(1)

Regulation (EU) No 692/2011 lays down the transmission deadlines of European statistics on tourism.

(2)

Timeliness is an essential element of quality of official statistics, and technical development enables statistical authorities to produce data with shorter delays. Therefore, the transmission deadlines for monthly data on occupancy of tourist accommodation establishments should be shortened, taking into account the existing data collection practices in the Member States.

(3)

Combatting seasonality remains a crucial action for public authorities and economic operators in the area of tourism at national, regional and destination level. Therefore, monthly data on nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments should be transmitted at regional level.

(4)

Tourism is one of the economic domains contributing to opportunities as well as challenges for European cities, and measuring the relevance of tourism for the development of individual cities contributes to benchmarking, analysing and designing relevant development strategies. Therefore, data on nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments in major or tourism intensive cities should be transmitted.

(5)

Tourism is a major contributor to the blue economy with a high potential for sustainable jobs and growth, and coastal tourism can be better analysed for different degrees of urbanisation of the area. Therefore, data on nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments jointly analysing the coastal or non-coastal nature and the degree of urbanisation should be transmitted.

(6)

Tourism is an economic activity where supply and demand decisions often take place at destination level, beyond the level of NUTS 2 regions for which data is available by Regulation (EU) No 692/2011. Therefore, data on nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments should be transmitted at the level of NUTS 3 regions.

(7)

Directive (EU) 2015/2302 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2015 on package travel and linked travel arrangements (2) applies to packages offered for sale or sold by traders to travellers and to linked travel arrangements facilitated by traders for travellers.

(8)

Offering and using accommodation and transport services through online platforms can give a greater choice to customers and create new entrepreneurial opportunities for businesses and citizens, generating positive and negative side effects; and the phenomenon can be measured from a demand side perspective using the framework for European statistics on tourism. Therefore, adaptations should be made to the variables and breakdowns for tourism trips.

(9)

Regulation (EU) No 692/2011 should therefore be amended accordingly, while not imposing significant additional administrative burdens on the Member States and on the respondents,

(1)

In Article 9, paragraph (4) is replaced by the following:

(2)

Annex I is amended as follows:

(3)

In Annex II, section 2, point ‘A. Variables to be transmitted’, rows 8 to 15 of the table, are replaced by the following: