Traveller Accommodation Services Price Index (TASPI)

Detailed information for fourth quarter 2018

Status:

Inactive

Frequency:

Quarterly

Record number:

2336

The Traveller Accommodation Services Price Index is a monthly series measuring the price change for short-term accommodation services. Data are collected for leisure and business clients and are used to estimate monthly and quarterly price indexes for the short-term traveller accommodation services industry.

Data release - February 15, 2019

Description

The Traveller Accommodation Services Price Index (TASPI) is a monthly series measuring the price change for short-term accommodation services. These services comprise the provision of rooms for an overnight or short stay without any meals or other services (i.e. parking, Internet, etc.). The index reflects changes in room rates excluding all taxes, and covers hotel and motel lodging services.

The TASPI is a useful indicator of the economic activity in the short-term traveller accommodation services industry and the tourism sector in general. The series can also be used as a measure of one important component of the business travel cost. In addition, the TASPI is used by the Canadian System of National Accounts for the estimation of the real value of the gross output of the short-term traveller accommodation service industry through deflation.

Statistical activity

These indexes are a part of the Services Producer Price Index program (SPPI) at Statistics Canada.

The SPPI program develops and produces price indexes for a wide range of business service categories. This initiative fills an important data gap in the area of economic statistics and has resulted in a more comprehensive set of service price indexes. It also allows Statistics Canada to produce more accurate estimates of real value added of the Gross Domestic Product and changes in productivity.

Reference period: The time period for which the TASPI equals 100; currently this is the year 2013.

Collection period: The TASPI collection process occurs in such a way that each collected price during the collection month corresponds to a booking made for a two-week fixed time interval before the occupancy date.

Subjects

  • Accommodation and food
  • Business, consumer and property services
  • Prices and price indexes
  • Service price indexes
  • Travel and tourism

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The survey universe consists of all establishments involved in the short-term traveller accommodation services industry as identified in the Statistics Canada Business Register. The covered services fall under, the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), industry group 7211 - Traveller accommodation (72111 - Hotels (except casino hotels) and motels, 72112 - Casino hotels and 72119 - Other traveller accommodation).

Instrument design

The data are collected from Internet for a selection of representative short-term traveller accommodation services.

Sampling

This is a sample survey with a longitudinal design.

The matched sample for the TASPI is selected from the target population described above. The sample consists of 482 establishments allocated by geographic strata across Canada, in such a way as to ensure good quality estimates for all provinces and territories. Within each stratum, a sample of representative establishments were selected proportional to the accommodation revenues.

Data sources

The price data are collected monthly from the Internet. The collection mode based entirely on Internet reflects changes in the market and the behaviour of clients.

Each collected price corresponds to a booking made for a two-week fixed time interval in advance of the occupancy date. This helps to eliminate fluctuations in price resulting from varying advance-booking periods for different reference periods.

The price collected represents the amount received by an establishment (excluding taxes) for offering short-term accommodation services (overnight or short stay) for a specific room and for determined client groups:

- For the leisure clients group, the price represents the regular (or standard) daily rate, for one room booked two weeks in advance for double occupancy (by two adults) on the third Saturday of the collection month.

- For the business clients group, the price represents the business (or corporate) daily rate, for one room booked two weeks in advance for single occupancy (by one adult) on the third Wednesday of the collection month.

Error detection

Error detection is conducted at the time of data collection and also during post collection processing, using a set of systematized error detection procedures to identify outliers and possible reporting anomalies. Records that fail these edits are reviewed for editing and correction when necessary or edit failure may trigger a follow-up with the respondent.

Time and effort is devoted to keeping the specifications constant such that only the pure changes in price are tracked. Some information is also collected in order to ensure, as much as possible, that the collected data correspond to the same specifications over time. This constant quality price then feeds into the Canadian System of Macroeconomic Accounts (CSMA) estimates of constant dollar Gross Domestic Product (GDP).

