Content
About the statistics
Definitions
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Name and topic
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Name: Accommodation
Topic: Transport and tourism
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Next release
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Responsible division
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Division for Business Cycle Statistics
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Definitions of the main concepts and variables
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The number of businesses for all accommodation establishments corresponds to the number of establishments open to the public at least one day during the reference period.
Commercial guest nights: Guest nights at hotels, short-term holiday dwellings, camping sites and youth hostels.
Hotels and similar accommodation: establishments that offer accommodation typically on a daily or weekly basis, principally for short stays by visitors. This includes the provision of furnished accommodation in guest rooms and suites. Services include daily cleaning and bed-making.
Country of residence: International visitors are classified by the country where they reside, not necessarily their citizenship. From a tourism perspective, anyone who relocates from one country to another, and stays for longer than a year, is considered residing in that country. Citizenship is indicated in the person's passport (or other identification documents), while the country of residence must be determined using a question or inferred e.g. from the person's address.
Guest night: One person accommodated one night. A person can have several guest nights.
Arrival: a person who arrives at an accommodation establishment for overnight stay. An arrival counts only once regardless of how long they stay.
Beds and rooms correspond to the number of beds and rooms in businesses open to the public. The number of rooms and beds represent two different ways of measuring hotel capacity. In theory, hotels with only double rooms can obtain an occupancy rate of 100 per cent, while the bed capacity is 50 per cent only. The utilization of the room and the utilization of bed capacity may, therefore, develop differently from one period to another.
The utilization of bed capacity corresponds to the number of guest nights in per cent of the number of available beds, where the number of available beds is the number of beds multiplied by the establishment's number of open days during the reference period.
The utilization of room capacity corresponds to the number of occupied rooms in per cent of the number of available rooms, where the number of available rooms is the number of rooms multiplied by the establishment's number of open days during the reference period.
Revenue at hotels are the sales figure for the accommodation activity, not including any breakfast or other extra services, even though they might be included in the price of the stay. Sales are published without any VAT.
From January 1st, 2016, the VAT for accommodation sales increased from 8 to 10 per cent. From January 1st, 2018, VAT increased from 10 to 12 per cent. This may affect some comparability over time. During the COVID-19 pandemic, VAT was reduced to 6 percent, effective from April 1st and throughout the rest of the year.The three purposes of guest nights at hotels are divided as follows,
Course, conference are guests who are at a course or a conference, independent of whether the conference is at the hotel or in the area. If the guest has a joining family member, the family member will be registered as a course, conference guest.Occupation is guests who are traveling for business, contractors, public employees or equivalent, and are staying at a hotel while conducting their business. If family members join, they too will be registered as occupation, even though the family members may be traveling for holiday purposes.
Holiday, recreation are guests who are traveling for holiday or recreation.
Holiday dwellings are self-catering huts/rooms with limited service. The service does not include the making of beds, cleaning of rooms, and sanitary equipment. The establishments must be under the same management, be run on a commercial basis, and have their own reception.
Camping sites are establishments that provide accommodation in caravans, tents and campers. They can also offer accommodation in huts but are classified as holiday dwellings if they have only huts.
The total capacity for a camping site is the total number of huts and areas for tents/caravans or campers, including seasonal contracts.
Seasonal contract: Caravan/tent on seasonal contract means the rent of an area is at a fixed price irrespective of use.
A private cabin/holiday house/apartment/room is one built primarily for private, not commercial, purposes.
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Standard classifications
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The survey is classified according to the Standard Industrial Classification 2007 (SIC2007), a Norwegian adaptation of EUROSTATs NACE standard. For more information, refer to NACE 55 (Accommodation) in https://www.ssb.no/en/klass/klassifikasjoner/6.
Standard for county: https://www.ssb.no/en/klass/klassifikasjoner/104
Standard for municipality: https://www.ssb.no/en/klass/klassifikasjoner/131
Standard for tourism region: https://www.ssb.no/en/klass/klassifikasjoner/527
Standard for region: https://www.ssb.no/en/klass/klassifikasjoner/106
Administrative information
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Regional level
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County, region, tourism region and municipality. Commercial guest nights are published for counties, municipalities, municipality groups and tourism regions. Guest nights in private cabins and holiday houses arranged through Norwegian-registered intermediaries are published for regions.
