Country experience: Portugal

14.227.        The framework designed in Portugal to compile travel statistics is to a large extent based on the instruments used to pay for travel expenditures, that is to say (a) payment cards, (b) traveller’s cheques and (c) cash.  Regarding transactions settled in cash, the introduction of the euro resulted in an additional difficulty for compilers, particularly in the euro area countries. It is necessary to estimate those expenditures and that estimation can be quite challenging, since the use of cash differs according to the type of good or service acquired by travellers. 

14.228.        The selection of the data sources mentioned above to use in such a framework depends upon the moment of payment of the expenditure, pre-payment or  local payment, and upon the channel used to book and/or pay for travel arrangements: (a) direct reservation or (b) reservation made through a travel agency or tour operator (resident or non-resident). The approach and sources selected for compiling travel credits and debits may be somewhat different, taking into account that the scope of data sources available and the degree of coverage that is possible to obtain from each data source individually can differ for the credit and the debit sides. 

14.229.        Tables 14.6 and 14.7 present an overview of the main sources selected for each combination of channel, moment of payment and payment instrument used. The combinations showed in the tables are the ones that are more likely to occur. For example, the pre-payment of a trip booked through a direct reservation channel most probably will not be performed in cash. Therefore, that alternative was excluded from both tables.

Back to B.2. Passenger transport and travel