Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic

Business Statistics Section

Methodology and Synthesis of Business Statistics Department

Lamacska cesta 3/C, 840 05 Bratislava 45, Slovakia

Capacity: This covers total capacity of accommodation establishments in Slovakia. It includes number of establishments, number of bedrooms, bed places.

Occupancy: This covers actual usage of bedrooms and bed places available; it means number of tourists and number of nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments and occupancy rates of bed places and of bedrooms.

For data from the reference year 2012 onwards (under Regulation (EU) 692/2011), 'tourist accommodation establishments' are described according to the NACE Rev. 2 classification (groups 55.1, 55.2 and 55.3).

The Regulation also introduces two new breakdowns in accommodation statistics at the regional level, namely the degree of urbanisation (thinly populated area, intermediate density area, densely populated area) and the coastal or non-coastal character of the locality where the establishments are located.

There is a national classification of acc. establishments: hotels *-*****, mountain hotels *-***, congress hotels ***-*****, wellness hotels ***-*****, spa hotels ***-*****, boutique hotels ****-*****, guesthouses, boatels, motels, hostels, camping sites, accommodation in private, others.

Regional data

The territorial classification of regional data is broken down according to the NUTS classification.

NACE Rev.2 - 55.1, 55.2 and 55.3

Local kind-of-activity unit (accommodation establishment) offering short-stay accommodation to tourists.

Coverage - Time [data comparable since (YYYY)]

Not applicable.

Data values are expressed in numbers, occupancy rates in percentages.

Not applicable.

The Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic is responsible for the protection of confidential data obtained and guarantees their use exclusively for statistical purposes. In accordance with the Act on State Statistics No. 540/2001 Coll. §2g and §30, the SOSR may not publish confidential statistical data, but only information resulting from the aggregation of confidential statistical data, which does not allow direct or indirect identification of the reporting unit.

The Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic has introduced principles and procedures for the protection of confidential data in internal directives and instructions. The directive on the protection of confidential statistical data regulates the method of management and implementation of activities related to ensuring the protection of confidential statistical data in the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic. The internal methodological instruction of the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic regulates specific methods and parameter values ​​used in the protection of confidential statistical data of individual statistical surveys and data sets.

Specifics of confidential data protection in statistics of tourism accommodation establishments

The published DATAcube -s provide a wide range of information on the activities of accommodation establishments. Due to the high level of data detail, the confidentiality rules must be addressed. The main difficulty in data publication occurs on the level of municipalities - in more than 60% of municipalities in the Slovak Republic there is no accommodation establishment (based on the Register of Accommodation Establishments of the SOSR), while in most of the remaining there are a maximum of two accommodation establishments. Other critical points are the interconnection of DATAcube -s and their hierarchical structure - a large number of values are found in several DATAcube -s and on several levels. The DATAcube -s compiled in this way bring value added to the users in the form of detailed multi-level information, but on the other hand they increase the demands on confidentiality.

SOSR ensures the statistical data confidentiality in DATAcube -s for the statistics of accommodation establishments in two stages:

• Primary confidentiality rule - values that do not meet the criteria of data confidentiality are marked as confidential:
  • minimum frequency rule - the published value must be the sum of the values of at least three reporting units
  • the p% rule - the published value cannot allow to estimate the value of the reporting unit
• Secondary confidentiality rule – some values that meet the criteria of data confidentiality will be marked as confidential, due to the possibility to calculate the values of confidential data in step 1 by means of totals and subtotals.

The process of primary confidentiality rule concerns the level of municipalities in particular (in a significant extent also the level of districts). However, due to the multi-level interconnection and complexity of the DATAcube. system, the secondary confidential rule is subsequently applied to the other DATAcube -s; this effect among others also affects occupancy data of accommodation establishments in districts of the SR by visitor’s country of origin. Since the individual countries are only sparsely represented in this DATAcube., the process of selecting a suitable secondary confidentiality marked cell is complicated, which causes a higher degree of the total confidentiality marked values in result. It is also possible to observe a situation in the data where the total number of foreign visitors is confidential in the district, but not by visitor´s country of residence. It occurs precisely because of multi-level secondary protection - in the DATAcube. at the municipal level, due to the rare foreign occupancy in individual municipalities of the district, the number of foreign visitors for the whole district is secondary confidential, and this confidential data are subsequently transferred to the DATAcube. of occupancy of accommodation establishment on the level of district and country of origin. In this DATAcube., it is necessary to apply the secondary confidentiality rule of the value for a selected country of origin to ensure transferred confidentiality and thus it is not necessary to apply confidentiality rules to the values for all countries; this only happens in a situation where the total value for the district is confidential.

The time aspect of data confidentiality is also important. Since the cumulative value for a given period is the sum of the values for individual months, the calculation of confidential data could be possible in this regard, and therefore the cumulant for the period containing among others also confidential values have to be marked as confidential. When choosing a suitable secondary confidentiality rule in a given month, SOSR takes into account the time aspect so that the largest possible volume of cumulative data is published.

As for the process of creating the design of DATAcube -s for the statistics of accommodation establishments, several alternatives were tested. The one that maximizes the volume of provided data and minimizes the volume of overall confidentiality was chosen.

