Arrival Statistics

Arrival numbers don't tell the whole story

The assumption is that using arrival data will suffice as a measure of tourist activity in the destination and that is enough to deliver useable information for tourism bodies, destination managers, local hotels and other businesses to make decisions about how to structure their product offering and other matters such as hiring employees. However, arrivals, on their own, are not the only measure of economic activity.

Further, arrival data often conflate arrivals by air and arrivals by cruise ships and ferries into one single number. They also do not separate arrivals from international or regional markets. Arrival data tells us nothing about where the visitor stays, whether in a resort, guest house, or in their own or someone else's home. The activities and spending profiles of each of these classes of visitors can be, and likely is, quite different.

Arrival data also does not reveal whether this is a first, second, third visit, &tc. Size of party, purpose of visit and this type of thing might also be helpful.

Is the 'arrival' for leisure or for business purposes? Are they returning diaspora?

In fact, reliance on this metric by itself severely limits the ability to discover and define what tourists do when they go on vacation. Where they go, where they shop, what they do or don't do, what they eat, leisure activities, tours selected and so on. Were they here as part of a wedding or other group event?

Paraphrasing, "it is not possible to know something if one cannot measure it". Therefore, by the use of the sole metric of arrivals as a tool for defining economic activity clearly misses a great deal about the nature of the economic activity tourists generate. Much useful information remains hidden and it becomes the need of local businesses to develop their own measures. Generally, businesses are on their own in any quest to determine much about their own decision-making, some of which might be simplified by collecting more data.

This does not work well because:

• Most SME businesses do not have the resources to do this effectively
• Uniformity of data is lacking
• There is no data available to establish comparisons such as year-over-year or growth or comparing to other destinations
• The data is not publicly available
• The single measure of arrival data does not define employment needs such as the type of employee needed or the training required
• and so on ...

All local businesses are engaged in delivering products and services to visitors but not always in the same ways. But, because of the way arrival data is captured, there is no reliable data that can be used for decision-making purposes.

A gift shop has a very different customer profile compared to a restaurant or a tour guide. Delivering service in each of these involves making a range of decisions that might be made easier by knowing more about visitors.

Destinations need to develop tools to deliver more information about tourist activity after they arrive. Some discussion between destinations and tourism bodies needs to be undertaken as to the type of data required and the ways this data will be collected, avoiding privacy issues, &tc. Most of this information would be relatively easy to capture and would be very useful.

Much information can be collected on departure from the visitor. Surveys could be used or the E/D Card might include some questions about whether visitors spent money in restaurants other than at their resort or on their cruiseship or took a tour, as examples. Exit questionnaires might also be useful.

Controversial as it is, everyone also knows that much data can be gathered from visitors by tracking their smartphones as a way to determine where people went during their stays. This might be enough to aid destination managers to more clearly define visitor activity but won't deliver any specific spending information.

Without this data, basically destinations and businesses are in the dark and are unable to make fully informed decisions. Any data collected from visitors can be extremely useful for destinations to be able to decide about future investments in infrastructure, new developments, energy use, water use, tax collection and on and on. This can also deliver cost savings to local businesses. They might also be used to improve customer service and product offerings as well as to determine hours of operation and so on. They might also provide deeper data about visitors in general and therefore how to market to them.

Ultimately, the overriding purpose is to deliver better quality experiences for visitors —and residents, through a more complete knowledge of visitors activities.