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Methodological Challenges of Regional Tourism Satellite Account: Case Study of Vienna and Zagreb Regions

The demand for developing Regional Tourism Satellite Accounts (RTSA) increased significantly during last several years. Contrary to the assessment of tourism contribution on national level that is based on TSA methodological framework, there is no internationally standardized conceptual framework for measurement of tourism on regional level. Nevertheless, many attempts of compiled RTSA occurred in the past years due to its relevance in regional and national tourism policy formulation as well as in the process of strengthening reliability of tourism statistics and research on regional level. It can be concluded that TSA frameworks needs to be further extended to the sub-national level (Song, Dwyer, ZhengCao, 2012 ; Frechtling, 2010). Although compiling of RTSA is still not based on internationally harmonized standards, it should follow the same methodological requirements as national TSA. In addition it should be embedded in national TSA and national accounts. The ‗regionalization‘ of national TSA faces several challenges. First of all are those related to concepts and definitions, like treatment of usual environment in relatively small geographical areas and, as a consequence, definition of domestic tourism, followed by concepts of resident and domestic tourist and treatment of ‗local kind of activity units‘. Further, there is an issue of availability and reliability of data on regional level, both from demand and supply side. The research presented in this paper focuses on the demand side of RTSA. It deals with a problem of measurement of tourism physical flows and expenditure within a region as an open area. Coping with the above mentioned challenges and different data sources, the paper presents and analyses the results of two approaches in order to determine the level of tourism activity within the city of Vienna (Austria) and the city of Zagreb (Croatia). Extracting data on tourism activities from secondary sources on countries‘ internal tourism flows, both case studies are based on ‗top-down‘ approach resulting in the assessment of regional tourism consumption compatible with macro level estimates and harmonized with international standards and recommendations. In addition to the assessment of the total tourist expenditure, the paper compares the structure of tourism physical flows and expenditure between the two capitals, recognizes the 97 problem of ‗shadow‘ economy particularly in the area of household tourism accommodation, reveals numerous limitations and/or shortcomings in data sources, and, finally, provides recommendation for further improvement for RTSA development.

Regional tourism satellite account; city tourism; tourism expenditures; usual

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