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CSO – Paul Crowley, Mairead Griffin, Patsy King
NITB – Pamela Wilson
NISRA – Patricia Mc Dowell, Paddy O Kane, Sarah Mc Auley, Joanne Henderson, Kevin Sweeney, James Gillan
DETI – Paul Rutherford, Lorraine Fleming
Failte Ireland – Bernie Morris
Tourism Ireland – Peter Nash, Aisling O Sullivan, Olivia Mulhern
ITIC – Eamonn Mc keon
DTTAS – Ray O Leary
| Item | Name | Time |
| Welcome and Agenda | Paul Crowley (CSO) | 10.30 |
| Introductory Comments | Paul Crowley (CSO) | 10.35 |
| CSO update |
Mairead Griffin (CSO) |
10.40 |
| Patsy King (CSO) | ||
|
Update on Tourist Statistics Branch |
Patricia Mc Dowell (NISRA) | 10.50 |
| Coffee | 11.05 | |
| Update NIPS Methodology | Kevin Sweeney (NISRA) | 11.20 |
| Review methodology of Tourism Statistics | James Gillan (NISRA) | 11.35 |
| Electronic Data Capture |
P J Crowley (CSO) |
12.00 |
| Mairead Griffin | ||
| Patricia McDowell | ||
| Peter Nash | ||
| Regional Statistics | Patricia McDowell | 12.20 |
| User Issues | All | 12.30 |
| AOB | 12.40 | |
| Next Meeting |
All Island Tourism Statistics Group
13 June 2013
10:30 a.m. – 1:00 p.m.
Central Statistics Office
Ardee Road
Rathmines
Dublin 6
Chairperson : Paul J Crowley
Attendees : Paul J Crowley (CSO), Mairead Griffin (CSO), Patsy King (CSO), Kevin Sweeney (NISRA), James Gillan ( NISRA), Patricia McDowell (NISRA), Paddy O Kane ( NISRA), Sarah McAuley(NISRA), Joanne Henderson ( NISRA), Paul Rutherford (DETI), Bernie Morris ( Failte Ireland), Peter Nash (Tourism Ireland), Aisling O Sullivan (Tourism Ireland), Olivia Mulhern( Tourism Ireland), Ray O Leary (DTTAS).
Apologies: Pamela Wilson (NITB), Eamonn McKeon (ITIC), Caeman Wall (Failte Ireland), Lorraine Fleming (DETI)
The chairperson welcomed all attendees to the meeting. The minutes of the previous meeting were agreed.
PCI (Mairead Griffin) - Q 1 2013 data is to be published on 20 June 2013 and it is expected that Q 2 2013 data will be published before the end of October 2013. Quarterly data will be published from 2013 onwards (only annual totals were published for 2010, 2011 and 2012, although the 2012 annual publication included some quarterly breakdowns). The plans are still in place to migrate PCI and CRS to CAPI- there will be a final decision on this by the end of the year.
HTS (Patsy King) - Annual and quarterly data for 2012 data will be published on 20 June 2013 (annual data for 2010 and 2011 will also be revised in this release due to a review of methodology). Data for Q 1 2013 will be published in July 2013 and data for Q 2 2013 will be published in October/November 2013.
Overseas Travel (Patsy King) – a rolling three monthly release is published monthly with a time lag of between 4 and 5 weeks.
Peter Nash felt that while methodological reviews were beneficial there was a need to focus resources on timeliness of current and future publications rather than doing revisions for many years.
Tourism Ireland requested a once off snapshot of visitor numbers from the Overseas Travel release for 2010, 2011 and 2012, showing more detail than is currently published. There was also a feeling that expenditure and reason for visit at this level would be very useful. However, it was pointed out that the Country of Residence Survey did not collect these variables. Nor was it feasible to obtain very detailed expenditure and purpose information from the Passenger Card Inquiry.
Action: Tourism Ireland to send a list of countries where additional country level data is required on an annual basis to Patsy King. CSO is to consider publishing annual totals for more countries than at present.
Tourism Ireland inquired that, if use of CAPI was approved would the CSO consider asking respondents additional questions. The CSO agreed to consider collecting additional data but stressed that the initial focus would be on migrating the existing questions onto CAPI. Once this is successfully completed, they would be open to adding some additional questions to the surveys at some future date
Tourism Ireland requested further detail of PCI expenditure data by reason for journey and country visited - even if this is over a three year period.
Action: Mairead Griffin explained that while she would look into this, given the current methodology used, the data wouldn’t be robust enough to provide additional breakdowns at a more detailed level.
The purpose and work of the branch was outlined. The demand side of tourism statistics include NIPS and the Domestic Tourism module, while the supply side covered statistics on occupancy (Hotel Occupancy), monthly Guest House, B & B and Guest Accommodation (GHBB), annual Self-Catering and annual Visitors Attractions Surveys.
2012 results are expected by the end of June 2013 and will include ROI visitor figures (also 2011 data will be revised). VIAS figures (visitors to NI who depart via the Republic) which are supplied by Failte Ireland are now proposed to be on 3 year rolling averages. The current issues facing the branch are sub-regional statistics, supply side response rates and the current methodological review.
