Understanding Tourism Indicators

You can use these insights to gain a clearer picture of current tourism markets and make predictions for the coming year. While there’s no way to know for certain what the future holds, data can provide some tangible insights into key markets, behaviours, and trends. You can use this information to inform key decisions when business planning.

These insights can help you:

Compare year-over-year and annual growth to understand potential regional tourism in peak vs. slow seasons
Align pricing with regional, seasonal market trends
Tailor marketing messaging and spend to key tourism markets

Example 1: “I see hotel occupancy typically peaks in my region in early August. Based on this information, I can make a logical assumption that I should hire more staff for this busy season.”

Example 2: “Based on Travel Demand insights, searches for Alberta from Japan grew 102% in January year-over-year. Knowing that the typical booking window for the Japanese market is 3-6 months, there may be opportunity to reach this growing market through marketing activities such as ads, organic content, SEO optimization, email marketing, or other tools.”

Please do not use this tool to:

Completely change your core business based on insights from this tool alone
Take unnecessary financial risks based on data insights
Ignore personal experience and staff expertise – one of the most valuable tools out there. If the data contradicts what you know to be true, ask more questions and dig deeper.

Technical Help

This guide answers some frequently asked questions so you can get the most out of these dashboards.

How to view cut-off titles

On desktop, roll over the title with your cursor and a pop-up with the full name will appear. To remove the pop-up, move your mouse off the title or click outside of the visuals box.

On mobile, tap on the title or visual and a pop-up with the full name will appear. To remove the pop-up, tap outside the visuals box.

Seeing values in graphs

If a visual is not showing numbers, on a desktop move your cursor over the line or bar and a pop-up with the value will appear.

Making visuals larger

To view any visual in a larger format, on a desktop place your cursor on the visual. Two icons will appear in its top-right corner; click on the right one to open the visual in a larger pop-up. To close the pop-up and return to the regular view, click the “X” in the top right corner of the pop-up.

How to export the dashboard

Most dashboards will allow you to download a PowerPoint or PDF copy. If a dashboard allows this, it will show the below icon in the top-right corner of the dashboard.

Clicking on this icon will open the file explorer. Select where you would like to save this file and change the name if desired. Click “save” and the file will download to your computer.

How to download the data

Most dashboards will allow you to download CSV files of the data that makes up the visuals. If a dashboard allows this, it will show the highlighted icon in the top-right corner of each visual when you place your cursor on it.

Clicking on this icon will open the file explorer. Select where you would like to save this file and change the name if desired. Click “save” and the file will download to your computer.

Taking screenshots

To use a single visual in presentations, take a screenshot by expanding the visuals (see “Making visuals larger” for details) and taking a screenshot in your computer. This can be done for all dashboards except Hotel Performance.

On a Windows computer:

Hold down the windows icon + shift + S on your keyboard at the same time. Your screen will turn a darker tint and your mouse icon will become crosshairs.
Click and hold while dragging a box shape of the area you would like to copy.The image will appear in the bottom right corner of your screen.
Click on the image preview to open “snip & sketch,” which allows you to either save it as an image or copy & paste it into a document.

On a Mac:

Hold down the command + shift + 4 keys on your keyboard at the same time. Your mouse will turn into crosshairs.
Click and hold while dragging a box shape of the area you would like to copy.Your screenshot will be automatically saved to your desktop.
Access your screenshot in the desktop folder using Finder.

Filtering

On certain pages, you can use filters to specifically show certain data ranges. For example, on the Air Access page, you can use filters to only show data for selected international markets.

To see the sum across multiple values, select multiple boxes. For example, to see the total sum for Asian markets, select each country located in Asia. To remove filters, simply click on the values boxes again and the visuals will update back to their original context.

On a mobile device, filters may be too large to show all values at once. In this case the page will show a search box. Enter each value in the search bar and select its box when it appears. The visuals will update to this context.

On mobile, the easiest way to remove filters is to reload the page.

Tables

At certain screen sizes, tables will scroll up and down and/or left to right. To see the full table at once, make your browser full screen.

On mobile devices, only the first part of the table is shown. To move tables left and right or up and down, hold your finger on the numbers portion of the table and drag it to move. The top header row and the first column will stay in place, so you don’t lose this context.

Sorting in Tables

You can sort by each column in a table by clicking on the arrows in the top row.

The up arrow sorts by lowest to highest, or Z to A. The down arrow sorts by highest to lowest, or A to Z.To return to the original table view, reload the page.

The following metric definitions provide insight into how data for each dashboard is collected and calculated.

