Key tourism concepts

23.18    Tourism expenditure, purchasers’ prices (PP): The amount visitors pay for the acquisition of goods and services, for own use or to give away, for and during tourism trips. It includes expenditures by visitors themselves, as well as expenses that are paid for or reimbursed by others. (IRTS 2008, para. 4.2).

23.19    Tourism consumption, purchasers’ prices: Tourism consumption is broader in scope than expenditure. It includes imputations for the consumption by visitors of certain services for which they do not make an economically significant payment.  Imputed consumption in the Australian TSA include:

• Housing services provided by vacation homes on own account (imputed services of holiday homes deemed to be consumed by their visitor owners).
• Values of non-market services provided directly to visitors such as public museums or tourist information centres even though these may be provided free or at a price which is not economically significant.

23.20    Tourism output, basic prices (BP): The value of products produced that serve visitors before any taxes and margins on tourism products are added (or any subsidies on tourism products are deducted). Direct tourism output directly serves visitors, while indirect tourism output is produced by entities that do not maintain a direct relationship with tourists. 

23.21    Tourism gross value added (GVA): Tourism GVA is measured as the value of the output at basic prices of tourism products by industries in a direct relationship with visitors less the value of the intermediate inputs used in producing these tourism products.

23.22    Tourism net taxes on products: Taxes less subsidies that are levied on the sale or transfer of goods and services that are directly related to a transaction with a visitor. Downstream taxes on products such as import duties are not considered a direct tourism tax on products.

23.23    Tourism gross domestic product (GDP): Direct tourism GDP measures the sum of direct tourism GVA, plus direct taxes on products less direct subsidies on products associated with tourism expenditure. Direct tourism GDP is a thematic account construct to enable a comparison with the most widely recognised national accounting indicator, GDP.

23.24    Margins on tourism products: The output generated from delivering a product from the producer to the final consumer. 

23.25    Tourism imports: Domestic consumption of products in the visitor economy that are produced overseas. Amounts payable to non-residents for the provision of tourism services to residents is excluded from the tourism estimate.

23.26    Tourism employment: A job becomes a tourism-related job when it has a direct impact on tourism activity. A direct impact occurs where there is a direct relationship (physical and economic) between a visitor and the worker. Jobs can be measured as:

• The main job of a person: If a person is employed in multiple jobs only the main job is included.
• Filled jobs: This measure is based on the number of jobs held by people employed in main jobs as well as secondary jobs.

23.27    Inbound trips: Trips undertaken by a non-resident visitor to Australia. Only consumption within Australia is included in the TSA.

23.28    Outbound trips: Trips undertaken by Australian residents travelling to another country. Only consumption within Australia before and after the international trip is included in the TSA.

23.29    Balance of payments tourism related services credits are closely related to exports of tourism goods and services in the estimates of the value of domestically produced goods and services presented in the Tourism Consumption by Non-residents on Inbound Trips. The most significant differences occur because the Australian TSA excludes the expenditure of overseas students with a length of stay of greater than one year and non-resident to resident transactions which occur in other countries (e.g. for the delivery of services by Australian residents in other countries). 

23.30    In the context of the Australian TSA, a product is considered a country-specific tourism characteristic product if visitors consume at least 25% of its total output.

23.31    Tourism connected products are those that are consumed by visitors in significant amounts but are not considered as tourism characteristic products. All products that are not consumed by visitors in a significant amount are classified as 'all other goods and services' in the TSA.

23.32    These industries are defined as those that would either cease to exist in their current form or would be significantly impacted if tourism were to cease. 

23.33    In the context of the Australian TSA, an industry is considered a country-specific tourism characteristic industry if visitors consume at least 25% of its output. 

23.34    Tourism connected industries are those, other than tourism characteristic industries, for which a tourism related product is directly identifiable to it, and where the products are consumed by visitors in volumes which are significant for the visitor and/or the producer. All other industries are classified as 'all other industries', though some of their products may be consumed by visitors and are included in the calculation of direct tourism GVA and direct tourism GDP.

Domestic Tourism Statistics (DoTS)

23.35    Key use of data:  Informs domestic tourism expenditure at purchasers’ prices for Australian residents.

International Visitor Survey (IVS)

23.36    Key use of data:  Informs expenditure at purchasers’ prices for international visitors in Australia.

Balance of Payments and International Investment Position, Australia

23.37    Key use of data:  Informs expenditure on airline services from resident entities and the value of education exports.

