Survey on tourists’ arrivals and overnight stays in accommodation establishments

Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia (SORS).

Group for Catering and Tourism Statistics

Kristina Vojinović

Statistical analyst, Group for Catering and Tourism Statistics

Belgrade, Milana Rakica 5

kristina.vojinovic@stat.gov.rs

+381 11 6964 222

+381 11 2411-922

Since 2022, the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia has been publishing data on tourist turnover in accommodation capacities based on the statistical processing of data retrieved from the Central Information System (CIS) eTourist.

The Central Information System in the field of catering and tourism (eTourist) is a unique and centralised electronic information system that contains relevant data on the users (check in and out, domestic and foreign tourists) and providers of services in accommodation facilities, through which tourists are recorded and other data are entered, resulting from catering activities, nautical and tourism hunting, i.e. tourist activity or services in tourism.

The data retrieved from administrative sources have replaced the monthly survey on tourist arrivals and overnight stays (TU11).

Statistical processing provides data on the:

- number of arrivals and overnight stays of domestic and foreign tourists in accommodation facilities

- number of accommodation facilities

- number of accommodation units, and

- total number of individual beds

The results are used to plan and analyse tourism-related economic policy. 

The classifications being used:

- Classification of Activities (CA), based on the European Statistical Classification of Economic Activities (Nace Rev.2);

- National Nomenclature of Statistical Territorial Units (NSTJ);

- Nomenclature of Countries, based on ISO 3166 country codes;

- National Distribution of Catering and Accommodation Facilities

According to the Classification of Activities, the following units are within the groups:

- 55.10 Hotels and similar accommodation;

- 55.20 Vacation resorts and similar short stay facilities;

- 55.30 Activity of campsites, auto-campsites and campsites for tourist trailers;

- 55.90 Оther accommodation.

A tourist is any person who spends at least one night in a place outside his / her place of residence in a catering or other tourist accommodation facility. Tourists are not considered to be persons who: stay in the place of visit for more than 12 consecutive months; persons who perform a paid activity from the place of visit; persons who regularly travel to the place where they work or study; refugees, expelled, displaced persons, as well as migrants; border workers, diplomats and consular representatives; members of the military forces on regular duty; persons in transit.

A catering facility  is functionally connected, specially arranged and equipment space that fulfill the prescribed mininum technical and sanitary – hygience conditions for providing catering services, i.e. for performing the catering activity, pursuant to the law referring to tourism.

A domestic tourist is any person with a residence in the Republic of Serbia who spends at least one night in a catering or other facility for the accommodation of tourists in a place in the Republic of Serbia, outside the place of his/ her residence.

A foreign tourist is any person residing outside the Republic of Serbia and who temporarily resides in the Republic of Serbia and spends at least one night in a catering or other tourist accommodation facility.

The arrival of tourists represents the number of tourists who have checked in and spent the night in the facility that provides accommodation services. The tourist checks in in each facility (which provides commercial accommodation service) in which he stays. Therefore, in case of changing the facility, the tourist is re-checked. Based on that, tourism statistics records the number of tourist arrivals, not the number of tourists.

Tourist overnight stays represents the number of registered tourist overnight stays in facilities that provide accommodation services.

The units of observation are catering facilities and arrivals and overnight stays of domestic and foreign tourists in a accommodation catering facility.

Catering facilities and tourists whose stay is registered during the reference period.

It covers the territory of the Republic of Serbia, as well as lower territorial levels defined in the Nomenclature of Statistical Territorial Units (regions, administrative districts, cities and municipalities.

Since 1999, the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia has no available data for AP Kosovo and Metohia territorial levels.

Data are available on monthly level, starting from January 2010.

Not applied.

Аbsolute numbers referring to the number of tourist arrivals and overnight stays.

Data are retrieved and statistically processed on monthly level.

Annual data are calculated by summing up the data from January to December of the reference year.