Imputation

Missing data are generally estimated by a systematized imputation process. In any given period, price data may not be available for estimation. In such cases, missing data are imputed using the average price movement of remaining units within the same stratum (overall mean or targeted mean imputation method).

Estimation

Prices
The price is defined as a transaction price and represents the amount received by an establishment (excluding taxes) for offering short-term accommodation services (overnight or short stay) for a specific room and for determined client groups.

Weights
The weights used for the TASPI estimation correspond to the aggregated revenues calculated at the geographical stratum level. The weights come from the Statistics Canada Annual Survey of Services Industries - Accommodation Services (survey number 2418). The weight reference period is currently 2013. Weights are updated during a sample/basket update which typically occurs every 5 years. The last update occurred with the release of first quarter 2016 data.

Indexes
Estimates are produced by calculating a weighted average of price relatives, which are chained together to form an index series. The TASPI is a Laspeyres chain linked index.

The commonly used unweighted geometric mean formula is used to calculate average price changes at the lowest aggregation level.

Linking
With the introduction of a new basket, historical estimates are linked to the new basket by maintaining the same historical monthly changes. This is done by calculating a link factor for each index series as the ratio of the new index series (2013=100) in the overlap period to the old index series (2012/01=100). This link factor is then applied to the old index series to bring it up or down to the level of the new index series.

The overlap period for TASPI is currently December 2015.

Quality evaluation

An in-depth assessment of quality is conducted prior to the dissemination of estimates. This assessment is based on two key elements of quality (accuracy and coherence), as defined in Statistics Canada's guidelines for the validation of statistical outputs.

The survey's data collection strategy is designed to ensure that targeted response rates are met every cycle. Analysts pay close attention to this metric and take the appropriate measures to ensure that the survey's coverage is thorough. Particular attention is also given to ensuring that sampled products or services are representative of actual transactions taking place in the market. These two activities, fundamental to the overall quality of the estimates, are done consistently.

Analysts also undertake additional validation activities every cycle to ensure the coherence of survey estimates. These activities include the analysis of price changes period-over-period and the analysis of trends at the business/company, industry, subsector and sector levels, the certification of key contributors to price change as well as the confrontation of estimates against other related data sources. Contextual analysis of survey results is also performed in light of prevailing economic conditions.

Engagements with relevant stakeholders are also undertaken periodically. Forums involving other Statistics Canada analysts, industry stakeholders and partners at other national and international statistical agencies provide valuable insight into the development and research agenda of the program.

Disclosure control

Statistics Canada is prohibited by law from releasing any information it collects which could identify any person, business, or organization, unless consent has been given by the respondent or as permitted by the Statistics Act. In order to calculate price indexes, various transformations are applied to all collected price data such that it is not possible to identify the raw price data obtained from respondents. Confidentiality rules are also applied to price indexes that are released or published to prevent the publication or disclosure of any information deemed confidential. If necessary, data are suppressed to prevent direct or residual disclosure of identifiable data.

Revisions and seasonal adjustment

The index is not subject to revision and not seasonally adjusted.

Data accuracy

The statistical accuracy of this index depends on price and weight data obtained from sample surveys. Each type of input data is subject to its own errors. Also, sampling errors occur when observations are made only on a sample and not on the entire population.

All other errors that arise from the various survey phases are referred to as non-sampling errors. For example, non-sampling errors can occur when a respondent provides incorrect information or does not answer certain questions; when a unit in the target population is omitted or covered more than once; when an out of scope unit is included by mistake or when errors occur in data processing, such as coding or capture errors.

Processing procedures for editing and imputation are in place to ensure the quality of data. Consequently, the aggregate indices at all levels are considered to be statistically reliable.

Response rate
The TASPI uses data collected from Internet based on a survey methodology designed to control for errors and reduce their effect on estimates. A systematized imputation process is used to impute for the non-response portion of the sample, achieving an effective 100% coverage. Non-response bias is also minimized during the same process.

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