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Frequency and timeliness
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Monthly. Published 3-4 weeks after the end of the month.
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International reporting
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Data are reported to Eurostat, the UN, and the OECD.
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Microdata
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Microdata is stored in Oracle databases and as SAS files.
Background
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Background and purpose
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The purpose of the statistics is to measure the level and development in the guest nights at Norwegian collective accommodation establishments, which are an important part of the Norwegian tourism industry.
The accommodation statistics for hotels and similar establishments were established in 1950.
The accommodation statistics for camping sites were established in 1968.
The accommodation statistics for holiday dwellings were established in 1998.Statistics for intermediaries of holiday homes were established in 1999. They were initially published annually as intermediaries of cabins.
Figures for Hostelling International Norway were published for the first time in Statistics Norway's annual publication in 1965 and included in Statistics Norway's monthly figures from July 2002. Holiday dwellings and youth hostels were combined in 2020 to enable publishing at county level.
Considerably more respondents were included to the statistics for intermediaries of holiday homes from January 2020 and the survey covers a wider range of holiday homes, not just cabins. From January 2021, these statistics are published under accommodation statistics, and changed from an annual to a monthly publication.
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Users and applications
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Users include public authorities, organizations, consulting firms, research institutions, as well as international organizations like Eurostat.
Knowledge of the tourist traffic to Norway is important for research and for measuring the results of Norwegian marketing efforts abroad and form a basis for the Government's backing of tourism as a growth area.The Division for National Accounts in Statistics Norway is also an important user.
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Equal treatment of users
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No external users have access to the statistics and analyses before they are published and accessible simultaneously for all users on ssb.no at 8 am. Before this, a minimum of three months' advance notice is given in the Statistics Release Calendar.
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Coherence with other statistics
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The Division for National Accounts uses the hotel data in their quarterly publishing.
The accommodation statistics are used to check the quality of the Travel- and Holiday Survey and the Structural Business Statistics for Hotels and Restaurants.
The accommodation statistics are also used for estimates in the quarterly turnover index for transport and tourism.
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Legal authority
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The Statistics Act of 2019, §§10 and 20.
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EEA reference
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Council Regulation (EC) no. 1165/98 of 19 May 1998 concerning short-term statistics.
Regulation (EC) no. 692/2011.
Production
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Population
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The statistics cover all hotels and similar establishments (SIC 55.1), camping sites with a capacity of at least 20 units in total capacity (SIC 55.3), holiday dwellings with a capacity of at least 10 beds, and all youth hostels (SIC 55.2), as well as all Norwegian-registered intermediaries of private homes. The capacity for camping sites includes places for campers, tents and bed places in camping huts.
Hotels: The statistics is based on monthly reporting of data on the number of guest nights by nationality and purpose of the stay. Hotels also report revenue, rooms sold and nationality of the arrivals.
For camping sites, holiday dwellings and youth hostels, the statistics is based on monthly reporting on either the number of unit nights or guest nights, by nationality. Figures are published only on guest nights, using factors reported by the establishments.
Intermediaries of private homes report guest nights monthly. The guest nights are categorized by nationality and by the county the guest nights were in. They also report arrivals. Arrivals here are used only for controlling for logical and mathematical errors.
The nationalities published are in line with the EU regulations, combined with selected countries based on needs by users.
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Data sources and sampling
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Data reported directly from the establishments’ booking systems or internet questionnaires.
Total count all hotels, youth hostels and intermediaries of holiday homes. All camping sites with more than 20 units, and holiday dwellings with more than 10 beds are included in the survey.
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Collection of data, editing and estimations
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The questionnaires are sent out at the end of the month. The response deadline is 10 days after the questionnaire is sent. All questionnaires and all data reported electronically are subject to logic and mathematical checks.
