News Release
Travel and Tourism Satellite Accounts, 1st quarter 2014
Travel and Tourism Spending Turned Down in the First Quarter of 2014
Real spending on travel and tourism turned down in the first quarter of 2014, decreasing at an annual rate of 1.0 percent after increasing 4.5 percent (revised) in the fourth quarter of 2013. Growth in real gross domestic product (GDP) also experienced a downturn, decreasing 2.9 percent (third estimate) in the first quarter after increasing 2.6 percent in the fourth quarter.
The leading contributors to the downturn in the first quarter were “recreation and entertainment,” and “food services and drinking places.” “Recreation and entertainment” turned down, decreasing 11.2 percent in the first quarter after increasing 0.9 percent in the fourth quarter. “Food services and drinking places” also turned down in the first quarter, decreasing 3.5 percent after increasing 7.4 percent in the fourth quarter. Partially offsetting these downturns, “all other transportation-related commodities” turned up.
Tourism Prices. Overall growth in prices for travel and tourism goods and services turned up in the first quarter of 2014, increasing 2.3 percent following a 0.2 percent (revised) decrease in the fourth quarter. The upturn was mainly attributable to an upturn in prices for “traveler accommodations,” which increased 13.2 percent in the first quarter after decreasing 8.0 percent in the fourth quarter. In contrast, prices for “passenger air transportation” turned down, decreasing 5.5 percent in the first quarter after increasing 7.0 percent in the fourth quarter.
Total Tourism-Related Spending was $1.5 trillion in the first quarter of 2014. It consisted of $873.1 billion (58 percent) of direct tourism spending and $625.7 billion (42 percent) of indirect tourism-related spending.
Total Tourism-Related Employment was 7.7 million jobs in the first quarter of 2014 and consisted of 5.4 million (71 percent) direct tourism jobs and 2.3 million (29 percent) indirect tourism-related jobs.
Definitions
Tourism employment. Total tourism-related employment consists of direct tourism employment plus indirect tourism employment. Direct tourism employment comprises all jobs where the workers are engaged in the production of direct tourism output (for example, hotel staff and airline pilots), and indirect tourism employment comprises all jobs where the workers are engaged in the production of indirect tourism output (for example, workers producing hotel toiletries and delivering fuel to airlines).
Tourism spending. Total tourism-related spending consists of direct tourism output and indirect tourism output. Direct tourism output comprises all domestically produced goods and services purchased by travelers (for example, traveler accommodations and passenger air transportation), and indirect tourism output comprises all output required to support the production of direct tourism output (for example, toiletries for hotel guests and fuel for airplanes).
These statistics are from BEA’s Travel and Tourism Satellite Accounts (TTSAs), which are supported by funding from the Office of Travel and Tourism Industries, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce. The current-price statistics of direct tourism output were derived from BEA’s annual TTSAs and from current-price quarterly statistics of personal consumption expenditures from the National Income and Product Accounts (NIPAs). The real statistics of direct tourism output were developed using price indexes from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) and real quarterly statistics of personal consumption expenditures from the NIPAs. The statistics of direct tourism employment were derived from the annual TTSAs (revised in June 2014) from BEA, the Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages (QCEW), and Current Employment Statistics (CES) from BLS.
Quarterly statistics are seasonally adjusted and expressed at annual rates, unless otherwise specified. Percent changes are calculated from unrounded data and annualized. Real values are in chained (2009) dollars. Price indexes are Fisher chain-type measures. Growth in overall U.S. employment is calculated using BLS total nonfarm employment from Current Employment Statistics, www.bls.gov/ces/home.htm#data.
These statistics reflect the annual TTSA revision released in the June 2014 Survey of Current Business. The annual TTSA revision incorporated revised Input-Output (I-O) accounts for 1998 through 2011 and the preliminary I-O accounts for 2012. The revisions integrated source data that were more complete and more detailed than those previously available. Additionally, these estimates reflect unique travel and tourism-specific source data available on an annual basis only.
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Next release – Travel and Tourism statistics for second quarter 2014 will be released on Thursday, September 18, 2014 at 8:30 A.M. EDT.