Climate Change and Tourism - UNEP - Division of Technology ...

184 Climate Change and Tourism – Responding to Global Challenges
A1.1.3.2 Domestic Tourism
International comparable data on domestic tourism is unfortunately still rather scarce. Domestic tourism
volumes as presented in the report are approximations by UNWTO based on a combination of data for
selected individual countries:
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A limited number of countries provide data on domestic trips, often with varying methodology
and coverage.
Accommodation statistics generally cover the number of nights spent by residents at hotels and
similar establishments and / or at all collective tourism establishments.
Statistics on the demand for domestic air transport and the share of air transport in the overall
volume, also allow for an assessment.
Accordingly, domestic tourism demand is approximated to have accounted for about 8 billion trips
worldwide in 2005, of which 4 billion are estimated to be from same-day visitors and 4 billion from
(overnight) tourists.
Taking into account individual countries with data available on domestic tourism in one way or another
– number of trips, number of nights spent or domestic air transport - the breakdown over developing
and high-income countries (as classified by the World Bank) is approximated to be roughly half/half.
This breakdown is relevant as the emission factors are assumed to differ between developing and
high income countries, because of a different modal split (more air and car transport in high-income
countries and more bus and train in the case of developing countries), as well as a higher occupation
when travelling by car in developing countries.
A1.1.3.3 Transport data
For air transport, data from ICAO is used on overall numbers of passenger kilometres flown, while
data from IATA’s World Air Transport Statistics have been used to subdivide traffic in intraregional and
interregional.
When analysing air transport data, it is essential to realise that traffic is based on the country or region
of airline registration and that flows reflect both inbound and outbound tourism. When talking for
instance about transatlantic traffic from Europe, this refers to both Europeans travelling to the Americas
and Americans to Europe as well as to passengers from other regions travelling through Europe to the
Americas. Furthermore, passenger numbers cannot be directly compared to international tourist arrivals
as reported by destinations, because passengers are counted on each segment of a trip. So a return trip
results at least in a passenger count of two and when it is not by a direct flight even in more.
A1.1.4 Sources of Data
Quantitative tourism-related data is based on a selection of data included in the UNWTO database on
World Tourism Statistics. This database contains a variety of series for over 200 countries and territories
covering data for most countries from the 1980’s on. The database is maintained by the UNWTO
Secretariat and is updated on a continuous base.
Statistical data have been collected by the UNWTO Secretariat from the official institutions of the
countries and territories (UNWTO member as well as non-member countries) or from other international
bodies. e.g., the Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), etc.
The data for individual countries are based on full year results, or projections, as communicated to the
UNWTO Secretariat by the authorities of the countries and territories or disseminated through news
releases, publications or on the Internet. For many countries, figures are still preliminary and frequently
subject to revision.
UNWTO, 9 July 2008