Australian System of National Accounts

23.38    Key use of data:  Informs whole of economy estimates for Australian production and GVA for direct comparison with tourism estimates.

Australian National Accounts: Input-Output Tables

23.39    Key use of data: Informs basic prices, margins, and taxes on products to purchasers’ price ratios.

Australian National Accounts: Supply Use Tables

23.40    Key use of data:

• Informs primary input to output calculations.
• Informs consumption of items where market prices are not available, for example the value of services offered by tourist information centres and public art galleries.
• Informs the industries producing each tourism product.

Economic Activity Survey (EAS)

23.41    Key use of data: Informs primary input to output calculations for industries where other data sources do not have sufficient detail.

Labour Account, Australia

23.42    Key use of data:

• Provides whole of economy employment estimates by industry.
• Provides whole of economy hours worked by industry.

Labour Force, Australia 

23.42    Key use of data:

• Informs male/female and part-time/full-time job ratios.

Overseas arrivals and departures (OAD)

23.43    Key use of data:

• Used in calculating the average spend per international visitor.
• Informs calculations for consumption of items where market prices are not available.  

Deriving tourism output at purchasers’ prices

23.43    Estimates of tourism expenditure are provided via the DoTS and IVS, with some exceptions. As the DoTS replaced the National Visitor Survey (NVS) in 2025, the NVS data has been used to backcast DoTS data to the start of the time series, based on movements in expenditure by category, by trip purpose and total expenditure. 

23.44    Data for airfare and education expenditure by international visitors is obtained from balance of payments while the purchase of motor vehicles by domestic visitors is modelled using a range of sources and assumptions. In addition, information from the national accounts is used to derive consumption estimates for goods and services provided to visitors at discounted prices or for free.

23.45    Tourism output at purchasers’ prices is derived for international visitors, and domestic visitors split by household and business/government.

Deriving tourism output at basic prices

23.46    National accounts input-output tables are used to inform ratios of basic prices, margins, taxes, and subsidies for each product to output at purchasers’ prices. This process uses data specifically related to household final consumption expenditure. These ratios are then applied to tourism output at purchasers’ prices estimates. The margin components of the above process that have a direct relationship to visitors (retail margins and some wholesale and transport margins), are added on to tourism output at basic prices and allocated to the appropriate margin product.

23.47    For each tourism product, Australian production and import estimates are divided by total tourism production at basic prices (from input-output tables) to generate ratios. These ratios are multiplied by the tourism supply at basic prices to estimate Australian production and import estimates of products produced to serve the visitor economy at basic prices.

23.48    The supply matrix in the national accounts supply-use tables is used to inform product level ratios of industry supply at basic prices. These ratios are applied to tourism output at basic prices by product. This provides tourism output by industry.

23.49    Direct and indirect tourism output is allocated according to the dimensions of the industry and product being provided. 

23.50    Regarding the direct and indirect allocation of tourism taxes on products, all taxes on service products are categorised as direct taxes. In the case of goods, the ratio of downstream taxes to total taxes is calculated from the input-output tables and then applied to the tourism taxes on products estimate. These downstream taxes are assigned to indirect taxes with the remaining amounts classified as direct taxes.

Deriving total intermediate use and gross value added

23.51    Ratios of total industry intermediate Use (TIU) to the total output at basic prices for each industry are calculated from the supply-use tables. These ratios are then applied to the industry-level direct tourism output at basic prices, resulting in the industry-level gross value added (GVA) and TIU of the tourism economy. 

Deriving tourism employment

23.52    The tourism GVA is divided by the total GVA for each industry to calculate a tourism GVA ratio. This ratio is then applied to the employment (filled jobs and main jobs) estimates for each industry to determine the corresponding figures for tourism. The employment estimates for each industry are sourced from the Australian Labour Account. 

23.53    The Labour Force Survey (LFS) provides part-time, full-time, male, and female employment statistics for each industry. These data are used to split the tourism estimates of filled jobs and main jobs.

Deriving tourism chain volume measures

23.54    Tourism GVA chain volume estimates are derived from tourism output minus tourism intermediate use in prices of the previous period. A volume index is then compiled, and this index is chained taking account of the price relativities from year to year. The index is then converted to chain volume values by using the current price index ratio from the reference year.

23.55    Refer to the methodology page for more information.