About 2 per cent of the establishments do not respond. For these establishments, the number of guest nights and sales are calculated based on the establishments that responded.
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Seasonal adjustment
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Seasonally adjusted figures for accommodation statistics were first introduced with the publication of the January 2022 statistics. Monthly time series are often characterized by considerable seasonal variations, which might complicate their interpretation. Such time series are therefore subjected to a process of seasonal adjustment to remove these fluctuations. A clearer picture of the time series emerges once the data have been adjusted for seasonal effects.
The accommodation statistics are seasonally adjusted using the X-12 ARIMA method. The series are controlled for seasonality, moving holidays such as Easter and extreme values. For more information on seasonal adjustment: metadata on methods: seasonal adjustment
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Confidentiality
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The accommodation statistics are released according to the directions given in the Statistics Act, section 7-9:
The main rule is that data should not be published if they can be traced back to the respondent, i.e. figures for which less than three respondents make up the foundation for a cell in the table, figures where one respondent represents more than 90 per cent of the total value, or figures where two respondents represent at least 95 per cent of the total value.
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Comparability over time and space
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The hotel statistics were established in 1950. Due to several changes in the scope of the statistics, these are not comparable for the whole period. With the revision of the Hotel Act in 1984, the approval system was removed, and this increased the number of establishments. There have been several other changes, the latest one in 2020. Hotel statistics are however comparable from 1985 to today.
The camping statistics were established in 1968 and the scope has been revised several times. In 1988, a register with information on opening hours and capacity was established, enabling estimates for non-respondents. In 1998, the cover was extended to include overnight stays in caravans on seasonal contracts. The camping statistics were also extended to include the winter and autumn season and to include consecutive monthly publication. The camping statistics are therefore comparable from 1998.
The holiday dwelling statistics were established in 1998 and are comparable from 1998.
Statistics for intermediaries of holiday homes was established in 1999 as intermediaries of holiday cabins. In the period 1999-2005 the statistics covered both Norwegian and foreign intermediaries, but only intermediaries with activity in Norway since 2006. From 2020, the statistics cover more Norwegian intermediaries. These changes compromise comparability over time over the whole period.
Figures for Svalbard were included in 2013.
In January 2013 the production of the statistics changed considerably, with new cut-offs based on international regulations. Establishments were now defined by the Business Register. This led to significantly more establishments in the population.
From January 2017, reporting of accommodation statistics switched to the digital ALTINN platform. This transition came with changes to the questionnaire. The list of countries was expanded and the category ‘The rest of Europe’ removed. More countries have subsequently been added, affecting the category ‘The rest of Asia’. Reporting directly from establishments’ booking systems was also made possible.
Statistics Norway continually works to improve reporting of data, and the quality of statistics will gradually improve along with this.
Accuracy and reliability
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Sources of error and uncertainty
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Incorrect responding can occur due to incorrect data entry, interpretational errors, and other reasons. As a result, figures will occasionally be edited.
Measurement errors are caused by the questionnaire design or the respondent’s internal systems for obtaining the data. One source of measurement errors may be ambiguous guidelines. The introduction of electronic data collection has reduced the scope of measurement errors.
Processing errors may occur when Statistics Norway processes the data. Typical examples are misinterpretations, or when correct answers are assumed to be false and corrected. Electronic data collection through Altinn reduces these kinds of errors.
Errors of non-response refer to errors that either occur due to missing questionnaires or blank boxes in the questionnaire. In this situation, respondents are re-contacted.
Sampling errors refer to the uncertainty that occurs in sample surveys as opposed to a full count. These errors are not relevant for intermediaries of holiday homes since all active units are included in the survey.
Coverage errors refer to errors in the registers that define the population. Units may be incorrectly included in or excluded from the population, usually because of delayed register updates. Calculations on the size and significance of such errors have not yet been carried out. However, such errors are not considered to be greater than for other quantitative short-term statistics.
Modeling errors are related primarily to problems with seasonal adjustment of time series. This survey does not publish seasonally adjusted statistics.
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Revision
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Not relevant.