“Tourism – Key to Growth and Employment in Europe” Vienna, March 2006 “Tourism – Key to Growth and Employment in Europe” