TUOTO - INTERNATIONAL TRAVEL STATISTICS

PAGE 7 NOTES
multiple visits by the same visitors or tourists during a year.
Therefore, arrival statistics should be regarded as being statistics
 of numbers of visits rather than of numbers of individual
 visitors or tourists.

4. Statistics of the departures of own residents or nationals
on travel abroad have become available in recent years and are
increasingly being included in this publication. Although
those travellers leaving a country to travel abroad are essentially
 the same individuals whose arrivals are recorded by
other countries' tourist statistics, several difficulties of
interpretation should be pointed out. Firstly, departures statistics
 may include non-visitor movements such as migrants,
seasonal workers and persons seeking employment in foreign
countries. Numbers of persons temporarily employed in the
country concerned, returning on visits to their country of
nationality, although strictly speaking "visitors" to that
country, may, nevertheless, exaggerate the tourist movement.
Finally, where, as is frequently the case, arrivals statistics
are recorded by country of nationality, there may be many
visitors who are not residents permanent or otherwise of their
country of nationality. This fact should not be neglected in
considering, e.g. U.S. nationals travelling in Europe or Asia;
Australian or South African nationals travelling in Europe;
U.K. nationals in certain parts of Africa, etc.

5. Methods of calculating average length of stay of foreign
tourists differ from country to country. Some countries measure
 average length of stay by sample survey among departing
tourists at the frontiers, others measure average length of
stay by making exact counts of cards given to tourists at the
time of arrival and returned at the time of departure. Those
countries which collect tourist statistics at hotels and other
forms of accommodation are obliged to calculate average length
of stay of foreign tourists in terms of stay at individual
accommodation establishments; thus, if total foreign tourist
nights in hotels are divided by total foreign tourist arrivals
in hotels, average length of stay in hotels (individually) is
obtained.

Care should, therefore, be taken when comparing average
length of stay in a country as a whole, with average length of
stay in accommodation because the stay in accommodation represents
 stay in individual establishments and will be shorter
than average length of stay in a country, as a whole, to the
extent that tourists stay in more than one accommodation establishment
 during their stay in the country. Similarly, due to
differences in the weighting, median length of stay (where indicated)
 is sometimes different from the average (or mean) length
of stay of tourists.

VOL. 24 - 1970