going to Pakistan, while inbound tourism would be, Ali coming to the USA. Similarly, if we look from a Pakistani tourism perspective, the outbound tourism would be Ali going to the USA, and the inbound tourism would be, Robert coming to Pakistan.

Let’s move on and further elaborate on these two types of tourism.

What is Inbound tourism?

Inbound tourism is economically significant for a country. The tourist countries economically rely on the inbound visitors to drive their maintenance, growth, and development.

What exactly is inbound tourism? In easy words, you can call it incoming tourism. Let’s move further to see the definitions, meanings, significance, drawbacks, and examples of inbound tourism.

Definition of inbound tourism

When someone travels to a country, other than their own country, for tourism, this is called inbound tourism.

Inbound tourism is frequently influenced by certain factors like:

• Season or Weather
• Public holidays
• School’s summer or winter vacations

According to WTO (World Trade Organization) and UN (United States Nation), inbound tourism can be defined as follows:

“ The act of traveling to another country for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business, or other purposes .”

Importance of inbound tourism

Through foreign exchange, tourism may bring a lot of wealth into a country. This is especially advantageous in places where the local exchange rate is cheaper as compared to visitors’ native currency. Therefore, inbound tourism has high significance in many countries mainly because of the benefits it provides economically.

Mostly, countries target specific nations for advertising and promoting their inbound tourism. For instance, in today’s era, Chinese people tend to spend more on traveling every year as compared to any other nation, plus, the greatest outbound tourism markets are also produced by China. Therefore, Chinese inbound tourists are highly in demand by many tourist countries.

Drawbacks of inbound tourism

Depending entirely on income from the inbound tourism may cause problems. There are many places like Maldives, Goa, Fairy meadows, Greece, etc., whose economies rely on tourists from other countries.

The primary drawback of inbound tourism is that the place is at the hands of the transportation network. Many tourism industries have been ravaged as a result of airlines ceasing to operate a specific route. Cultural conflicts can also take place due to inbound tourism.

Some other disadvantages of inbound tourism include:

• Disposal, contamination, and emissions are all on the rise.
• Environmental and aquatic habitats are being physically harmed on a daily basis.
• Inappropriate buildings are being built next to historical places and monuments.
• Plenty of resources are being used up.
• Building infrastructure and utilization of land.

Inbound Tourism examples

Now that we have a basic understanding of inbound tourism, let’s look at some practical examples.

If a person from one country travels to another country for tourism, then it’s an inbound tourist. For example, Ali is having a summer break from his university and wants to go abroad. So, he decides to go for tourism to France and enjoys his summer break there. This is an example of inbound tourism because Ali is coming from Pakistan to France for his vacation, and it is a tourist activity for him.

Likewise, Robert is also having a summer break from his school and wants to visit another country. So, he decides to go for tourism to Pakistan and enjoys his summer break there. This is also an example of inbound tourism because Robert is coming from America to Pakistan for his vacation, and it’s a tourist activity for him.

Generally, some of the countries that are renowned for inbound tourism include Maldives, Goa, Greece, etc.

What is outbound tourism?

Leaving your homeland for the sake of gaining international tourism experience has wide importance for many countries.

Let’s jump into detail and find out what is outbound tourism, how do we define it, the importance of outbound tourism has it got any disadvantages, and a few examples of outbound tourism.

Definition of outbound tourism

When a tourist travels or visits outside his or her country for the sake of tourism, but not for more than a year. This type of tourism is called outbound tourism.

The WTO (World Trade Organization) and UN (United States Nation) define outbound tourism as follows, “The act of leaving your home country internationally for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business or other purposes.”

Throughout the years, the market for outbound tourism has grown significantly. However, different regions of the world have different growth rates of the tourism market, but the factors leading to progress are similar.

Importance of outbound tourism

Outbound tourism also has a positive impact on the economy of the county. It provides economic improvements in a variety of industries such as education, healthcare, business, and retail, etc.

For example, the more people travel to foreign nations, the more their demands for products and services increase. Thus, it is a source of economic growth and prosperity for many countries.

This direction of tourism helps in increasing employment opportunities, foreign currency earnings, and trade balance. Thus, it is a source of economic growth and prosperity for many countries.

Within a very short period, China has become the largest source of outbound tourists. The increasing number of Chinese outbound tourists opens the gate of opportunities for tour group operating companies, hotels, national government ad retailers.

Drawbacks of outbound tourism

Apart from the advantages, there are a few disadvantages of outbound tourism as well. These drawbacks include the following:

• Many outbound tourists spend a huge amount of money on international chains like KFC fast-food chains, which reduces the positive effects of tourism as the tourist is using money that has been taken out of his residence.
• ·Sometimes, a country relies far too much on its outbound tourism market. For example, some Caribbean island nations depend on money from tourists to fund their entire economy and government, but this is a risky move as the tourism market is highly inconsistent, and a small incident can lead to a large drop in tourism.

Outbound tourism examples

Let’s go through an example of outbound tourism from the USA point of view:

John is a US citizen and has a passport to the USA. He wants to go for tourism so he can explore the international culture and experience new things. So, he goes for a tour to Spain with his family and friends. This is an example of outbound tourism because John has applied for a tourist visa and is traveling outside his country, USA.

Another example of outbound tourism from Spain’s perspective:

Robert is a tourist from Spain who wants to go for tourism in the USA, but he has no American visa. So, he goes for a tour to the UK with his family and friends. This is an example of outbound tourism because Robert has applied for a tourist visa and is traveling outside his country, Spain.

What is domestic tourism?

Until here, we discussed international inbound and outbound tourism. However, tourism can also be domestic. Now you would want to ask what is domestic tourism ?

Well, it’s very simple. In domestic tourism, the tourist visits different regions, cities, or towns of the same country where he/she resides. In easy words, domestic tourism is vacations spent within the same country you live in.

Let me give you an example of domestic tourism, Sarah lives in California, USA, and for her vacations, she visits Pennsylvania, USA.

Domestic tourism is used by the government to eradicate poverty, economic development, production of employments, infrastructure upgrades, reduce the load from overcrowding. For instance, If the government of California promotes domestic tourism within its state, then more people would come to visit various places in California, which are less popular, and it would boost the economy of California by providing employment opportunities to the people.

Also Learn: Domestic vs International Travel

Final Thoughts

In general, tourism contributes significantly to international trade and the provision of job opportunities in many nations. I hope this article has provided you with a clear picture of what are the types of tourism and why are they significant. All types of tourism are important for the economic growth of any nation.

Check our article on: What is FIT And GIT in The Tourism

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What is Tourism and explain in brief factors that promote tourism?

Ans: Travelling outside from their usual environment/places for the purpose of Leisure, Business, Pilgrimage, Education, Treatment, etc. There are Outbound tourism, Inbound Tourism, Domestic Tourism which has explained in detail below.

This Industry is a dynamic and competitive industry, very important for the country’s economy.

India is growing rapidly.

It has been calculated by the World Travel and Tourism Council of World that Indian tourism generated ₹16.91 lakh crores (US$240 billion) or 9.2% of Indian GDP and created 43 Million Jobs in 2018 and expected to grow ₹32.05 lakh crores (US$450 billion) by 2028.

It enhances the economy of the countries and boosts in a range of many sectors of the countries.

Many Countries rely on Tourism.

Outbound Tourism

Outbound tourism is the act of traveling “out” of your home country for the purpose of tourism, it comprises the activities to travel out their country of residence and outside their usual environment for not more than 12 consecutive months for the purpose of Leisure, Business, Pilgrimage, Education, Treatment, etc. It involves the people going from India to other provinces, territories, or countries. For example, going to Hawaii for a holiday is considered outbound tourism. The three biggest factors contributing to the growth of outbound tourism are the advent of low cost, an increase in disposable income, and leisure time in globalization. There are tourists who visit places with the objective of studies and exploration. The need for research promotes tourism. Archeologists, Geologists, Oceanographers, Biologists and Zoologists, Architects, and People researching Arts and Cultures seek places that have great significance in the field of research.

The recent growth in outbound tourism industries in the world market is from China. It has an estimate in 2018 is approx $300 billion only in outbound tourism. Whilst, Chinese tourism travel all over the world. This means that the Chinese outbound tourism market is particularly welcoming in many destinations around the world.

Inbound Tourism

The tourists coming from other places are called inbound tourists. Tourism can bring in a lot of money to a country through the foreign exchange from a global market. It is for this reason that many countries will target their advertising towards certain nationalities and will try to attract tourists, mainly from the United States, China, Japan, Germany, and many other countries. To attract the tourist the government explores the cultures, Places, Monuments & Heritage, Food, Lifestyles, etc. The best example is people mostly travel to see the “Wonder of the World” or a place like Las Vegas due to the biggest Casino or to a place like Dubai to watch” Burj Khalifa”. The Industry also implements marketing campaigns, aimed to attract travelers from other parts of the country.

The problems occur when there are pandemic, terrorism, natural calamities, etc. this kind of uncertainties our intentional problem creates a major problem in economics.

India is said to be the largest market for travel and tourism. India is a diverse product like eco-tourism, film, rural and religious, spiritual tourism.

Domestic Tourism

It comprises the activities of residents, traveling within the countries. It is also a big business to bring the economy of the local area. India is one of the popular domestic tourism. It is surrounded by Sea, Hills, Sand dune, Jungles, Different cultures, religion, food, temples (the state with the highest domestic tourists was Tamil Nadu, with over 385 million tourist visits), monuments, and heritage, etc.

