Published on : Sunday, June 15, 2014
It is said that statistics are like bikinis which hide more than they reveal.
The tourism industry in Nova Scotia tells us that it is a $2-billion source of expenditures in the province.
But readers may be surprised by what kind of spending is included in those numbers and how the calculations are made.
In fact, tourism’s economic impact is notoriously difficult to measure. Restaurants and shops do not record whether a patron is from around the corner or around the world. Tourists are often from other parts of the province.
Someone from Halifax visiting Yarmouth or Louisbourg is just as much a tourist as someone from Boston.
To get a number requires two sets of data. First, the number of people entering the province is counted at airports, ferry landings, and border crossings.
Second, an estimate of average expenditures per person is developed by surveying visitors.
Adding the two gives an estimated figure of $1.18 billion for out-of-province visitors.
The process is repeated for Nova Scotians, with the estimated number of trips and average expenditures developed by another set of surveys. This adds $0.84 billion.
The practice in Nova Scotia is consistent with national and international standards, but that does not make it any more precise.
Most pictures we see from tourism advocates show leisure travellers enjoying outdoor experiences away from Halifax.
Those visitors to rural Nova Scotia represent much less than half of what is counted in tourism. Consider this:
1. Most (54 per cent) of the spending is in Halifax.
2. “Tourism” includes people travelling for business or leisure. In Halifax, one operator estimates that 70 per cent of room nights are for business travel.
These are, of course, no less valuable but not what most people think of when they are talking about tourism.
3. Of the $2 billion spent, about $800,000 is for accommodation, food and recreation. These represent high-value consumption of local products and services.
The rest is made up of groceries and other shopping and transportation, including flights.
4. Amazingly, any non-routine trip by a Nova Scotian of more than 40 km counts as tourism.
Thus, your gas money counts if you travel from Halifax to Middleton to visit Aunt Thelma. So will your car repair if you have a problem en route.
If you drive in from Truro for a day’s shopping at Dartmouth Crossing, you will also count what you spent at Best Buy or the Mattress Gallery.
The rural tourism business is highly seasonal.
The occupancy rate of accommodations outside of Halifax is three times as high in May till October as it is in the other half of the year.
The resulting jobs are mostly seasonal and many of them are low-wage.
They are good for students and as second incomes in a household, but do not form a hub around which an economy can be built.
Tags: Tourism
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