There were concerns raised at the meeting regarding the volatility and sample size (about 500) of VIAS SOT data. Failte Ireland suggested using a 3 year rolling average to help deal with this volatility. Peter Nash raised concerns about this as this would smooth out any trends in the data. There was a discussion around the suggestion by Tourism Ireland that PCI data should be used for VIAS data instead of using Failte Ireland’s SOT data. CSO data is only available for one complete year (2012) and the CSO stated that no data would be available until all of 2013 had been processed and the data was reviewed.
James Gillan raised the issue that PCI data did not include expenditure in Northern Ireland and that this issue needs to be addressed.
Action: CSO, NISRA and Failte Ireland will continue to work on the best approach in estimating VIAS numbers.
Methodological review -currently NISRA are undertaking a consultation process with users. Users had raised concerns on the publication of partially completed data (SOT is quarterly and there has been a delay with HTS) and data being published at different times. There has been a shift towards completeness of data being published (all data should, if available be published together). There is a proposed move from separate monthly publications of main surveys (NIPS, VIAS and domestic) to quarterly publications including all main surveys (NIPS, VIAS, Domestic and summaries of monthly occupancy statistics). It is proposed to continue to publish monthly Hotel/Guest House and B & B occupancy figures. User views are being sought re existing statistical margins of error for NIPS and CHS (also no NI confidence intervals are available for HTS and SOT) and sample sizes. The different options to address sample size concerns include an increase in sample sizes of surveys; by using rolling averages across years per quarter (as is proposed for annual SOT), to maintain the same sample sizes but have less frequent publications (e.g. move from quarterly to annual, YTD results). It is also proposed to change pre-announced publication dates if external (CSO/Failte Ireland) sources are delayed ( if data is expected within 6 weeks of pre-announced date- otherwise suggest publishing remaining sources of data).Users are asked to submit comments on review document by 21 June 2013.
There were discussions at the meeting re increasing SOT sample size. Tourism Ireland said it was not possible for them to fund a larger sample size due to lack of resources and that they would prefer to use CSO data when it became available.
Action: All to respond to NI Tourism Consultation by 21 June 2013
Action: Paul Crowley is to discuss access for NISRA to HTS data prior to HTS publication (need data at least 2 weeks prior to NISRA publication date).NISRA have confirmed that if they get quarterly HTS data prior to HTS publication they are proposing not to publish this data separately , but include it with other data in their publication).The exact modalities for this need to be worked out and will be subject to agreement between the two agencies.
Kevin Sweeney outlined data collection methods. EDC (Electronic Data Capture was piloted in 2009 and has been used since). CAPI was first introduced in 1990.There are 6 interviewers per shift at airports and fewer (2 or 3) at ports- they work in teams. The sampling methodology is that 1 in 5 are asked to complete a short questionnaire and 1 in 20 a long one. In order to improve response rates, the sampling rate for the long questionnaire was moved from 1 in 10 to 1 in 20 in January 2013. Kevin also noted that there were currently limitations to the feasibility of increasing the NIPS sample size as there was a perception at one airport that any increase in the number of interviewers could impact on passenger flow into the retail areas. CSO expressed interest in the use of CAPI by NISRA and will discuss its operation with them in more detail.
Mairead Griffin and Paul J Crowley outlined plans in the CSO to move towards EDC (final decision to be made on this by the end of the year). Kevin Sweeny outlined the merits of EDC.
NISRA were interested in the methodology used by CSO in producing regional tourism estimates. Patricia McDowell will liaise with Patsy King re methodology used etc.
A proposal was put forward by Paul J Crowley to change the terms of reference of the group. The purpose of this was to define more clearly the role of the Group. Comments on this are requested within 2 weeks.
The Group agreed with the establishment of a Technical Sub-Group, comprised of the statistical services (CSO, NISRA, Failte Ireland) where detailed technical and methodological issues would be handled. Reports of the outcome of each meeting would be circulated to the wider Group. A first meeting of the Sub-Group took place at the beginning of May.
It was agreed that the Technical Group meetings should continue and that an annual All Island Tourism Statistics Group meeting was appropriate. The next meeting will be organised by NISRA in Belfast in 2014.
Paul J Crowley outlined comments provided by ITIC which relate to Tourism statistics in the South. Paul will reply directly to ITIC on the issues raised. Tourism Ireland supported the comments made by ITIC.
Paul J Crowley raised the issue of recent Austrian Tourist PPP publication which showed Ireland to be one of the most expensive countries in Europe for Austrians, in the context of a typical Austrian tourist. It was agreed that this construction, while useful in an Austrian context , should be treated with caution. There was a range of statistics, official and unofficial, that give somewhat different answers. A recent piece of research by Trip advisor put Ireland in the middle range.
Ray O Leary suggested holding another meeting to discuss other statistics that give indicators for Tourism e.g. QNHS, CPI etc. This would be a good topic for our next meeting.
Paul Rutherford welcomed the clearance of the backlog of CSO releases and the resumption of quarterly reporting. Ray O Leary also welcomed this.
Ray O Leary outlined that DTTAS was undergoing a Policy Review and was developing a consultation document in order to prioritise resources that are put into tourism. This is high level at the moment and the process will continue for the next 12 months or so.
Peter Nash asked the group to consider including other contributors to tourism statistics (e.g. DAA) in the All Island Tourism Statistics Liaison Group. It was agreed that bi-lateral meetings with these organisations would be more appropriate instead.
Paul J Crowley outlined that The Irish Hotels Federation had issues and concerns on Tourism Statistics which they discussed with the CSO in a recent meeting.
The next meeting will be held in Belfast next year.