Vacation Home Ownership in a Globalized World

Note by the United Nations World Tourism Organization

UNECE Statistical Division

EXPERT GROUP ON NATIONAL ACCOUNTS

Impact of Globalization on National Accounts

Geneva, 26 -29 April 2010

Agenda item 8

0. Vacation Homes: Some data as an example (in the European Union)

Holidays trips (4 nights or more), broken down by type of accommodation (per cent)

  Total Domestic Outbound

Collective establishments 45 32 69

Private accommodation 55 68 31

Of which:

- Rented accommodation 14 16 10

- Secondary residence 9 13 3

Note: aggregate data are based on 19 MS (plus Croatia) for which full data are available for 2007 or 2008

Source: EUROSTAT

Vacation Home in a Global World

1. Overview: Vacation Home Ownership in Tourism Statistics and TSA.

2. Non-resident own dwellings: Specific issues and challenges.

3. Moving the “vacation homes agenda” forwards.

1. Vacation Home Ownership in T. Statistics & TSA.

Vacation Home Ownership in Tourism Statistics & Tourism Satellite Account (TSA): The adopted concepts and methodology for own used vacation homes are …Based on National Accounts criteria… - Concepts: Imputed rent to a dwelling used by its owner. - Methods: value of a similar (really) rented dwelling. [Specific: Stratification method]

…but with some specifications… - Value to be corrected by the ratio of use or occupation: Vac. Homes are only used temporally (some periods per year).

Methods: (Derived from national Accounts)- Main type: Stratification method or similar. [In the EU is the recommended (“compulsory”) method (Commission Regulation EC n. 1722/2005 of October 2005)]. The Stock of dwellings is classified in some strata and the rental of each strata is estimated through several indicators.

Statistics (Necessary for this kind of method)- Detailed data on Housing

Stock

- Data on rentals/ prices.

- Data on ratio of use or occupation.

- Housing Census (Hous. Surveys)

- Average annual rental.

- Hous. & Popul. Census + Demand Surveys

1. Vacation Home Ownership in T. Statistics & TSA.

A supply/ demand cross table of dwellings

Source: EUROSTAT, Tourism Satellite Accounts in the European Union

Vacation Home in a Global World

1. Overview: Vacation Home Ownership in Tourism Statistics and TSA.

2. Non-resident own dwellings: Specific issues and challenges.

3. Moving the “vacation homes agenda” forwards.

Compilation of non-resident Vac. Home ownership faces some other additional issues.National Accounts criteria: Non-resident Homes are considered as “notional resident” . Advantages: same procedure as with resident’ dwellings; the (imputed) output is included in GDP of the country in which dwelling is located…However, these homes have to be identified and compiled separately in order to estimate Balance of payment/ rest of world accounts.

2. Non-resident own dwellings: Specific issues and challenges.

Non- resident Dwellings Output = Imputed rents should be included in

Inbound Tourism

consumption TSA

Travel item in the Balance of payments

Non resident consumption

National Accounts

Net Operating Surplus and flows of property income (=Output – current costs) should be included

Primary income

Balance of payments

Primary Income

National Accounts

2. Non-resident own dwellings: Specific issues and challenges.

Compilation of non-resident Home ownership faces some other additional challenges: i) The issue of non-residence delimitation (highly mobile individuals).ii) Asymmetry between data by importer and by exporter countries. Double asymmetry: in GDP (imports and exports of “imputed dwelling” services); in GNI (received and paid property incomes – Net. Op. Sur.-) (Special relevance for Economic Areas as the European Union).

2. Non-resident own dwellings: Specific issues and challenges.

Implications not only for tourism (TSA) but also for NA, and BoP

Vacation Homes: Spain as a “dwelling services exporter” country……Other European countries as importers (UK)

Vacation Homes: Spain as a “dwelling services exporter” country……Other European countries as importers (UK)

Time-Share Accommodation Although there are some peculiarities on the definition of T-S, main principles are the same as for holiday homes (an imputed rent for the own use of them should be estimated). The main challenge of T-S is precisely from a “BoP” perspective: In a period (year) this type of property may be used by people from different countries. However, information about country of origin of-each-owner of-each-period is not usually available. Global approaches “Demand side” (border/ frontier surveys) or “Supply side” (specialized companies).

2.3. A (short) reference to Time-sharing

Vacation Home in a Global World

1. Overview: Vacation Home Ownership in Tourism Statistics and TSA.

2. Non-resident own dwellings: Specific issues and challenges.

3. Moving the “vacation homes agenda” forwards.

A roadmap for the future:

b) Proposed set of common internationally accepted statistical methods

a) Inventory of sources and methods available in the countries

3. Moving the “vacation homes agenda” forwards.

3. Moving the “vacation homes agenda” forwards.

1) Some specific statistical suggestions:- Statistics: Housing & Population Censuses. Household surveys, administrative (tax) sources

2) Promoting cross data exercises (importer countries vs. exporter countries). “Mirror statistics”

b) Proposed set of common internationally accepted statistical methods

Supply - side Demand - side

Exporter - Housing Censuses. - Other sources: administrative (tax sources…)Example/ case study: French FILOCOM system.

Tourism Border surveyExample/ case study: Spanish Frontier Tourism Survey (FRONTUR).

Importer Household Survey: Example/ case study: Housing in England Other sources: tax sources…Example/ case study: Norway.

3. Moving the “vacation homes agenda” forwards.

1) Statistics. Examples of recommended sources

3. Moving the “vacation homes agenda” forwards.

2) Promoting cross data exercises (importer countries vs. exporter countries)

A more ambitious initiative: to develop an internationally supported project in order to make bilateral comparisons between importer & exporter dwellings services” countries.

This would be an application of the mirror statistics procedures for dealing with asymmetries in international trade, currently developed in the EU.

Final comment

All these considerations show the urgency to join forces among tourism statisticians, BoP and national accounts compilers in order to deal with these challenges. Our paper also suggests approaches how the work could be brought forward.

Through proposal of common and improved sources and methods, more reliable and internationally comparable data could be reached. This could bring not only better estimations of the tourism figures, but also improvements in the quality and reliability of national accounts data as a whole

Vacation Home Ownership in a Globalized World

Thank you for your attention