National acts:

- Law on Official Statistics;

- Law on Tourism;

- Law on Catering;

-  By-laws adopted based on the aforesaid laws. 

European Union acts:

- Regulation (EU) 692/2011

- Regulation (EU) 1681/2019

- Regulation (EU) 1051/2011

Not applicable.

Data confidentiality is ensured pursuant to the Law on Official Statistics.

When processing confidential data for users, data protection should ensure that individual data cannot be identified at any level of aggregate data. 

The release calendar is available and provides the schedule of data release from different statistical areas.

Release calendar

Dissemination policy is based on the Law on Official Statistics, as well as acts that were adopted by the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia.

Official statistics data are available to all users at the same time and under equal condition.

SORS is required to provide an expert interpretation and estimate of the data produced and disseminated. Information on the sources and used methodology is available to the broad public.

Official statistics data can be used only if the data source is quoted.

At users‘ request, SORS can provide services of additional processing of statistical results that are not included in official statistics programmes and plans.

Data are published on monthly and annual level.

Data on tourist arrivals and overnight stays are published, as absolute values and indices, the last working day of the month for the previous, reference month in the release on Тourist turnover.

Data on accommodation capacities are published within the monthly release on tourist turnover for August of the current year. Data on capacities are published once a year within the monthly release the last working day in September for the previous, reference month (August).

The cited release is published the last working day of the month for data from the previous month, according to the release calendar.

The last available data:

Statistical Yearbook (reference year 2021),

Regions in the Republic of Serbia (reference year 2020),

Municipalities and regions in the Republic of Serbia (reference year 2021),

Statistical Pocket-book of the Republic of Serbia, (reference year 2021),

Other available reference periods can be seen in the section  Publications.

On the front page of SORS website users can access the Database – the section Catering and Tourism contains data on tourist turnover.

Microdata can be accessed only according to the strongly defined procedure. More information on link.

At users‘ request, additional information can be available, pursuant to SORS dissemination policy.

Users‘ requests can be sent via the panel "Ask us" on the website of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia or by email stat@stat.gov.rs. 

It is in the abridged methodology ``Arrivals and overnight stays of tourists in commercial accommodation`` that can be found the main methodological concepts, relevant for tourism statistics.

All important concepts for tourism statistics, which SORS implements, are contained in the ``Меthodological Manual for Tourism Statistics`` released by    Eurostat (available only in English).

Quality policy in SORS is available on SORS website in the section: Declaration of Quality  and Quality Policy.

SORS implements the European Statistics Code of Practice (European Statistics Code of Practice). Pursuant to the Code, SORS applies the criteria of relevance, accuracy, timeliness, accessibility, clarity, coherence and comparability pursuant to the Law on Official Statistics and other significant international and national acts.

More information about SORS quality management system on link.

The provisions of the European Union regulation are applied, as well as the provisions of national regulations that refer to tourism statistics.

Since 2022, the Central Information System in Catering and Tourism has been used (еТourist), as well as the administrative and unique source based on which tourist turnover is calculated, which contributed to the modernisation and improvement of the entire process, in terms of quality.

In addition to the modernisation of the method of data collection and processing, tourism statistics made a considerable advancement in the dissemination and accessibility of data, particularly via the website of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia.

Data on tourist turnover, capacities and their occupancy on national level are mostly required by the relevant ministry of tourism, other government bodies, local authorities, public institutions and agencies, business associations, business subjects, the media, scientific and professional public, and more and more by physical persons, which is a result of the continuous growth and development of tourism market.

Data are used for a wide variety of purposes - decision-making important for tourism, information, writing scientific and expert papers, etc.

As far as users beyond the national scope are concerned, data on tourism are used by Eurostat, OECD, World Tourism Organisation, etc. SORS fulfilled so far efficiently user needs for tourism statistics.

SORS conducts every two years the User Satisfaction Survey.The last one was conducted in 2021.