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The low-carbon city initiative and urban inbound tourism economy: a spatial difference-in-differences analysis

• Published: 05 April 2024

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• Jiafeng Gu   ORCID: orcid.org/0000-0002-5904-0897 1  

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Although tourism is often treated as one of the crucial industries for the construction of low-carbon cities (LCCs), there is no systematic evidence on whether there is a causal relationship. This research aims to explore and empirically test the causal link between LCC initiatives and inbound tourism of cities using a spatial difference-in-differences approach with balanced panel data of 59 Chinese major tourism cities from 2000 to 2017. The results show that urban tourism by foreign tourists exhibits significant spatial spillover effects. Compared to non-LCCs, the number of foreign tourists on LCCs increased by 4.7 percentage points and the average length of stay of foreign tourists increased by 3.6 percentage points. The direct impact of the LCC initiative on foreign tourists was significant, while the indirect impact was insignificant. The findings of the study not only deepen the research on sustainable tourism behavior of inbound tourists, but also provide valuable references for cities to participate in the competition in the international tourism market through low-carbon development.

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Gu, J. The low-carbon city initiative and urban inbound tourism economy: a spatial difference-in-differences analysis. Environ Dev Sustain (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10668-024-04815-y

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• 3-day holiday bolsters domestic tourism market
• The just-concluded Qingming Festival holiday proved to be a boon for the tourism industry in the country with both the number of travelers and tourism revenue soaring as people made the most of the short break.

Tourists throng the Maijishan Grottoes on Friday in Tianshui, Gansu province. Over the three-day Qingming Festival holiday, Tianshui received around 946,500 tourist visits, generating a revenue of 540 million yuan ($74.65 million). Zhang Zhimin / Xinhua

Figures from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on Saturday showed that domestic destinations witnessed about 119 million visits during the three-day holiday, which started on Thursday, the Tomb Sweeping Day, up 11.5 percent compared with 2019. There was only one day off for the occasion last year, and it resulted in 23.77 million domestic visits.

The travel boom during the holiday generated revenue of about 54 billion yuan ($7.47 billion), up 12.7 percent compared with 2019, the ministry said.

Reports and figures from travel agencies and local government departments also paint a positive picture. Travel portal Trip.com Group said that over the holiday, bookings for short-distance tours to destinations within cities customers live in grew 211 percent year-on-year, and bookings to neighboring destinations located outside the cities they live in skyrocketed 350 percent year-on-year.

The top attractions among users of the travel portal were places well known for flower blossoms at this time of the year. Ticket bookings for such attractions surged 391 percent year-on-year.

Luoyang, a city famous for peony flowers in Central China's Henan province, Nyingchi in the Xizang autonomous region with its peach blossom-covered mountains and Nanjing with plum blossoms in the eastern province of Jiangsu, were among the popular destinations for nature lovers during the holiday.

"People have shown a strong desire to travel this holiday, and the tourism market is in continuous recovery," said Qi Chunguang, vice-president of online travel agency Tuniu.

He said the platform saw hotel bookings grow 68 percent year-on-year, and the number of self-driving travelers using Tuniu's services increased 61 percent year-on-year. "The results meet our expectations," he added.

In addition to traditionally popular destinations such as Beijing and Shanghai, lesser-known places also saw huge tourist influx after local food and unique folk activities found viral online fame.

Quanzhou, a city in the southeastern province of Fujian, welcomed a huge number of travelers attracted by its traditional "head-pinned flowers". Qunar, an online travel agency, said that hotel bookings to Quanzhou grew 3.3-fold during the holiday.

"I was stunned by the online short videos of girls wearing well-arranged flowers on their heads. I told my boyfriend that I must try that and take pictures," said Yan Nan, a 27-year-old from Beijing, who traveled to Quanzhou on Wednesday, a day before the holiday began, and returned on Saturday.

Yan said she went to Xunpu village, considered the birthplace of "head-pinned flowers", on Thursday afternoon, and it was crowded. "I booked the service online, which cost 40 yuan. The auntie was very nice and patient, and did the flower arrangement in about half an hour. It was a good experience and I will visit the place again in the near future but avoid the peak travel periods," she said.

Xiao Peng, a researcher from Qunar, said that young people, who are the main drivers of tourism consumption, prefer diverse or unique traveling experiences. "An ancient street or a delicious cuisine may attract a large number of travelers to a place," he said.

The inbound and outbound tourism market also showed good performance over the holiday. According to the National Immigration Administration, the Chinese mainland saw about 5.19 million entries and exits, up 69.6 percent year-on-year.

Qi Chunguang, vice-president of Tuniu, said: "Thailand, Japan, the Maldives, Egypt and New Zealand were popular among our customers. Some tailored tour products to Southeast Asian destinations including Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand were also popular, especially among young people, age 25 to 35, as the three countries are visa-free for Chinese citizens."

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Friendly travel policies push inbound tourism surge

Visitors from around the world welcomed, visa-free entry helps boost sector.

Convenience key

To ensure the recovery continues, tourism officials will launch a series of targeted measures to remedy existing problems in the market.

On March 29, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said at a news conference it will make it easier for payments at various places such as tourist attractions, cultural and performance venues and star-rated hotels. Inbound tourism products and services will also be stepped up, along with overseas promotions, to better meet inbound travelers' needs.

Wu Kefeng, deputy head of the ministry's Department of Resource Development, said special emphasis was being placed on improving the convenience of payments at key tourist destinations.

This includes promoting the establishment of software and hardware facilities for accepting mobile payments, bank cards, and cash at all national 5A and 4A tourist attractions, national and provincial tourist resorts, and national-level tourist leisure districts, Wu said.

The ministry said it will cooperate with the relevant departments to promote the establishment of foreign-currency exchange service points at tourist resorts and national-level tourist leisure districts with a high number of inbound tourists. It will also encourage nearby bank branches to provide foreign-currency cash exchange services to meet the needs of inbound tourists.

All tourist attractions will retain staffed windows to offer ticket services for inbound travelers, while English-language online reservations will also be available.

"For reservations requiring real-name authentication, foreign passports, permanent residence identity cards, and travel permits for residents of Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan to the Chinese mainland will be included in the recognized identification documents," Wu said.

Key tourist attractions will also be encouraged to improve multilingual signage and guide facilities, and to continue improving their foreign-language services.

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Glossary of tourism terms

Tourism is a social, cultural and economic phenomenon which entails the movement of people to countries or places outside their usual environment for personal or business/professional purposes. These people are called visitors (which may be either tourists or excursionists; residents or non-residents) and tourism has to do with their activities, some of which involve tourism expenditure.

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

Activity/activities : In tourism statistics, the term activities represent the actions and behaviors of people in preparation for and during a trip in their capacity as consumers ( IRTS 2008, 1.2 ).

Activity (principal): The principal activity of a producer unit is the activity whose value added exceeds that of any other activity carried out within the same unit ( SNA 2008, 5.8 ).

Activity (productive): The (productive) activity carried out by a statistical unit is the type of production in which it engages. It has to be understood as a process, i.e. the combination of actions that result in a certain set of products. The classification of productive activities is determined by their principal output.

Administrative data : Administrative data is the set of units and data derived from an administrative source. This is a data holding information collected and maintained for the purpose of implementing one or more administrative regulations.

Adventure tourism : Adventure tourism is a type of tourism which usually takes place in destinations with specific geographic features and landscape and tends to be associated with a physical activity, cultural exchange, interaction and engagement with nature. This experience may involve some kind of real or perceived risk and may require significant physical and/or mental effort. Adventure tourism generally includes outdoor activities such as mountaineering, trekking, bungee jumping, rock climbing, rafting, canoeing, kayaking, canyoning, mountain biking, bush walking, scuba diving. Likewise, some indoor adventure tourism activities may also be practiced.

Aggregated data : The result of transforming unit level data into quantitative measures for a set of characteristics of a population.

Aggregation : A process that transforms microdata into aggregate-level information by using an aggregation function such as count, sum average, standard deviation, etc.

Analytical unit : Entity created by statisticians, by splitting or combining observation units with the help of estimations and imputations.

Balance of payments : The balance of payments is a statistical statement that summarizes transactions between residents and non-residents during a period. It consists of the goods and services account, the primary income account, the secondary income account, the capital account, and the financial account ( BPM6, 2.12 ).

Bias : An effect which deprives a statistical result of representativeness by systematically distorting it, as distinct from a random error which may distort on any one occasion but balances out on the average.

Business and professional purpose (of a tourism trip): The business and professional purpose of a tourism trip includes the activities of the self-employed and employees, as long as they do not correspond to an implicit or explicit employer-employee relationship with a resident producer in the country or place visited, those of investors, businessmen, etc. ( IRTS 2008, 3.17.2 ).

Business tourism : Business tourism is a type of tourism activity in which visitors travel for a specific professional and/or business purpose to a place outside their workplace and residence with the aim of attending a meeting, an activity or an event. The key components of business tourism are meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions. The term "meetings industry" within the context of business tourism recognizes the industrial nature of such activities. Business tourism can be combined with any other tourism type during the same trip.

Business visitor : A business visitor is a visitor whose main purpose for a tourism trip corresponds to the business and professional category of purpose ( IRTS 2008, 3.17.2 ).

