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Encyclopedia of Tourism pp 1–3Cite as

Statistics, tourism

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The term statistics has several meanings. It could be an activity of collection, organization, analysis, and interpretation of data. It could refer to figures and numbers characterizing different phenomena. Statistics could also designate a discipline which has its own methods of research. Meanwhile, statistics are applied to different fields of studies including social sciences such as economics, sociology, and geography. Tourism, as a distinct activity, also relies on quantitative data and information observed from a phenomenon. However, due to its nature as an economic activity, the measurement of it has challenged statisticians and economists since the 1930s (Smith and Massieu 2005). Sufficient and adequate data generate credible statistics enabling one to undertake different types of analysis of tourism (UNSD-UNWTO 2008: 1). Some scholars consider that the way statistics has been used in tourism research and the degree to which it has been applied have largely depended on the...

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References

  • Bartle, D. 2015 The Use of Statistics to Evaluate Tourism Policy. UNWTO Statistics and TSA Issue Paper Series http://statistics.unwto.org/en/content/papers (14 April).

  • Palmer, A., A. Sese, and J.Montano 2005 Tourism and Statistics: Bibliometric Study 1998–2002. Annals of Tourism Research 32:167-178.

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  • TSA: RMF 2008 Tourism Satellite Account: Recommended Methodological Framework http://unstats.un.org/unsd/publication/Seriesf/SeriesF_80rev1e.pdf (6 March 2015).

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  • UNWTO 1995 Collection and Compilation of Tourism Statistics: A Technical Manual. Madrid: World Tourism Organization.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Icelandic Tourism Research Centre, Askja, Sturlugata 7, 101, Reykjavik, Iceland

    Cristi Frent

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  1. Cristi Frent
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Correspondence to Cristi Frent .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. School of Hospitality Leadership, University of Wisconsin-Stout, Menomonie, Wisconsin, USA

    Jafar Jafari

  2. School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, Hong Kong SAR

    Honggen Xiao

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© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland

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Frent, C. (2015). Statistics, tourism. In: Jafari, J., Xiao, H. (eds) Encyclopedia of Tourism. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01669-6_189-1

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01669-6_189-1

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Cham

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-319-01669-6

  • eBook Packages: Springer Reference Business and ManagementReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences

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Chapter history

  1. Latest

    Statistics in Tourism
    Published:
    22 April 2023

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01669-6_189-2

  2. Original

    Statistics, tourism
    Published:
    23 September 2015

    DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-01669-6_189-1

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