Foreign tourists. Tourism expenditure. By country of origin

Total declared expenditure

Expenditure declared by the subject as the costs of travel, accommodation and other expenses produced during the trip.

Tourist

People who travel to a main destination outside their usual environment, involving at least one overnight stay, for a duration of less than one year and when the main reason for the visit (including business, leisure and other personal reasons) is not connected with a job in a company established in the location visited.

Statistics are drawn up on trips made by foreign tourists in order to quantify and describe flows of visitors to Catalonia.

The data is obtained from the Tourist Expenditure Survey (Egatur), for which the Institute of Tourism Studies (IET) is responsible. On the basis of the restricted-access databases provided by the IET, Idescat extends the results with greater disaggregation of the variables for Catalonia. Annual information is provided on overall expenditure, expenditure per person-trip and expenditure per person-day-trip as declared by the tourist.

Egatur is a continuous monthly survey conducted by personal interviews using a stratified random sample by country of residence, method of entry and border points. It is the basic statistical source for the analysis of the expenditure and behaviour of visitors (tourists and excursionists) that are not residents in Spain and that enter the country by road or air. It is directly linked to the Inbound Tourism Survey (Frontur), which provides technical support in the field, the control method and the framework of elevation of Expenditure Survey.

In March 2009, Idescat applied the new methodology for making estimates. The data from 2006, 2007 and 2008 was revised in view of the methodological changes incorporated by Frontur. These changes improved the estimates of data on travellers entering Spain through ports and by road (coaches). The other means of entry (airport, train and light vehicles by road) were unaffected by the changes.

In 2013, the tourist expenditure data was modified due to a historical revision of the IET's Egatur series.

Al gener del 2014 l'IET incorpora a l'estadística de Frontur la via d'accès amb creuer i amplia la cobertura dels viatgers que venen a Catalunya. Això implica que es considerin els viatgers internacionals en tràsit (és a dir, aquells que una vegada arriben a port continuen el viatge al creuer).Pel que fa als trens, s'han redissenyat els fluxos de ferrocarrils amb França, apareix de manera molt rellevant l'alta velocitat i s'han suprimit els antics trajectes existents.

Up until the third quarter of 2015, the Spanish Institute of Tourism was in charge of producing the Survey of Tourist Movement on Borders (Frontur) and the Survey of Tourist Expenditure (Egatur). Starting in the last quarter of 2015, the body in charge of said operations is the INE. Said shift of responsibilities also entailed a change in the design and methodology of the surveys, which means the data will not be entirely comparable to previous series.