Central Product Classification : The Central Product Classification (CPC) constitutes a complete product classification covering goods and services. It is intended to serve as an international standard for assembling and tabulating all kinds of data requiring product detail, including industrial production, national accounts, service industries, domestic and foreign commodity trade, international trade in services, balance of payments, consumption and price statistics. Other basic aims are to provide a framework for international comparison and promote harmonization of various types of statistics dealing with goods and services.

Census : A census is the complete enumeration of a population or groups at a point in time with respect to well defined characteristics: for example, Population, Production, Traffic on particular roads.

Coastal, maritime and inland water tourism : Coastal tourism refers to land-based tourism activities such as swimming, surfing, sunbathing and other coastal leisure, recreation and sports activities which take place on the shore of a sea, lake or river. Proximity to the coast is also a condition for services and facilities that support coastal tourism. Maritime tourism refers to sea-based activities such as cruising, yachting, boating and nautical sports and includes their respective land-based services and infrastructure. Inland water tourism refers to tourism activities such as cruising, yachting, boating and nautical sports which take place in aquatic- influenced environments located within land boundaries and include lakes, rivers, ponds, streams, groundwater, springs, cave waters and others traditionally grouped as inland wetlands.

Coherence : Adequacy of statistics to be combined in different ways and for various uses.

Competitiveness of a tourism destination : The competitiveness of a tourism destination is the ability of the destination to use its natural, cultural, human, man-made and capital resources efficiently to develop and deliver quality, innovative, ethical and attractive tourism products and services in order to achieve a sustainable growth within its overall vision and strategic goals, increase the added value of the tourism sector, improve and diversify its market components and optimize its attractiveness and benefits both for visitors and the local community in a sustainable perspective.

Consistency : Logical and numerical coherence.

Country of reference : The country of reference refers to the country for which the measurement is done. ( IRTS 2008, 2.15 ).

Country of residence : The country of residence of a household is determined according to the centre of predominant economic interest of its members. If a person resides (or intends to reside) for more than one year in a given country and has there his/her centre of economic interest (for example, where the predominant amount of time is spent), he/she is considered as a resident of this country.

Country-specific tourism characteristic products and activities : To be determined by each country by applying the criteria of IRTS 2008, 5.10 in their own context; for these products, the activities producing them will be considered as tourism characteristic, and the industries in which the principal activity is tourism-characteristic will be called tourism industries ( IRTS 2008, 5.16 ).

Cultural tourism : Cultural tourism is a type of tourism activity in which the visitor's essential motivation is to learn, discover, experience and consume the tangible and intangible cultural attractions/products in a tourism destination. These attractions/products relate to a set of distinctive material, intellectual, spiritual and emotional features of a society that encompasses arts and architecture, historical and cultural heritage, culinary heritage, literature, music, creative industries and the living cultures with their lifestyles, value systems, beliefs and traditions.

Data checking : Activity whereby the correctness conditions of the data are verified. It also includes the specification of the type of error or of the condition not met, and the qualification of the data and their division into "error-free data" and "erroneous data".

Data collection : Systematic process of gathering data for official statistics.

Data compilation : Operations performed on data to derive new information according to a given set of rules.

Data confrontation : The process of comparing data that has generally been derived from different surveys or other sources, especially those of different frequencies, in order to assess and possibly improve their coherency, and identify the reasons for any differences.

Data processing : Data processing is the operation performed on data by the organization, institute, agency, etc., responsible for undertaking the collection, tabulation, manipulation and preparation of data and metadata output.

Data reconciliation : The process of adjusting data derived from two different sources to remove, or at least reduce, the impact of differences identified.

Destination (main destination of a trip): The main destination of a tourism trip is defined as the place visited that is central to the decision to take the trip. See also purpose of a tourism trip ( IRTS 2008, 2.31 ).

Destination management / marketing organization (DMO) : A destination management/marketing organization (DMO) is the leading organizational entity which may encompass the various authorities, stakeholders and professionals and facilitates tourism sector partnerships towards a collective destination vision. The governance structures of DMOs vary from a single public authority to a public/ private partnership model with the key role of initiating, coordinating and managing certain activities such as implementation of tourism policies, strategic planning, product development, promotion and marketing and convention bureau activities. The functions of the DMOs may vary from national to regional and local levels depending on the current and potential needs as well as on the decentralization level of public administration. Not every tourism destination has a DMO.

Documentation: Processes and procedures for imputation,  weighting,  confidentiality  and suppression rules, outlier treatment and data capture should be fully documented by the  survey provider.  Such documentation should be made available to at least  the body financing the survey.

Domestic tourism : Domestic tourism comprises the activities of a resident visitor within the country of reference, either as part of a domestic tourism trip or part of an outbound tourism trip ( IRTS 2008, 2.39 ).

Domestic tourism consumption : Domestic tourism consumption is the tourism consumption of a resident visitor within the economy of reference ( TSA:RMF 2008, figure 2.1 ).

Domestic tourism expenditure : Domestic tourism expenditure is the tourism expenditure of a resident visitor within the economy of reference, (IRTS 2008, 4.15(a)).

Domestic tourism trip : A domestic tourism trip is one with a main destination within the country of residence of the visitor (IRTS 2008, 2.32).

Domestic visitor : As a visitor travels within his/her country of residence, he/she is a domestic visitor and his/her activities are part of domestic tourism.

Durable consumer goods : Durable consumer goods are goods that may be used repeatedly or continuously over a period of a year or more, assuming a normal or average rate of physical usage. When acquired by producers, these are considered to be capital goods used for production processes, as is the case of vehicles, computers, etc. When acquired by households, they are considered to be consumer durable goods ( TSA:RMF 2008, 2.39 ). This definition is identical to the definition of SNA 2008, 9.42 : A consumer durable is a goodthat may be used for purposes of consumption repeatedly or continuously over a period of a year or more.

Dwellings : Each household has a principal dwelling (sometimes also designated as main or primary home), usually defined with reference to time spent there, whose location defines the country of residence and place of usual residence of this household and of all its members. All other dwellings (owned or leased by the household) are considered secondary dwellings ( IRTS 2008, 2.26 ).

Ecotourism : Ecotourism is a type of nature-based tourism activity in which the visitor's essential motivation is to observe, learn, discover, experience and appreciate biological and cultural diversity with a responsible attitude to protect the integrity of the ecosystem and enhance the well-being of the local community. Ecotourism increases awareness towards the conservation of biodiversity, natural environment and cultural assets both among locals and the visitors and requires special management processes to minimize the negative impact on the ecosystem.

Economic analysis : Tourism generates directly and indirectly an increase in economic activity in the places visited (and beyond), mainly due to demand for goods and services thatneed to be produced and provided. In the economic analysis of tourism, one may distinguish between tourism's 'economic contribution' which refers to the direct effect of tourism and is measurable by means of the TSA, and tourism's 'economic impact' which is a much broader concept encapsulating the direct, indirect and induced effects of tourism and which must be estimated by applying models. Economic impact studies aim to quantify economic benefits, that is, the net increase in the wealth of residents resulting from tourism, measured in monetary terms, over and above the levels that would prevail in its absence.

Economic territory : The term "economic territory" is a geographical reference and points to the country for which the measurement is done (country of reference) ( IRTS 2008, 2.15 ).

Economically active population : The economically active population or labour force comprises all persons of either sex who furnish the supply of labour for the production of goods and services as defined by the system of national accounts during a specified time-reference period (ILO, Thirteenth ICLS, 6.18).

Economy (of reference): "Economy" (or "economy of reference") is an economic reference defined in the same way as in the balance of payments and in the system of national accounts: it refers to the economic agents that are resident in the country of reference ( IRTS 2008, 2.15 ).

Education tourism : Education tourism covers those types of tourism which have as a primary motivation the tourist's engagement and experience in learning, self-improvement, intellectual growth and skills development. Education Tourism represents a broad range of products and services related to academic studies, skill enhancement holidays, school trips, sports training, career development courses and language courses, among others.

Employees : Employees are all those workers who hold the type of job defined as "paid employment" (ILO, Fifteenth ICLS, pp. 20-22).

Employer-employee relationship : An employer-employee relationship exists when there is an agreement, which may be formal or informal, between an entity and an individual, normally entered into voluntarily by both parties, whereby the individual works for the entity in return for remuneration in cash or in kind ( BPM6, 11.11 ).

Employers : Employers are those workers who, working on their own account with one or more partners, hold the type of job defined as a "self-employment job" and, in this capacity, on a continuous basis (including the reference period) have engaged one or more persons to work for them in their business as "employee(s)" (ILO, Fifteenth ICLS, pp. 20-22).

Employment : Persons in employment are all persons above a specified age who, during a specified brief period, either one week or one day, were in paid employment or self-employment (OECD GST, p. 170).

Employment in tourism industries : Employment in tourism industries may be measured as a count of the persons employed in tourism industries in any of their jobs, as a count of the persons employed in tourism industries in their main job, or as a count of the jobs in tourism industries ( IRTS 2008, 7.9 ).

Enterprise : An enterprise is an institutional unit engaged in production of goods and/or services. It may be a corporation, a non-profit institution, or an unincorporated enterprise. Corporate enterprises and non-profit institutions are complete institutional units. An unincorporated enterprise, however, refers to an institutional unit —a household or government unit —only in its capacity as a producer of goods and services (OECD BD4, p. 232)

Establishment : An establishment is an enterprise, or part of an enterprise, that is situated in a single location and in which only a single productive activity is carried out or in which the principal productive activity accounts for most of the value added ( SNA 2008, 5.14 ).

Estimation : Estimation is concerned with inference about the numerical value of unknown population values from incomplete data such as a sample. If a single figure is calculated for each unknown parameter the process is called "point estimation". If an interval is calculated within which the parameter is likely, in some sense, to lie, the process is called "interval estimation".

Exports of goods and services : Exports of goods and services consist of sales, barter, or gifts or grants, of goods and services from residents to non-residents (OECD GST, p. 194)

Frame : A list, map or other specification of the units which define a population to be completely enumerated or sampled.

Forms of tourism : There are three basic forms of tourism: domestic tourism, inbound tourism, and outbound tourism. These can be combined in various ways to derive the following additional forms of tourism: internal tourism, national tourism and international tourism.

Gastronomy tourism :  Gastronomy tourism is a type of tourism activity which is characterized by the visitor's experience linked with food and related products and activities while travelling. Along with authentic, traditional, and/or innovative culinary experiences, Gastronomy Tourism may also involve other related activities such as visiting the local producers, participating in food festivals and attending cooking classes. Eno-tourism (wine tourism), as a sub-type of gastronomy tourism, refers to tourism whose purpose is visiting vineyards, wineries, tasting, consuming and/or purchasing wine, often at or near the source.

Goods : Goods are physical, produced objects for which a demand exists, over which ownership rights can be established and whose ownership can be transferred from one institutional unit to another by engaging in transactions on markets ( SNA 2008, p. 623 ).

Gross fixed capital formation : Gross fixed capital formation is defined as the value of institutional units' acquisitions less disposals of fixed assets. Fixed assets are produced assets (such as machinery, equipment, buildings or other structures) that are used repeatedly or continuously in production over several accounting periods (more than one year) ( SNA 2008, 1.52 ).

Gross margin : The gross margin of a provider of reservation services is the difference between the value at which the intermediated service is sold and the value accrued to the provider of reservation services for this intermediated service.

Gross value added : Gross value added is the value of output less the value of intermediate consumption ( TSA:RMF 2008, 3.32 ).

Gross value added of tourism industries : Gross value added of tourism industries (GVATI) is the total gross value added of all establishments belonging to tourism industries, regardless of whether all their output is provided to visitors and the degree of specialization of their production process ( TSA:RMF 2008, 4.86 ).

Grossing up : Activity aimed at transforming, based on statistical methodology, micro-data from samples into aggregate-level information representative of the target population.

Health tourism : Health tourism covers those types of tourism which have as a primary motivation, the contribution to physical, mental and/or spiritual health through medical and wellness-based activities which increase the capacity of individuals to satisfy their own needs and function better as individuals in their environment and society. Health tourism is the umbrella term for the subtypes wellness tourism and medical tourism.

Imputation : Procedure for entering a value for a specific data item where the response is missing or unusable.

Inbound tourism : Inbound tourism comprises the activities of a non-resident visitor within the country of reference on an inbound tourism trip ( IRTS 2008, 2.39 ).

Inbound tourism consumption : Inbound tourism consumption is the tourism consumption of a non-resident visitor within the economy of reference ( TSA:RMF 2008, figure 2.1 ).

Inbound tourism expenditure : Inbound tourism expenditure is the tourism expenditure of a non-resident visitor within the economy of reference ( IRTS 2008, 4.15(b) ).

Innovation in tourism : Innovation in tourism is the introduction of a new or improved component which intends to bring tangible and intangible benefits to tourism stakeholders and the local community, improve the value of the tourism experience and the core competencies of the tourism sector and hence enhance tourism competitiveness and /or sustainability. Innovation in tourism may cover potential areas, such as tourism destinations, tourism products, technology, processes, organizations and business models, skills, architecture, services, tools and/or practices for management, marketing, communication, operation, quality assurance and pricing.

Institutional sector : An aggregation of institutional units on the basis of the type of producer and depending on their principal activity and function, which are considered to be indicative of their economic behaviour.

Institutional unit : The elementary economic decision-making centre characterised by uniformity of behaviour and decision-making autonomy in the exercise of its principal function.

Intermediate consumption : Intermediate consumption consists of the value of the goods and services consumed as inputs by a process of production, excluding fixed assets whose consumption is recorded as consumption of fixed capital ( SNA 2008, 6.213 ).

Internal tourism : Internal tourism comprises domestic tourism and inbound tourism, that is to say, the activities of resident and non-resident visitors within the country of reference as part of domestic or international tourism trips ( IRTS 2008, 2.40(a) ).

Internal tourism consumption : Internal tourism consumption is the tourism consumption of both resident and non-resident visitors within the economy of reference. It is the sum of domestic tourism consumption and inbound tourism consumption ( TSA:RMF 2008, figure 2.1 ).

Internal tourism expenditure : Internal tourism expenditure comprises all tourism expenditure of visitors, both resident and non-resident, within the economy of reference. It is the sum of domestic tourism expenditure and inbound tourism expenditure. It includes acquisition of goods and services imported into the country of reference and sold to visitors. This indicator provides the most comprehensive measurement of tourism expenditure in the economy of reference ( IRTS 2008, 4.20(a) ).

International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities : The International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities (ISIC) consists of a coherent and consistent classification structure of economic activities based on a set of internationally agreed concepts, definitions, principles and classification rules. It provides a comprehensive framework within which economic data can be collected and reported in a format that is designed for purposes of economic analysis, decision-taking and policymaking. The classification structure represents a standard format to organize detailed information about the state of an economy according to economic principles and perceptions (ISIC, Rev.4, 1).

International tourism : International tourism comprises inbound tourism and outbound tourism, that is to say, the activities of resident visitors outside the country of reference, either as part of domestic or outbound tourism trips and the activities of non-resident visitors within the country of reference on inbound tourism trips ( IRTS 2008, 2.40(c) ).

International visitor : An international traveller qualifies as an international visitor with respect to the country of reference if: (a) he/she is on a tourism trip and (b) he/she is a non-resident travelling in the country of reference or a resident travelling outside of it ( IRTS 2008, 2.42 ).

Job : The agreement between an employee and the employer defines a job and each self-employed person has a job ( SNA 2008, 19.30 ).

Measurement error : Error in reading, calculating or recording numerical value.

Medical tourism : Medical tourism is a type of tourism activity which involves the use of evidence-based medical healing resources and services (both invasive and non-invasive). This may include diagnosis, treatment, cure, prevention and rehabilitation.

Meetings industry : To highlight purposes relevant to the meetings industry, if a trip's main purpose is business/professional, it can be further subdivided into "attending meetings, conferences or congresses, trade fairs and exhibitions" and "other business and professional purposes". The term meetings industry is preferred by the International Congress and Convention Association (ICCA), Meeting Professionals International (MPI) and Reed Travel over the acronym MICE (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences and Exhibitions) which does not recognize the industrial nature of such activities.

Metadata : Data that defines and describes other data and processes.

MICE : See meetings industry.

Microdata : Non-aggregated observations, or measurements of characteristics of individual units.

Mirror statistics : Mirror statistics are used to conduct bilateral comparisons of two basic measures of a trade flow and are a traditional tool for detecting the causes of asymmetries in statistics (OECD GST, p. 335).

Mountain tourism : Mountain tourism is a type of tourism activity which takes place in a defined and limited geographical space such as hills or mountains with distinctive characteristics and attributes that are inherent to a specific landscape, topography, climate, biodiversity (flora and fauna) and local community. It encompasses a broad range of outdoor leisure and sports activities.

National tourism : National tourism comprises domestic tourism and outbound tourism, that is to say, the activities of resident visitors within and outside the country of reference, either as part of domestic or outbound tourism trips ( IRTS 2008, 2.40(b) ).

National tourism consumption : National tourism consumption is the tourism consumption of resident visitors, within and outside the economy of reference. It is the sum of domestic tourism consumption and outbound tourism consumption ( TSA:RMF 2008, figure 2.1 ).

National tourism expenditure : National tourism expenditure comprises all tourism expenditure of resident visitors within and outside the economy of reference. It is the sum of domestic tourism expenditure and outbound tourism expenditure ( IRTS 2008, 4.20(b) ).

Nationality : The concept of "country of residence" of a traveller is different from that of his/her nationality or citizenship ( IRTS 2008, 2.19 ).

Non-monetary indicators : Data measured in physical or other non-monetary units should not be considered a secondary part of a satellite account. They are essential components, both for the information they provide directly and in order to analyse the monetary data adequately ( SNA 2008, 29.84 ).

Observation unit : entity on which information is received and statistics are compiled.

Outbound tourism : Outbound tourism comprises the activities of a resident visitor outside the country of reference, either as part of an outbound tourism trip or as part of a domestic tourism trip ( IRTS 2008, 2.39(c) ).

Outbound tourism consumption : Outbound tourism consumption is the tourism consumption of a resident visitor outside the economy of reference ( TSA:RMF 2008, figure 2.1 ).

Outbound tourism expenditure : Outbound tourism expenditure is the tourism expenditure of a resident visitor outside the economy of reference ( IRTS 2008, 4.15(c) ).

Output : Output is defined as the goods and services produced by an establishment, a) excluding the value of any goods and services used in an activity for which the establishment does not assume the risk of using the products in production, and b) excluding the value of goods and services consumed by the same establishment except for goods and services used for capital formation (fixed capital or changes in inventories) or own final consumption ( SNA 2008, 6.89 ).