Metric Definitions

Metric	Definition	Page
Gross Domestic Product (GDP)	GDP as a result of tourism expenditures includes the amount spent on goods and services in Alberta tourism-related businesses, minus spending by those businesses on goods and services from outside the province in a single year. For example, we would include the spend at an Alberta restaurant, minus the amount that restaurant spent on supplies outside of Alberta.	Economic Impact
Tourism-related Taxes	In Alberta, these are the total sales taxes (GST), income tax and levy collected as a result of direct, indirect and induced effects of tourism.	Economic Impact
Economic Impact	Economic impact includes the effects of direct, indirect and induced revenue as a result of the Alberta tourism industry.	Economic Impact
Direct impact	Direct effects include things like the amount spent on goods and services in tourism-related businesses (minus the amount spent on goods and services by those businesses outside of Alberta), the sales tax collected as a result of that spend, and tourism businesses’ employees’ income tax.
Indirect impacts	Indirect effects include the amount tourism businesses spend on supplies from supporting businesses, and the sales tax on those supplies. They also include supporting businesses’ employees’ income tax, and goods and services purchased resulting from tourism and supporting businesses’ employee income.
Active Tourism Businesses	Businesses that have reported having one or more employees in any given month. (monthly data)	Economic Impact
Labour Force	Number of civilian, non-institutionalized persons 15 years of age and over who, during the reference week, were employed or unemployed. Estimates in thousands, rounded to the nearest hundred. Total labour Force = Employment + Unemployment	Tourism Labour Force
Tourism Labour Force	Sum of labour force for all five distinct but related industry groups. Includes the number of individuals who are employed in tourisms plus the total number of unemployed individuals seeking work whose last job (within one calendar year) was in tourism. Tourism Labour force = Tourism employment + Tourism unemployment	Tourism Labour Force
Employment	Number of persons who, during the reference week, worked for pay or profit, or performed unpaid family work or had a job but were not at work due to own illness or disability, personal or family responsibilities, labour dispute, vacation, or other reason. Those persons on layoff and persons without work but who had a job to start at a definite date in the future are not considered employed. Estimates in thousands, rounded to the nearest hundred	Tourism Labour Force
Unemployment	Unused supply of labour in the labour force. Number of persons who, during the reference week, were without work, had looked for work in the past four weeks, and were available for work. Those persons on layoff or who had a new job to start in four weeks or less are considered unemployed. Estimates in thousands, rounded to the nearest hundred.	Tourism Labour Force
Unemployment Rate	Measures unemployment and is expressed as a percentage of the total labour force. The unemployment rate for a particular group (age, sex, marital status, etc.) is the number unemployed in that group expressed as a percentage of the labour force for that group. Estimates are percentages, rounded to the nearest tenth. Unemployment rate = number of unemployed people / Total labour force	Tourism Labour Force
Full Time Employment	Full-time employment consists of persons who usually work 30 hours or more per week at their main or only job. Estimates in thousands, rounded to the nearest hundred.
Part Time Employment	Number of persons who, during the reference week, were without work, had looked for work in the past four weeks, and were available for work. Those persons on layoff or who had a new job to start in four weeks or less are considered unemployed. Estimates in thousands, rounded to the nearest hundred.
Visitor Spend	The total amount same-day and overnight visitors to Alberta are spending for any goods and services related to their trip.	Visitor Spend
Visitation	The number of people that have travelled 40km or more and either stayed overnight (overnight visitor) or returned home that day (same day visitors).	Visitation
Avg Traveller Spend	The average amount a visitor spent on goods and services related to their trip.	Visitation Characteristics
Average Trip Duration	Length of stay for travellers, measured in days, OR the average number of days a traveller would have stayed during their trip.	Visitation Characteristics
Air Passengers	The number of people who travelled on airlines to Alberta, including direct and indirect flights.	Air Passengers
Direct Seats	The number of seats airlines plan to offer on direct flights to Alberta.	Air Access
Occupancy Rate (OCC)	The percentage of available rooms sold within a specified time. (Demand/Supply)*100	Hotel Performance
Average Daily Rate (ADR)	The average rate paid for rooms sold. (Revenue/Demand)	Hotel Performance
Revenue Per Available Room (RevPar)	The average revenue hotels make for rooms sold. (Revenue/Supply)	Hotel Performance
Potential Travellers	The number of out-of-province travellers considering visiting Alberta in the next year, plus the number of international travellers considering visiting Alberta in the next 2 years.	Market Size

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