Annual Survey of Traveller Accommodation

Detailed information for 1999

Status:

Active

Frequency:

Annual

Record number:

2418

This survey collects business operating information for statistical and economic analysis for traveler accommodation services.

Data release - December 12, 2001

Description

This survey collects business operating information for statistical and economic analysis of establishments classified to sub-sector 721 (Traveller Accommodation) according to the North American Industrial Classification System (NAICS) (e.g, hotels, motels, resorts, bed and breakfasts, outfitters, camping grounds, and other establishments providing accommodation for travellers). The data are used by business operators and associations for market analysis and assessment of industry performance, operating characteristics and trends; by governments to develop national and regional economic policies; by agencies such as the Canadian Tourism Commission for analysis and policy making and for providing valuable statistics and information feedback to the industries; and by Statistics Canada for maintaining important data input to the preparation of the Canadian System of National Accounts.

Reference period: Calendar year

Subjects

  • Accommodation and food
  • Business, consumer and property services
  • Business performance and ownership
  • Financial statements and performance

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The target population consists of all statistical establishments (sometimes referred to as firms or units) classified as Accommodation Services (NAICS 721) according to the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) during the reference year.

Sampling

This is a sample survey.

Survey Design

The survey design covered only the portion of the frame subject to direct data collection. Prior to the selection of a random sample, units are grouped in homogeneous groups defined using industrial (NAICS) and geographic (province/territory) attributes. Similar quality requirements are targeted for each group which is then divided into four sub-group called strata: must-take, take-all, large take-some and small take-some.

The take-all stratum includes the largest firms in terms of industrial performance, which are selected in the sample with certainty making such units self-representing. The must-take stratum is also comprised of self-representing units that have a complex structure (multi-establishments, multi-legal, multi-NAICS or multi-province enterprises). Units in the two take-some strata are subjected to a random sample where each sampled firm represents a number of other, similar firms in the industry/province combination according to the inverse of their probability of selection.

Finally, the size of the sample was increased to compensate for such situations as non-response and firms which cannot be contacted because they have moved or gone out of business. The resulting sample size for this survey after removing firms that should not have been included in the frame (out of scope, duplicate records or out of business) was 2421 companies.

Data sources

Responding to this survey is mandatory.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents and extracted from administrative files.

Data are collected through a mail-out/mail-back process, while providing respondents with the option of telephone or other electronic filing methods.

Follow-up procedures are applied when a questionnaire has not been received after a pre-specified period.

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s).

Imputation

Several checks are performed on the data to verify internal consistency and identify extreme values. For non-response, imputation is performed using a "nearest neighbour" procedure (donor imputation) using available auxiliary information to substitute the data from a company with similar characteristics. In addition to the donor imputation approach, imputation can also be done using historical responses.

Estimation

Prior to estimation, data for companies with production in more than one province or territory were allocated to the provincial level The survey data collected from the sample were then weighted using the inverse of the probability of selection of each sampled unit to produce estimates representative of the target population. Administrative data were used to estimate the portion that was excluded from survey activity (i.e. unincorporated firms and incorporated firms with revenue less than $50,000).

The combined survey results were analyzed before publication; in general this included a detailed review of the individual responses (especially for the largest companies), a review of general economic conditions as well as historic trends and comparisons with tax data information and other administrative data sources (e.g. industry and trade associations).

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. Various confidentiality rules are applied to all data 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.

Data accuracy

While considerable effort was made to ensure high standards throughout all collection and processing operations, the resulting estimates are inevitably subject to a certain degree of error. These errors can be broken down into two major types: sampling and non-sampling .

Non-sampling errors are not related to sampling and may occur for many reasons. For example, non-response is an important source of non-sampling error. Population coverage, differences in the interpretation of questions, incorrect information from respondents, mistakes in recording, coding and processing of data are other examples of non-sampling errors.

The response rate for this survey was 76%, after taking into account the fact that some firms were no longer in business, or had changed their primary business activity.

Sampling errors can occur because estimates are derived from a sample of the population rather than the entire population. These errors depend on factors such as sample size, sampling design and the method of estimation. An important property of probability sampling is that sampling errors can be computed from the sample itself by using a statistical measure called the coefficient of variation (CV). Over repeated surveys, the relative difference between a sample estimate and the estimate that would have been obtained from an enumeration of all the units would be less than twice the coefficient of variation, 95 times out of 100. Confidence intervals can be constructed around the estimate using the CV's. First, we calculate the standard error by multiplying the sample estimate by the CV. The sample estimate plus or minus twice the standard error is then referred to as 95% confidence interval.

For the 1999 Annual Survey of Traveller Accommodation, CVs were calculated for each estimate. Generally, the more commonly reported variables obtained very good CVs (10% or less) while the less commonly reported variables were associated with higher but still acceptable CVs (under 25%). These CVs are available upon request.

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