Output (main): The main output of a (productive) activity should be determined by reference to the value added of the goods sold or services rendered (ISIC rev.4, 114).

Pilot survey : The aim of a pilot survey is to test the questionnaire (pertinence of the questions, understanding of questions by those being interviewed, duration of the interview) and to check various potential sources for sampling and non-sampling errors: for instance, the place in which the surveys are carried out and the method used, the identification of any omitted answers and the reason for the omission, problems of communicating in various languages, translation, the mechanics of data collection, the organization of field work, etc.

Place of usual residence : The place of usual residence is the geographical place where the enumerated person usually resides, and is defined by the location of his/her principal dwelling (Principles and recommendations for population and housing censuses of the United Nations, 2.20 to 2.24).

Probability sample : A sample selected by a method based on the theory of probability (random process), that is, by a method involving knowledge of the likelihood of any unit being selected.

Production account : The production account records the activity of producing goods and services as defined within the SNA. Its balancing item, gross value added, is defined as the value of output less the value of intermediate consumption and is a measure of the contribution to GDP made by an individual producer, industry or sector. Gross value added is the source from which the primary incomes of the SNA are generated and is therefore carried forward into the primary distribution of income account. Value added and GDP may also be measured net by deducting consumption of fixed capital, a figure representing the decline in value during the period of the fixed capital used in a production process ( SNA 2008, 1.17 ).

Production : Economic production may be defined as an activity carried out under the control and responsibility of an institutional unit that uses inputs of labour, capital, and goods and services to produce outputs of goods or services ( SNA 2008, 6.24. ).

Purpose of a tourism trip (main): The main purpose of a tourism trip is defined as the purpose in the absence of which the trip would not have taken place ( IRTS 2008, 3.10. ). Classification of tourism trips according to the main purpose refers to nine categories: this typology allows the identification of different subsets of visitors (business visitors, transit visitors, etc.) See also destination of a tourism trip ( IRTS 2008, 3.14 ).

Quality of a tourism destination : Quality of a tourism destination is the result of a process which implies the satisfaction of all tourism product and service needs, requirements and expectations of the consumer at an acceptable price, in conformity with mutually accepted contractual conditions and the implicit underlying factors such as safety and security, hygiene, accessibility, communication, infrastructure and public amenities and services. It also involves aspects of ethics, transparency and respect towards the human, natural and cultural environment. Quality, as one of the key drivers of tourism competitiveness, is also a professional tool for organizational, operational and perception purposes for tourism suppliers.

Questionnaire and Questionnaire design : Questionnaire is a group or sequence of questions designed to elicit information on a subject, or sequence of subjects, from a reporting unit or from another producer of official statistics. Questionnaire design is the design (text, order, and conditions for skipping) of the questions used to obtain the data needed for the survey.

Reference period : The period of time or point in time to which the measured observation is intended to refer.

Relevance : The degree to which statistics meet current and potential users' needs.

Reliability : Closeness of the initial estimated value to the subsequent estimated value.

Reporting unit : Unit that supplies the data for a given survey instance, like a questionnaire or interview. Reporting units may, or may not, be the same as the observation unit.

Residents/non-residents : The residents of a country are individuals whose centre of predominant economic interest is located in its economic territory. For a country, the non-residents are individuals whose centre of predominant economic interest is located outside its economic territory.

Response and non-response : Response and non-response to various elements of a survey entail potential errors.

Response error : Response errors may be defined as those arising from the interviewing process. Such errors may be due to a number of circumstances, such as inadequate concepts or questions; inadequate training; interviewer failures; respondent failures.

Rural tourism : Rural tourism is a type of tourism activity in which the visitor's experience is related to a wide range of products generally linked to nature-based activities, agriculture, rural lifestyle / culture, angling and sightseeing. Rural tourism activities take place in non-urban (rural) areas with the following characteristics:

• Low population density;
• Landscape and land-use dominated by agriculture and forestry; and
• Traditional social structure and lifestyle

Same-day visitor (or excursionist): A visitor (domestic, inbound or outbound) is classified as a tourist (or overnight visitor), if his/her trip includes an overnight stay, or as a same-day visitor (or excursionist) otherwise ( IRTS 2008, 2.13 ).

Sample : A subset of a frame where elements are selected based on a process with a known probability of selection.

Sample survey : A survey which is carried out using a sampling method.

Sampling error : That part of the difference between a population value and an estimate thereof, derived from a random sample, which is due to the fact that only a subset of the population is enumerated.

Satellite accounts : There are two types of satellite accounts, serving two different functions. The first type, sometimes called an internal satellite, takes the full set of accounting rules and conventions of the SNA but focuses on a particular aspect of interest by moving away from the standard classifications and hierarchies. Examples are tourism, coffee production and environmental protection expenditure. The second type, called an external satellite, may add non-economic data or vary some of the accounting conventions or both. It is a particularly suitable way to explore new areas in a research context. An example may be the role of volunteer labour in the economy ( SNA 2008, 29.85 ).

SDMX, Statistical Data and Metadata Exchange : Set of technical standards and content-oriented guidelines, together with an IT architecture and tools, to be used for the efficient exchange and sharing of statistical data and metadata (SDMX).

Seasonal adjustment : Seasonal adjustment is a statistical technique to remove the effects of seasonal calendar influences on a series. Seasonal effects usually reflect the influence of the seasons themselves, either directly or through production series related to them, or social conventions. Other types of calendar variation occur as a result of influences such as number of days in the calendar period, the accounting or recording practices adopted or the incidence of moving holidays.

Self-employment job : Self-employment jobs are those jobs where remuneration is directly dependent upon the profits (or the potential of profits) derived from the goods or services produced.

Self-employed with paid employees : Self-employed with paid employees are classified as employers.

Self-employed without employees : Self-employed without employees are classified as own-account workers.

Services : Services are the result of a production activity that changes the conditions of the consuming units, or facilitates the exchange of products or financial assets. They cannot be traded separately from their production. By the time their production is completed, they must have been provided to the consumers ( SNA 2008, 6.17 ).

Social transfers in kind : A special case of transfers in kind is that of social transfers in kind. These consist of goods and services provided by general government and non-profit institutions serving households (NPISHs) that are delivered to individual households. Health and education services are the prime examples. Rather than provide a specified amount of money to be used to purchase medical and educational services, the services are often provided in kind to make sure that the need for the services is met. (Sometimes the recipient purchases the service and is reimbursed by the insurance or assistance scheme. Such a transaction is still treated as being in kind because the recipient is merely acting as the agent of the insurance scheme) (SNA 2008, 3.83).

Sports tourism : Sports tourism is a type of tourism activity which refers to the travel experience of the tourist who either observes as a spectator or actively participates in a sporting event generally involving commercial and non-commercial activities of a competitive nature.

Standard classification : Classifications that follow prescribed rules and are generally recommended and accepted.

Statistical error : The unknown difference between the retained value and the true value.

Statistical indicator : A data element that represents statistical data for a specified time, place, and other characteristics, and is corrected for at least one dimension (usually size) to allow for meaningful comparisons.

Statistical metadata : Data about statistical data.

Statistical unit : Entity about which information is sought and about which statistics are compiled. Statistical units may be identifiable legal or physical entities or statistical constructs.

Survey : An investigation about the characteristics of a given population by means of collecting data from a sample of that population and estimating their characteristics through the systematic use of statistical methodology.

System of National Accounts : The System of National Accounts (SNA) is the internationally agreed standard set of recommendations on how to compile measures of economic activity in accordance with strict accounting conventions based on economic principles. The recommendations are expressed in terms of a set of concepts, definitions, classifications and accounting rules that comprise the internationally agreed standard for measuring indicators of economic performance. The accounting framework of the SNA allows economic data to be compiled and presented in a format that is designed for purposes of economic analysis, decision-taking and policymaking ( SNA 2008, 1.1 ).

Total tourism internal demand : Total tourism internal demand, is the sum of internal tourism consumption, tourism gross fixed capital formation and tourism collective consumption ( TSA:RMF 2008, 4.114 ). It does not include outbound tourism consumption.

Tourism : Tourism refers to the activity of visitors ( IRTS 2008, 2.9 ).

Tourism characteristic activities : Tourism characteristic activities are the activities that typically produce tourism characteristic products. As the industrial origin of a product (the ISIC industry that produces it) is not a criterion for the aggregation of products within a similar CPC category, there is no strict one-to-one relationship between products and the industries producing them as their principal outputs ( IRTS 2008, 5.11 ).

Tourism characteristic products : Tourism characteristic products are those that satisfy one or both of the following criteria: a) Tourism expenditure on the product should represent a significant share total tourism expenditure (share-of-expenditure/demand condition); b) Tourism expenditure on the product should represent a significant share of the supply of the product in the economy (share-of-supply condition). This criterion implies that the supply of a tourism characteristic product would cease to exist in meaningful quantity in the absence of visitors ( IRTS 2008, 5.10 ).

Tourism connected products : Their significance within tourism analysis for the economy of reference is recognized although their link to tourism is very limited worldwide. Consequently, lists of such products will be country-specific ( IRTS 2008, 5.12 ).

