INTRODUCTION

The Survey of Tourist Accommodation (STA) is a census of all in-scope accommodation establishments with 15 or more rooms. The STA frame is based on accommodation lists provided by industry. For 2014-15 a new source was used, with a frame being provided by STR Global, a company that tracks supply and demand data for the hotel industry. A comparison of the STR Global list with the existing STA frame (in combination with undertaking standard STA frame maintenance procedures) resulted in the identification and subsequent addition of 279 new establishments to the STA beginning with the September quarter 2014. These establishments comprised of 105 hotels, 75 motels and 99 serviced apartments.

By including the additional 279 establishments this has changed the level of the estimates from the September quarter 2014. Therefore data up to and including June quarter 2014 is not strictly comparable with data from September quarter 2014, constituting a break in series. The extent of the impact varies by geographic region. As can be seen in the table below, New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland account for over 80% of the establishments added to the frame.

Table 1: Number of establishments added as a result of 2014-15 Frame Maintenance process, State/territory, September quarter 2014
	Hotels and resorts	Motels, private hotels and guest houses	Serviced apartments	Hotels, motels and serviced apartments
New South Wales	35	26	12	73
Victoria	23	12	15	50
Queensland	23	24	58	105
South Australia	5	5	3	13
Western Australia	8	3	5	16
Tasmania	2	2	1	5
Northern Territory	5	2	1	8
Australian Capital Territory	4	2	4	9
Australia	105	75	99	279

The effect of the break in series on key data items for the separate activity types of hotels, motels and serviced apartments is shown in the following tables.

Table 2 shows that there were 17,828 additional rooms added to the STA frame for establishments in-scope as at the September quarter 2014 (which is equivalent to 7.2% of the total number of rooms available as at the September quarter 2014).

Table 2: Contribution of additional establishments to Activity, Australia, September quarter 2014
	Rooms			Room nights occupied			Takings from accommodation
	Total	Additional	Contribution to total	Total	Additional	Contribution to total	Total	Additional	Contribution to total
	no.	no.	%	'000	'000	%	$'000	$'000	%
Hotels and resorts	96 791	8 297	8.6	6 437.4	546.2	8.5	1 195 915.7	90 136.4	7.5
Motels, private hotels and serviced apartments	86 650	2 528	2.9	4 404.3	129.4	2.9	580 212.1	14 339.9	2.5
Serviced apartments	63 217	7 003	11.1	3 940.2	447.0	11.3	697 271.7	78 349.0	11.2
Hotels, motels and serviced apartments	246 658	17 828	7.2	14 782.0	1 122.6	7.6	2 473 399.5	182 825.3	7.4

Table 3 shows that the additional 279 establishments contributed $182.8m (7.4%) of total takings from accommodation for Australia in the September quarter 2014.

Table 3: Contribution of additional establishments to selected data items, Hotels, motels and serviced apartments, State/territory, September quarter 2014
	Rooms			Room nights occupied			Takings from accommodation
	Total	Additional	Contribution to total	Total	Additional	Contribution to total	Total	Additional	Contribution to total
	no.	no.	%	'000	'000	%	$'000	$'000	%
New South Wales	74 615	4 329	5.8	4 479.2	281.1	6.3	753 697.4	41 059.8	5.4
Victoria	47 895	4 420	9.2	2 898.3	283.0	9.8	503 181.3	46 376.0	9.2
Queensland	66 166	5 255	7.9	4 067.4	327.9	8.1	650 078.6	52 965.3	8.1
South Australia	13 539	630	4.7	741.8	27.4	3.7	102 973.3	4 348.7	4.2
Western Australia	23 065	975	4.2	1 332.1	54.6	4.1	242 565.2	9 964.6	4.1
Tasmania	6 891	206	3.0	300.3	9.3	3.1	41 395.3	1 441.5	3.5
Northern Territory	8 528	1 060	12.4	587.9	81.7	13.9	117 934.4	17 386.9	14.7
Australian Capital Territory	5 959	953	16.0	374.8	57.6	15.4	61 573.7	9 282.3	15.1
Australia	246 658	17 828	7.2	14 782.0	1 122.6	7.6	2 473 399.5	182 825.3	7.4

DERIVED ITEMS

A number of STA data items are calculated by the ABS after data has been collected from providers. These items are derived by dividing one collected data item into another. The data items are:

• Bed occupancy rate
• Room occupancy rate
• Room nights available
• Guest nights available
• Average takings per room night occupied
• Average takings per room night available

Both the numerator and denominator used to calculate these items have been affected by the additional 279 establishments to a similar extent. Therefore the addition of the 279 establishments has a minimal effect on the calculation of these data items. Thus a break in series has not occurred for the derived data items.