First Release Calendar provides the precise release dates for the coming four months in advance. The calendar is updated monthly. It covers main economic and social indicators established currently within the EU regulations and IMF special standard, which define timeliness standards as well.

In the First Release Calendar compilation release dates defined by Eurostat are taken into consideration.

Information reports Cataloque

First release calendar

First Release Calendar is publicly accessible. It is disseminated on the office's website. Users are also informed about the availability of the release calendar in a notice published in the relevant activity's publication. 

Release calendar

The First release Calendar contains timetable of the first release of selected indicators. Data will be published in the given day at 9 o´clock on the Internet website of the SOSR (www.statistics.sk) in the part Information reports Catalogue of the SOSR and there will be also at the disposal at the spokesperson of the SOSR (phone number: +421 2 5023 6553). You will also find notice for amendments of dates on the Internet website of the SOSR.

(1) Data are transmitted to Eurostat monthly and yearly.
(2) Data are disseminated monthly, quarterly and annually to national users.

News releases on occupancy data are disseminated monthly, capacity data are disseminated quarterly.

Released monthly in electronic informative report: Development of tourism in accommodation establishments in the SR. The main purpose of the informative report is to supply the users with brief information on tourism development in Accommodation Establishments in the SR.

Informative report on tourism statistics

Database DATAcube : Capacity and occupancy of the accommodation establishments

Not available.

Capacity:

• Congress tourism in Slovakia - by regions
• Capacity to organize congress tourism events (in terms of number of persons)

Occupancy:

• Congress tourism in Slovakia - by regions
• Number of participants in congress tourism events
• Number of congress tourism events by size (in terms of number of participants)
• Number of congress tourism events by duration of event (in days)

Each publication contains an introduction concerning methodological notes and contact for the information service. On the website of the SOSR there is available:

— information on tourism in Methodological notes

— statistical questionnaires forms in national version including methodological notes;

— methodological sheets (descriptions of statistical indicators in detail) in national version.

Following internal project documentation exists for the compilation of statistical outputs:

• methodological guidelines for applying mathematical-statistical methods for statistical surveys

• methodological guidelines for quality indicators of statistical outputs and statistical processes.

The Quality policy is defined and publicly accessible in the Quality Declaration and Quality Policy documents. The Quality Declaration expresses the basic ideas and commitments of the President and top management of the SOSR for the Quality Policy as well as increasing efficiency and effectiveness of the integrated management system of the SOSR.

Quality Declaration

Quality policy is based on the mission of the Statistical Office of the Slovak Republic: to provide high quality and objective statistical products and services by keeping confidentiality of statistical data and by minimising burden on interested parties using effectively existing resources with the aim to support improvement of the information and intellectual capital of our customers. In this way we want to contribute to reduce risks and improve effectiveness in their decision making processes and so to support the sustainable development of the Slovak Republic as the part of EU.

Quality policy

The Quality manual describes the documented procedures of the quality system that are used for implementation and continuous improvement of the quality management system in SOSR. It contains a description of the quality management system and the fulfillment of requirements ISO 9001 standards. Application of the manual in practice ensures that all activities that have an impact on the quality of the products created are planned, managed, reviewed, evaluated and meet requirements.

Quality manual

The European Statistics Code of Practice is the basis of the common quality framework of the European Statistical System. It is a self-regulatory tool and it is based on 16 Principles covering the institutional environment, statistical processes and statistical outputs. A set of indicators of best practices and standards for each of the Principles provides guidelines and benchmarks for reviewing the implementation of the Code of Practice, thus increasing transparency within the European Statistical System.

European Statistics Code of Practise

User satisfaction is monitored via “Survey on satisfaction of users with products and services of the SO SR” conducted regularly with two-year periodicity. Evaluation of the user satisfaction survey also includes satisfactions rate (overall and for specified areas as well as for groups of products) and it is submitted together with conclusions and suggestions for improvements to top management meeting for approval.

12.3.1 Completeness

12.3.2 Thresholds used ("limitation of the scope")

Monthly survey in accommodation establishments is exhaustive survey (a census type), therefore the sampling errors are not relevant.

High level of accuracy as a result of a legal obligation on all accommodation establishments to report monthly.

The main sources of error are:

Missing answers -> Data is then imputed from the same month of the previous year.

Non-response errors -> The overall unit non-response was 17,3%.

Non-sampling errors -> Based on the  approach described in point 12.2 we consider the degree of over and under-coverage insignificant.

13.2.1 Sampling errors - indicators (Occupancy only)

13.2.2 Additional comments on sampling error

See 3.7

No problems regarding geographical comparability.

Data can be gained only via accommodation statistics. No other domain is collecting data about accommodation establishments, their capacity and occupancy.

Coherence between annual and monthly data: The annual data equal to the sum of monthly data. Data can be gained only via accommodation statistics.

SOSR regularly monitors the cost and burden of reporting units. The cost and burden measurement at the level of European Statistical Products is in competence of the Resources Directors Group within Eurostat.

18.1.1 Source data

18.1.2 Population frame

18.1.3 Sampling design

18.1.4 Other or additional comments on source data, population frame or sampling design (e.g. differences per NACE class)

18.3.1 Type of survey

18.3.2 Data collection methods

Comparison with past periods, mathematics methods. Missing data is imputed from the same month of the previous year.

Not applicable.

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