Tourism consumption : Tourism consumption has the same formal definition as tourism expenditure. Nevertheless, the concept of tourism consumption used in the Tourism Satellite Account goes beyond that of tourism expenditure. Besides the amount paid for the acquisition of consumption goods and services, as well as valuables for own use or to give away, for and during tourism trips, which corresponds to monetary transactions (the focus of tourism expenditure), it also includes services associated with vacation accommodation on own account, tourism social transfers in kind and other imputed consumption. These transactions need to be estimated using sources different from information collected directly from the visitors, such as reports on home exchanges, estimations of rents associated with vacation homes, calculations of financial intermediation services indirectly measured (FISIM), etc. ( TSA:RMF 2008, 2.25 ).

Tourism destination : A tourism destination is a physical space with or without administrative and/or analytical boundaries in which a visitor can spend an overnight. It is the cluster (co-location) of products and services, and of activities and experiences along the tourism value chain and a basic unit of analysis of tourism. A destination incorporates various stakeholders and can network to form larger destinations. It is also intangible with its image and identity which may influence its market competitiveness.

Tourism direct gross domestic product : Tourism direct gross domestic product (TDGDP) is the sum of the part of gross value added (at basic prices) generated by all industries in response to internal tourism consumption plus the amount of net taxes on products and imports included within the value of this expenditure at purchasers' prices ( TSA:RMF 2008, 4.96 ).

Tourism direct gross value added : Tourism direct gross value added (TDGVA) is the part of gross value added generated by tourism industries and other industries of the economy that directly serve visitors in response to internal tourism consumption ( TSA:RMF 2008, 4.88 ).

Tourism expenditure : Tourism expenditure refers to the amount paid for the acquisition of consumption goods and services, as well as valuables, for own use or to give away, for and during tourism trips. It includes expenditures by visitors themselves, as well as expenses that are paid for or reimbursed by others ( IRTS 2008, 4.2 ).

Tourism industries : The tourism industries comprise all establishments for which the principal activity is a tourism characteristic activity. Tourism industries (also referred to as tourism activities) are the activities that typically producetourism characteristic products. The term tourism industries is equivalent to tourism characteristic activities and the two terms are sometimes used synonymously in the IRTS 2008, 5.10, 5.11 and figure 5.1 .

Tourism product : A tourism product is a combination of tangible and intangible elements, such as natural, cultural and man-made resources, attractions, facilities, services and activities around a specific center of interest which represents the core of the destination marketing mix and creates an overall visitor experience including emotional aspects for the potential customers. A tourism product is priced and sold through distribution channels and it has a life-cycle.

Tourism ratio : For each variable of supply in the Tourism Satellite Account, the tourism ratiois the ratio between the total value of tourism share and total value of the corresponding variable in the Tourism Satellite Account expressed in percentage form ( TSA:RMF 2008, 4.56 ). (See also Tourism share).

Tourism Satellite Account : The Tourism Satellite Account is the second international standard on tourism statistics (Tourism Satellite Account: Recommended Methodological Framework 2008 –TSA:RMF 2008) that has been developed in order to present economic data relative to tourism within a framework of internal and external consistency with the rest of the statistical system through its link to the System of National Accounts. It is the basic reconciliation framework of tourism statistics. As a statistical tool for the economic accounting of tourism, the TSA can be seen as a set of 10 summary tables, each with their underlying data and representing a different aspect of the economic data relative to tourism: inbound, domestic tourism and outbound tourism expenditure, internal tourism expenditure, production accounts of tourism industries, the Gross Value Added (GVA) and Gross Domestic Product (GDP) attributable to tourism demand, employment, investment, government consumption, and non-monetary indicators.

Tourism Satellite Account aggregates : The compilation of the following aggregates, which represent a set of relevant indicators of the size of tourism in an economy is recommended ( TSA:RMF 2008, 4.81 ):

• Internal tourism expenditure;
• Internal tourism consumption;
• Gross value added of tourism industries (GVATI);
• Tourism direct gross value added (TDGVA);
• Tourism direct gross domestic product (TDGDP).

Tourism sector : The tourism sector, as contemplated in the TSA, is the cluster of production units in different industries that provide consumption goods and services demanded by visitors. Such industries are called tourism industries because visitor acquisition represents such a significant share of their supply that, in the absence of visitors, their production of these would cease to exist in meaningful quantity.

Tourism share : Tourism share is the share of the corresponding fraction of internal tourism consumption in each component of supply ( TSA:RMF 2008, 4.51 ). For each industry, the tourism share of output (in value), is the sum of the tourism share corresponding to each product component of its output ( TSA:RMF 2008, 4.55 ). (See also Tourism ratio ).

Tourism single-purpose consumer durable goods : Tourism single-purpose consumer durables is a specific category of consumer durable goods that include durable goods that are used exclusively, or almost exclusively, by individuals while on tourism trips ( TSA:RMF 2008 , 2.41 and Annex 5 ).

Tourism trip : Trips taken by visitors are tourism trips ( IRTS 2008, 2.29 ).

Tourist (or overnight visitor): A visitor (domestic, inbound or outbound) is classified as a tourist (or overnight visitor), if his/her trip includes an overnight stay, or as a same-day visitor (or excursionist) otherwise ( IRTS 2008, 2.13 ).

Tourism value chain : The tourism value chain is the sequence of primary and support activities which are strategically fundamental for the performance of the tourism sector. Linked processes such as policy making and integrated planning, product development and packaging, promotion and marketing, distribution and sales and destination operations and services are the key primary activities of the tourism value chain. Support activities involve transport and infrastructure, human resource development, technology and systems development and other complementary goods and services which may not be related to core tourism businesses but have a high impact on the value of tourism.

Travel / traveller : Travel refers to the activity of travellers. A traveller is someone who moves between different geographic locations, for any purpose and any duration ( IRTS 2008, 2.4 ). The visitor is a particular type of traveller and consequently tourism is a subset of travel.

Travel group : A travel group is made up of individuals or travel parties travelling together: examples are people travelling on the same package tour or youngsters attending a summer camp ( IRTS 2008, 3.5 ).

Travel item (in balance of payments): Travel is an item of the goods and services account of the balance of payments: travel credits cover goods and services for own use or to give away acquired from an economy by non-residents during visits to that economy. Travel debits cover goods and services for own use or to give away acquired from other economies by residents during visits to other economies ( BPM6, 10.86 ).

Travel party : A travel party is defined as visitors travelling together on a trip and whose expenditures are pooled ( IRTS 2008, 3.2 ).

Trip : A trip refers to the travel by a person from the time of departure from his/her usual residence until he/she returns: it thus refers to a round trip. Trips taken by visitors are tourism trips.

Urban/city tourism : Urban/city tourism is a type of tourism activity which takes place in an urban space with its inherent attributes characterized by non-agricultural based economy such as administration, manufacturing, trade and services and by being nodal points of transport. Urban/city destinations offer a broad and heterogeneous range of cultural, architectural, technological, social and natural experiences and products for leisure and business.

Usual environment: The usual environment of an individual, a key concept in tourism, is defined as the geographical area (though not necessarily a contiguous one) within which an individual conducts his/her regular life routines ( IRTS 2008, 2.21 ).

Usual residence : The place of usual residence is the geographical place where the enumerated person usually resides (Principles and recommendations for population and housing censuses of the United Nations, 2.16 to 2.18).

Vacation home : A vacation home (sometimes also designated as a holiday home) is a secondary dwelling that is visited by the members of the household mostly for purposes of recreation, vacation or any other form of leisure ( IRTS 2008, 2.27 ).

Valuables : Valuables are produced goods of considerable value that are not used primarily for purposes of production or consumption but are held as stores of value over time ( SNA 2008, 10.13 ).

Visit : A trip is made up of visits to different places.The term "tourism visit" refers to a stay in a place visited during a tourism trip ( IRTS 2008, 2.7 and 2.33 ).

Visitor : A visitor is a traveller taking a trip to a main destination outside his/her usual environment, for less than a year, for any main purpose (business, leisure or other personal purpose) other than to be employed by a resident entity in the country or place visited ( IRTS 2008, 2.9 ). A visitor (domestic, inbound or outbound) is classified as a tourist (or overnight visitor), if his/her trip includes an overnight stay, or as a same-day visitor (or excursionist) otherwise ( IRTS 2008, 2.13 ).

Wellness tourism : Wellness tourism is a type of tourism activity which aims to improve and balance all of the main domains of human life including physical, mental, emotional, occupational, intellectual and spiritual. The primary motivation for the wellness tourist is to engage in preventive, proactive, lifestyle-enhancing activities such as fitness, healthy eating, relaxation, pampering and healing treatments.

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₹ 3 cr for overseas campaign" data-reg = "Budget 2024: Tourism ministry allocates ₹ 3 cr for overseas campaign">Budget 2024: Tourism ministry allocates ₹3 cr for overseas campaign

‘Incredible’ no more. Last year too, the budget slashed overseas tourism promotion by a staggering amount

New Delhi: First, the good news. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in the interim budget on Thursday that the government would focus on developing new tourist destinations in India, boosting domestic tourism, and promoting spiritual tourism.

Now, the bad news. The tourism ministry has set aside a mere ₹ 3 crore for overseas promotion of India for its 'Incredible India' campaign. The long-running, award-winning campaign—under the sub-head of overseas promotion and publicity and market development assistance—was left by the wayside this year, as the ministry shrank its allocation by 97% from last year's ₹ 100 crore.

The trend for tourism promotion has been declining. Last year, the budget slashed overseas tourism promotion by a staggering amount. The ministry spent just ₹ 89 crore in 2021-22 from its allocated ₹ 524 crore. The amount spent in FY23 further fell to ₹ 15.89 crore, only to rise somewhat in FY24 to ₹ 100 crore.

