Data sources

Several main data sources are used for the PTTSA. Demand estimates are derived from two main sources, the Travel Survey of Residents of Canada (TSRC) and the International Travel Survey (ITS), both conducted by Statistics Canada.

The TSRC provides data for domestic business and personal tourism expenditure by province and territory. It also supplies information that identifies the reasons for visiting a region, the duration of stay and the activities undertaken while at the tourist location. The survey is a monthly supplement to the Labour Force Survey (LFS). The TSRC provides totals for tourism expenditure, within a given region, as well as inter-provincially (inter-provincial exports and imports). The TSRC, however, does not provide travel origin data for the territories, only travel destinations are available. Information from the supply and use tables are used to fill this gap. Estimates for pre-trip expenses, a portion of domestic demand, also rely on the supply and use tables.

The ITS provides estimates for non-resident demand (separately for the United-States and other countries) within Canada as well as imports of tourism (Canadian spending abroad). This survey was initially conducted to provide data for Canada’s Balance of Payments with other countries.

Estimates for tourism supply are derived from the supply and use tables; as are GDP and its components, labour income, mixed income and operating surplus. The supply and use tables are constructed using several large matrices of data that record the inputs (what is needed to make a good or service) and output (the goods and services provided). The supply table shows the supply of various products by industry and therefore tourism supply can be calculated using these data. The supply and use tables also provide a matrix of value added or GDP.

Employment data come from the Canadian Productivity Accounts of the Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (CSMA). These Accounts provide information on employment following System of National Accounts principles and using the input-output (IO) industry classification. At the aggregate level, the number of jobs in this database is benchmarked to the Labour Force Survey. The industry distribution of these jobs, however, is primarily based on information from the Survey of Employment, Payrolls and Hours, although other industry survey and administrative sources are used as well.