CSO Frontier Series outputs may use new methods which are under development and/or data sources which may be incomplete, for example new administrative data sources. Particular care must be taken when interpreting the statistics in this release.
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The information contained in this release comes from data submitted by the CSO Ireland to Eurostat in 2022 as part of a voluntary triennial Tourism Satellite Accounts (TSA) data collection exercise. Since 2010 Eurostat have undertaken data collection related to Tourism Satellite Accounts (TSA) and the reference period in 2022 was the year 2019. This is the fifth round of TSA data collection in Europe.
This was the first time that data was transmitted for Ireland as part of this process. Since data is compiled using a harmonised framework Eurostat can compare the tourism industry across the EU. But the comparability of results is affected by methodological differences, varying degrees of completeness and different levels of statistical maturity. For Ireland the data should be considered a first step towards full compliance with the 2008 TSA Methodological Framework. Over time as new data and expertise develops, the CSO will expand the detailed breakdowns of the figures provided to Eurostat. This is necessary to construct a full TSA across all tourism related sectors in the economy and the CSO plan to work towards this goal between now and the next voluntary submission in 2025.
The latest TSA data for 2019 across Europe and including data for Ireland was published in April 2023.
Tourism Satellite Accounts in Europe 2023 Edition
Expenditure for 2019 Inbound trips was taken from the CSO Tourism & Travel release.
Tourism and Travel Quarter 4 2019
The expenditure breakdown including fares was not available for same-day visits, and so this was estimated using the same value as overnight fare costs (since transport is assumed to be by the same mode of travel). Detailed breakdowns of expenditure are not available from this source at present. To account for inbound trips from Northern Ireland data was taken from Fáilte Ireland and a figure of €0.4billion was used for overnight expenditure in 2019. No information is available on the value of same-day visit spending from Northern Ireland at present.
Expenditure on domestic and outbound overnight trips in 2019 was taken from the CSO Household Travel Survey release and same-day visit expenditure data, which was collected for 2019, but was only released in 2022.
Household Travel Survey Quarter 4 and Year 2019
It should be noted that at this time that transport costs paid to Irish carriers have not been excluded from the expenditure on outbound trips (and therefore not included in the calculation of internal tourism expenditure). Outbound tourism expenditure also contains trips which were undertaken for business purposes.
Also, non- monetary consumption has not been estimated in the overall internal tourism expenditure total, nor is there any value estimated for vacation accommodation on own account in the domestic tourism expenditure. But expenditure on domestic business trips has been included which is not usually part of a TSA.
Supply side data for tourism was taken from the 2018 Supply and Use tables in National Accounts as the 2019 results were not available at the time of compilation.
Supply and Use Tables for Ireland 2018
For this initial version of the TSA data the total column figures for each of the tourism related industries was used, and no attempt was made to remove any row figures related to other industries at this point. Instead, tourism consumption was estimated using adjustments based on NACE 4-digit employment proportions from Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees (PMOD) data (see below).
Employment data for 2019 was taken from CSO Business Demography using enterprises engaged in the specific tourism business sectors.
It is the same data which is supplied to the OECD on an annual basis (FTE numbers of employees and self-employed).
OECD Enterprises and Employment in Tourism
The employment data for the total economy is taken from Q2 2019 CSO Labour Force and includes both full and part-time employment.
Labour Force Survey Archive 2022
As the data from Business Demography is higher than the same sectors in the LFS, the LFS total was not adjusted down when generating a full-time equivalent figure. Using two sources is not the best option but as the new Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees (PMOD) data is established the CSO plan to use this as an additional source of data on employment for the TSA which will help to further refine the data in the future. It is also expected that the PMOD data will also provide new information by jobs as well as person in the tourism sector.
Monthly Estimates of Payroll Employees using Administrative Data March 2023
Data on average hours worked in each of the tourism sectors was taken from EHECS (Table EHQ03), and these were grossed up to the Business Demography employment numbers.
EHQ03 Average Earnings, Hours Worked, Employment and Labour Costs
Overall, it was estimated that the average weekly hours worked in tourism sectors was 28.4 hours. The average weekly hours worked for the whole economy was taken from the Q2 2019 LFS (32.5 hours).
Data for 2019 was taken from the Tourism & Travel release on inbound trips, which include transfer passengers.
Household Travel Survey Quarter 4 and Year 2019
To account for inbound trips from Northern Ireland, data was taken from Fáilte Ireland.
Fáilte Ireland Key Tourism Facts 2019
No information is available on the number of same-day visits from Northern Ireland at present. Data for domestic and outbound trips and nights in 2019 was taken from the Household Travel Survey release and same-day visit data, which was collected for 2019, but was only released in 2022.
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