On the other hand, the ministry—headed by Gangapuram Kishan Reddy—has lowered its budget estimate from last year’s ₹ 2,400 crore to ₹ 2,080.03 crore for FY25, even though that is still a 22% increase from the ₹ 1,692 crore it actually spent. More than two thirds of the FY25 allocation, or ₹ 1,750 crore, has been kept aside for its Swadesh Darshan scheme. This scheme, set up in 2014-15, provides financial assistance to state governments to develop tourism infrastructure.

It has also completely removed the subhead of the 'Champion Services Sector Scheme', which was set up in 2023, for which ₹ 196 crore had been put aside last year. This year, the tourism ministry's Prashad Darshan scheme has been allocated a similar amount as last year, at ₹ 240 crore.

Terming the ₹ 3 crore outlay “hard to believe", Dipak Deva, managing director, Travel Corporation India Ltd, said it was clear that the government will not promote India overseas. “That is as good as nil. The figure has never been this low in any past budget. I would be keen to understand how India will be promoted abroad and how we will take advantage of international travellers wanting to travel to this region," he said.

"In order to get people to come to our country, we have to market ourselves as an interesting tourism destination. If we don't, countries like Japan, Vietnam, Thailand and others will continue to gain. China has a huge reduction in inbound tourism, and this is an excellent opportunity for us. Inbound tourism generated 10 million tourists and $30 billion in earnings prior to covid. This number is yet to be breached," Deva added.

Similarly, the Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) president Rajiv Mehra told Mint that with foreign offices of India's overseas promotion being closed, many tour operators have removed India from their travel brochures altogether.

"With a mere ₹ 3 crore allotted for overseas promotion, the tourism industry should now forget that the government will spend any money abroad or operate any FAM (familiarization) tours to bring international travel agents in. The only commendable thing this year is that the government has allotted some money for giving loans to states to improve areas in and around monuments, which can drive some tourism," he said.

The finance minister said that the success of organising the G20 meetings in 60 places presented the diversity of India to a global audience. This economic strength has made the country an attractive destination for business and conference tourism. "Our middle class also now aspires to travel and explore. Tourism, including spiritual tourism, has tremendous opportunities for local entrepreneurship. To address the emerging fervour for domestic tourism, projects for port connectivity, tourism infrastructure, and amenities will be taken up on our islands, including Lakshadweep. This will help in generating employment also," she said.

One travel expert said it was good that the country was focused on domestic tourism and could consider Gati Shakti and Swadesh Darshan schemes to help augment the development of new destinations. "The emphasis on domestic tourism is good, including Lakshadweep. However, its whole beauty and strength is very fragile, and development must not compromise the ecology. On the international front, I still feel we need a lot of promotion and marketing, and to neglect it completely will not be in the long-term [interest]," added M.P. Bezbaruah, secretary general of the Hotel Association of India and former tourism secretary in the government.

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• About Henan
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• Daily Updates on COVID-19 in Henan

Friendly travel policies push inbound tourism surge

Maximilian Klaus Puechler from Germany crammed in as much sightseeing as he could during his short trip to Beijing in late March.

In one day, Puechler, in his 20s, visited the Juyongguan section of the Great Wall and the royal gardens at the Summer Palace as well as viewed the ancient architecture at the Temple of Heaven.

He was especially impressed by a culturally immersive experience at the temple, where he learned about traditional Chinese architectural oil painting, and tried techniques such as the gilding and decorative application of gold powder to the surface of a painting.

At the end of the tour, he was given a dragon-shaped hat by a staff member at the temple as a gift.

"As a tourist, I felt everyone's hospitality. People would come up to me and strike up a conversation, and that's really nice," Puechler said.

Talina Hotz from Switzerland took a special shine to the exhibitions at the Temple of Heaven. She said they helped her gain a better appreciation of the temple's history and structure as well as cultural aspects, such as the Hall of Prayer for a Good Harvest, a magnificent triple-gabled circular building.

"I'm really interested in Chinese cultural heritage, and I really enjoyed it," she said. Hotz said she was also impressed that so many people on her tour had enjoyed the experience.

The two Europeans are among a growing number of international travelers who have benefited from China's recent visa-free entry policy.

Opening doors

Since March 14, China has granted visafree entry on a trial basis to visitors from Switzerland, Ireland, Hungary, Austria, Belgium, and Luxembourg.

According to the Foreign Ministry, from March 14 to Nov 30, passport holders from the six countries can enter China without a visa for up to 15 days for business, tourism, family visit, and transit purposes.

In November, visa-free policies were implemented for travelers holding passports from France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain and Malaysia.

More than 1,200 tourists, mostly from Germany, Switzerland and Austria, were on board the MS Artania cruise ship, when it docked in Shanghai from March 19 to March 21.

They qualified for unrestricted entry to the country under the visa-free policy, said Hu Jiying from the Beijing-based CYTS Tours, which was in charge of arranging the tour.

The previous 15-day visa-free policy for cruise ship passengers entering Shanghai port would have restricted their stay to the Jiangsu-Zhejiang-Shanghai area, Hu said.

The new visa-free policy allows them to book tours to other destinations in the country such as Beijing. "Despite the tight schedule, passengers enthusiastically signed up for a trip to Beijing," Hu said.

In addition to the 350 guests who took tours in Beijing, other passengers also booked excursions in Shanghai and surrounding areas, she added.

Numbers on the rise

As China's visa-free "circle of friends" has expanded, foreign tourists have shown increasing willingness to visit the country.

On March 10, more than 2,000 travelers from 47 countries and regions arrived in Dalian, Liaoning province, onboard the Zuiderdam cruise ship, operated by the Holland America Line, and took in the city's numerous attractions, ranging from its beautiful parks and beaches to its theaters and museums.

In January and February, nearly 2.95 million entries and exits of foreign nationals were recorded by the National Immigration Administration, according to statistics cited by the Ministry of Culture and Tourism.

During the Spring Festival holiday, the effects of China's visa-free policy became apparent, with a significant increase in visitors from countries newly added to the visa-free list, including France, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Spain, Malaysia and Singapore.

The total volume of inbound tours booked on some online travel agency platforms was double that for the same period in 2019, the tourism ministry said.

Since the beginning of this year, inbound tourism orders have increased more than threefold compared with the same period last year, and 50 percent with 2019, said Qin Jing, vice-president of major online travel agency Trip.com Group based in Shanghai.

Inbound hotel bookings have increased more than threefold year-on-year, with a growth rate of over 70 percent compared with 2019. Inbound flight bookings have also seen a more than threefold increase year-on-year, representing a growth rate of over 60 percent compared with 2019, Qin said.

Yu Tong, product manager with CYTS Tours, said recently she has been receiving inbound travel groups in Beijing almost every day. The Palace Museum, the Great Wall, the Temple of Heaven, and the Ming Tombs Reservoir are the most popular destinations for inbound tourists, she said.

"Some of them have also opted for immersive cultural tours, like hiking the Jinshanling and Simatai sections of the Great Wall or exploring deep into hutongs," Yu said.

German beer index

Restaurants that cater to overseas travel groups have been in contact with her, hoping to resume business cooperation. Yu cites this as clear evidence inbound tourism is recovering.

Eateries that have long-term agreements with travel agencies will tailor their menus according to the preferences of tourists from different countries, she said.

"For example, German tourists love beer, so the restaurant will provide two bottles of beer for them," Yu said.

Tourism operators have also launched a range of financial services to make the stay of inbound travelers more convenient.

A number of high-end hotels and restaurants in the capital not only accept international credit card payments, but also provide foreign-currency exchange services as many overseas guests prefer to pay in cash.

"Due to the complexity of the process, we have specifically conducted training on manual foreign-currency exchanges," said Zhong Yong, deputy general manager of China World Summit Wing, a Shangri-La hotel in Beijing.

Guests can also use their bank cards to withdraw cash at the self-service foreign-currency exchange machines in the lobby, Zhong added.

However, a rising number of inbound guests want to use local electronic payment services while visiting China. Zhong's hotel guides them on how to link their international credit cards to Alipay and WeChat Pay and how to make payments through them.

Some hotels offer simpler ways for foreign visitors to get cash and also experience Beijing at a more local level. At Huajiantang hotel, tucked away in a Beijing hutong, a guide is available to take guests to nearby banks.

The hotel also provides a map highlighting public transportation as well as call services for emergencies, said Zhu Hailong, the hotel's general manager.

For guests who don't want to go far, Huajiantang gives recommendations on neighborhood sights, shops and restaurants. It also offers guests handicraft classes such as making dolls of Tu'er Ye (the Lord Rabbit).

At Hotel Jen Beijing, inbound travelers are given advice on how to use mobile phones to hail taxis, how to book and purchase tickets for popular attractions, and how to purchase domestic flights and train tickets, and select seats. The goal is to make their trips smoother, said Zhang Lize, a deputy manager at the Hotel Jen.

Convenience key

To ensure the recovery continues, tourism officials will launch a series of targeted measures to remedy existing problems in the market.

On March 29, the Ministry of Culture and Tourism said at a news conference it will make it easier for payments at various places such as tourist attractions, cultural and performance venues and star-rated hotels. Inbound tourism products and services will also be stepped up, along with overseas promotions, to better meet inbound travelers' needs.

Wu Kefeng, deputy head of the ministry's Department of Resource Development, said special emphasis was being placed on improving the convenience of payments at key tourist destinations.