PERCENTAGE CHANGES

As noted earlier, the addition of the 279 establishments increased the level of the series beginning with the September quarter 2014, constituting a break in series. When calculating percentage changes over time care needs to be taken to ensure the effect of the break in series is taken into account.

Tables 6 to 12 contain factors for use when calculating percentage changes. These factors were calculated by dividing September quarter 2014 estimates including the 279 additional establishments, by the September quarter 2014 estimates excluding the additional establishments. These factors adjust the level of the series prior to September quarter 2014 to take account of the missing 279 establishments.

Care should be taken when calculating percentage changes as not all 279 additional establishments may have been open in the quarter to which the factor is being applied. By using the factor to add the 279 establishments to the data, the estimate may be increased to a figure which is more than it should be. This will result in the percentage change between that quarter and September quarter 2014 being under-estimated.

Users should contact the National Information and Referral Service on 1300 135 070 for further information on the contribution of the additional establishments to earlier quarters.

The method for calculating the percentage change is shown by the example below. Takings from accommodation data can be found in Tables 1 and 2 of this publication. Factors for original data can be found in Table 12 of the Technical note tables.

Table 4: Total takings from accommodation and adjustment factors, Hotels, motels and serviced apartments, Australia
	Original	Seasonally adjusted	Trend
	$'000	$'000	$'000
September 2013	2 257 737	2 234 490	2 248 666
December 2013	2 372 980	2 251 708	2 242 944
March 2014	2 263 251	2 234 823	2 241 390
June 2014	2 088 554	2 260 053	2 256 150
September 2014	2 473 400	2 446 080	2 461 764
December 2014	2 652 268	2 512 927	2 493 160
March 2015	2 568 752	2 536 253	2 512 318
June 2015	2 319 157	2 509 921	2 522 673
Factors
September 2014	1.07982
December 2014	1.07837
March 2015	1.07592
June 2015	1.08070

ORIGINAL DATA

To calculate the percentage change between September quarter 2013 and September quarter 2014 for takings from accommodation the following steps are undertaken:

Step 1:
Multiply the September quarter 2013 figure by the appropriate factor to obtain an adjusted September quarter 2013 figure
$2 257 737 x 1.07982 = $2 437 950

Step 2:
Calculate the percentage change in the usual manner except in this case use the adjusted September quarter 2013 figure
($2 473 400/$2 437 950 - 1) x 100 = 1.45%

This same methodology applies for all calculations of percentage changes that cross the break in series (ie September quarter 2014). Factors are not needed when calculating percentage changes before the break in series.

TREND AND SEASONALLY ADJUSTED ESTIMATES

The inclusion of the additional 279 establishments has resulted in a break in series for takings from accommodation in both trend and seasonally adjusted terms. Care should be taken when calculating percentage changes to ensure the effect of the break in series is taken into account. The same methodology as described above should be applied to these data to calculate percentage changes.

As the break in series does not impact derived data items, the factors in Table 12 need only be applied to takings from accommodation.

MONTHLY DATA

The additional 279 establishments have been added into each month of the September quarter 2014 (ie July, August, September). Therefore the break in series has occurred between the months of June and July 2014. When calculating percentage changes, the appropriate quarterly factor should be used to adjust monthly data in respect of the break in series.

TABLES

Technical note tables can be found on the downloads page.

Table 5 shows the sub-state geographic distribution of the additional 279 establishments. Factors for use when calculating percentage changes are contained in Tables 6 to 12. Please note that some Tourism Region data contained within Tables 6 to 12 has been suppressed in line with standard ABS confidentiality procedures. In cases where data has been suppressed due to the small number of establishments involved, the impact is not considered significant on the Tourism Region data and is consistent with the practices followed under standard STA frame maintenance procedures in previous releases.