More results on link.

The calculation of indicators is based on the full coverage of observation units.

Pursuant to legal regulations all catering facilities are registered in the Central Information System in Catering and Tourism (CIS) through which data on the users of catering facilities and accommodation service are entered in a prescribed manner.

The calculation of indicators is based on the full coverage of observation units.

Pursuant to legal regulations all catering facilities are registered in the Central Information System in Catering and Tourism (CIS) through which data on the users of catering facilities and accommodation service are entered in a prescribed manner.

Not applicable.

Not applicable.

Мonthly data are available the last working day of the month (Т) when data for the previous month are published (Т-1).

Annual data are available the last working day of January of the following year.

Data are comparable on the levels of the territorial and administrative distribution.

The use of the new data source for the calculation of tourist turnover (since 2022) has interrupted full comparability on the level of a tourism resort. Due to changes in the categorization of tourism resorts, data are not comparable on the level of a tourism resort starting from 2022.

Data are comparable on the levels of the territorial and administrative distribution.

The use of the new data source for the calculation of tourist turnover (since 2022) has interrupted full comparability on the level of a tourism resort. Due to changes in the categorization of tourism resorts, data are not comparable on the level of a tourism resort starting from 2022.

With December 2021 included, date were collected, processed and published based on the statistical survey on tourist arrivals and overnight stays in accommodation facilities.  The mentioned survey for certain catering facilities, types: house, room, apartment and rural tourism household it was possible to obtain data on a relatively full coverage. 

Since January 2022, data on tourist turnover are published based on the statistical processing of data retrieved from the administrative source, Central Information System in catering and tourism (eTourist), where the coverage was complete for all types of catering facilities providing accommodation service, including: houses, rooms, apartments and rural tourism household. 

By detailed analysis of tourist turnover over time, it was found that the changes that occurred in the coverage in certain types of catering facilities over time were not sufficient to influence the interruption in time series. 

No evaluation is made for the level of harmonisation of statistical results with the results obtained from other data sources.

There is a maximum level of coherence between monthly and annual data.

There is no data on the costs and burden on reporting units.

The General Revision Policy of the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia: available on link, in the section „Policies".

Data can be subject to revision in the case of considerable methodological changes that would require such a procedure. 

With December 2021 included, data were collected, processed and published based on the statistical survey on tourist arrivals and overnight stays in accommodation facilities.

Since January 2022, data on tourist turnover have been published based on the statistical processing of data retrieved from the administrative source, Central Information System in catering and tourism (еТourist). The Central Information System in catering and tourism is a unique and centralised electronic information system that contains all relevant data on the users and providers of accommodation services in accommodation facilities, through which they are recorded, and other data resulting from performing catering, nautical and tourism hunting activities, i.e. tourism activity or services in tourism.

Pursuant to regulations, eTourists is owned, i.e. under the responsibility of the relevant ministry of tourism.

Мonthly.

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia retrieves once a month data from the administrative source and processes them according to methodological frameworks of tourism statistics.

Statistical processing covers all business subjects (as well as physical persons) and their organisational parts engaged in providing catering accommodation services. The users of catering services are defined as tourists.

The Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia retrieves once a month data from the administrative source and processes them according to methodological frameworks of tourism statistics.

Statistical processing covers all business subjects (as well as physical persons) and their organisational parts engaged in providing catering  accommodation services. The users of catering services are defined as tourists.

In CIS in the field of catering and tourism, during the check in in a catering facility providing accommodation for each user one enters the date of check in, planned date of departure and date of check out (when the user checks out from the facility). Knowing that the realised number of overnight stays for a user is counted as the difference between the date of arrival and departure, imputation of the value is required for the date of arrival when the user is not checked out from the system at the moment of data retrieval.

For the mentioned users, SORS imputes as the date of departure the value of the planned date of  departure that is entered by the catering entity at the  moment of user check in.

Not performed.