This includes promoting the establishment of software and hardware facilities for accepting mobile payments, bank cards, and cash at all national 5A and 4A tourist attractions, national and provincial tourist resorts, and national-level tourist leisure districts, Wu said.

The ministry said it will cooperate with the relevant departments to promote the establishment of foreign-currency exchange service points at tourist resorts and national-level tourist leisure districts with a high number of inbound tourists. It will also encourage nearby bank branches to provide foreign-currency cash exchange services to meet the needs of inbound tourists.

All tourist attractions will retain staffed windows to offer ticket services for inbound travelers, while English-language online reservations will also be available.

"For reservations requiring real-name authentication, foreign passports, permanent residence identity cards, and travel permits for residents of Hong Kong, Macao, and Taiwan to the Chinese mainland will be included in the recognized identification documents," Wu said.

Key tourist attractions will also be encouraged to improve multilingual signage and guide facilities, and to continue improving their foreign-language services.

More to come

Edouard Rebilly from Belgium could not take advantage of the visa-free policy before he came to China in late March.

"I had to go to a center in London, and it was quite a long wait, which was a bit annoying," Rebilly said.

The Belgian, in his 20s, came to China to visit friends he met in 2019 during a six-month college exchange program in Hong Kong. On the latest trip he took tours to Guangzhou, Guangdong province, Xi'an, Shaanxi province, and Beijing and Shanghai over about two weeks.

Rebilly said he was drawn to the distinctive culture and food in those cities. "I think every city is very different, and it's very safe to travel here," he said.

As the beneficial travel policies have been unrolled, Rebilly says he's likely to visit again soon. "I will probably check out Zhangjiajie where they filmed the Avatar movie," he said, referring to the spectacular national forest in Hunan province.

Dou Junjie, who for two decades has arranged cycling tours to Beijing's historical and cultural areas such as the Central Axis and hutongs, believes the effects of the positive measures will be fully seen in autumn.

"The guests from abroad we have received have usually made their travel plans at least six to ten months in advance," said Dou, who has received a stream of orders for cycling tours since February.

"If past experience is any reference, September to early November is the peak season. That means if we can align the influence of the policies with the traditional cycle we can expect a very promising scenario," Dou said.

Text: A A A Print Economy

3-day holiday bolsters domestic tourism market.

Travel: Young people help drive tourism consumption

The just-concluded Qingming Festival holiday proved to be a boon for the tourism industry in the country with both the number of travelers and tourism revenue soaring as people made the most of the short break.

Figures from the Ministry of Culture and Tourism on Saturday showed that domestic destinations witnessed about 119 million visits during the three-day holiday, which started on Thursday, the Tomb Sweeping Day, up 11.5 percent compared with 2019. There was only one day off for the occasion last year, and it resulted in 23.77 million domestic visits.

The travel boom during the holiday generated revenue of about 54 billion yuan ($7.47 billion), up 12.7 percent compared with 2019, the ministry said.

Reports and figures from travel agencies and local government departments also paint a positive picture. Travel portal Trip.com Group said that over the holiday, bookings for short-distance tours to destinations within cities customers live in grew 211 percent year-on-year, and bookings to neighboring destinations located outside the cities they live in skyrocketed 350 percent year-on-year.

The top attractions among users of the travel portal were places well known for flower blossoms at this time of the year. Ticket bookings for such attractions surged 391 percent year-on-year.

Luoyang, a city famous for peony flowers in Central China's Henan province, Nyingchi in the Xizang autonomous region with its peach blossom-covered mountains and Nanjing with plum blossoms in the eastern province of Jiangsu, were among the popular destinations for nature lovers during the holiday.

"People have shown a strong desire to travel this holiday, and the tourism market is in continuous recovery," said Qi Chunguang, vice-president of online travel agency Tuniu.

He said the platform saw hotel bookings grow 68 percent year-on-year, and the number of self-driving travelers using Tuniu's services increased 61 percent year-on-year. "The results meet our expectations," he added.

In addition to traditionally popular destinations such as Beijing and Shanghai, lesser-known places also saw huge tourist influx after local food and unique folk activities found viral online fame.

Quanzhou, a city in the southeastern province of Fujian, welcomed a huge number of travelers attracted by its traditional "head-pinned flowers". Qunar, an online travel agency, said that hotel bookings to Quanzhou grew 3.3-fold during the holiday.

"I was stunned by the online short videos of girls wearing well-arranged flowers on their heads. I told my boyfriend that I must try that and take pictures," said Yan Nan, a 27-year-old from Beijing, who traveled to Quanzhou on Wednesday, a day before the holiday began, and returned on Saturday.

Yan said she went to Xunpu village, considered the birthplace of "head-pinned flowers", on Thursday afternoon, and it was crowded. "I booked the service online, which cost 40 yuan. The auntie was very nice and patient, and did the flower arrangement in about half an hour. It was a good experience and I will visit the place again in the near future but avoid the peak travel periods," she said.

Xiao Peng, a researcher from Qunar, said that young people, who are the main drivers of tourism consumption, prefer diverse or unique traveling experiences. "An ancient street or a delicious cuisine may attract a large number of travelers to a place," he said.

The inbound and outbound tourism market also showed good performance over the holiday. According to the National Immigration Administration, the Chinese mainland saw about 5.19 million entries and exits, up 69.6 percent year-on-year.

Qi Chunguang, vice-president of Tuniu, said: "Thailand, Japan, the Maldives, Egypt and New Zealand were popular among our customers. Some tailored tour products to Southeast Asian destinations including Singapore, Malaysia and Thailand were also popular, especially among young people, age 25 to 35, as the three countries are visa-free for Chinese citizens."

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Budget 2024: Tourism ministry allocates ₹3 cr for overseas campaign

N ew Delhi: First, the good news. Finance minister Nirmala Sitharaman announced in the interim budget on Thursday that the government would focus on developing new tourist destinations in India, boosting domestic tourism, and promoting spiritual tourism.

Now, the bad news. The tourism ministry has set aside a mere ₹ 3 crore for overseas promotion of India for its 'Incredible India' campaign. The long-running, award-winning campaign—under the sub-head of overseas promotion and publicity and market development assistance—was left by the wayside this year, as the ministry shrank its allocation by 97% from last year's ₹ 100 crore.

The trend for tourism promotion has been declining. Last year, the budget slashed overseas tourism promotion by a staggering amount. The ministry spent just ₹ 89 crore in 2021-22 from its allocated ₹ 524 crore. The amount spent in FY23 further fell to ₹ 15.89 crore, only to rise somewhat in FY24 to ₹ 100 crore.

On the other hand, the ministry—headed by Gangapuram Kishan Reddy—has lowered its budget estimate from last year’s ₹ 2,400 crore to ₹ 2,080.03 crore for FY25, even though that is still a 22% increase from the ₹ 1,692 crore it actually spent. More than two thirds of the FY25 allocation, or ₹ 1,750 crore, has been kept aside for its Swadesh Darshan scheme. This scheme, set up in 2014-15, provides financial assistance to state governments to develop tourism infrastructure.

It has also completely removed the subhead of the 'Champion Services Sector Scheme', which was set up in 2023, for which ₹ 196 crore had been put aside last year. This year, the tourism ministry's Prashad Darshan scheme has been allocated a similar amount as last year, at ₹ 240 crore.

Terming the ₹ 3 crore outlay “hard to believe”, Dipak Deva, managing director, Travel Corporation India Ltd, said it was clear that the government will not promote India overseas. “That is as good as nil. The figure has never been this low in any past budget. I would be keen to understand how India will be promoted abroad and how we will take advantage of international travellers wanting to travel to this region,” he said.

"In order to get people to come to our country, we have to market ourselves as an interesting tourism destination. If we don't, countries like Japan, Vietnam, Thailand and others will continue to gain. China has a huge reduction in inbound tourism, and this is an excellent opportunity for us. Inbound tourism generated 10 million tourists and $30 billion in earnings prior to covid. This number is yet to be breached,” Deva added.

Similarly, the Indian Association of Tour Operators (IATO) president Rajiv Mehra told Mint that with foreign offices of India's overseas promotion being closed, many tour operators have removed India from their travel brochures altogether.

"With a mere ₹ 3 crore allotted for overseas promotion, the tourism industry should now forget that the government will spend any money abroad or operate any FAM (familiarization) tours to bring international travel agents in. The only commendable thing this year is that the government has allotted some money for giving loans to states to improve areas in and around monuments, which can drive some tourism," he said.

The finance minister said that the success of organising the G20 meetings in 60 places presented the diversity of India to a global audience. This economic strength has made the country an attractive destination for business and conference tourism. "Our middle class also now aspires to travel and explore. Tourism, including spiritual tourism, has tremendous opportunities for local entrepreneurship. To address the emerging fervour for domestic tourism, projects for port connectivity, tourism infrastructure, and amenities will be taken up on our islands, including Lakshadweep. This will help in generating employment also," she said.

One travel expert said it was good that the country was focused on domestic tourism and could consider Gati Shakti and Swadesh Darshan schemes to help augment the development of new destinations. "The emphasis on domestic tourism is good, including Lakshadweep. However, its whole beauty and strength is very fragile, and development must not compromise the ecology. On the international front, I still feel we need a lot of promotion and marketing, and to neglect it completely will not be in the long-term [interest]," added M.P. Bezbaruah, secretary general of the Hotel Association of India and former tourism secretary in the government.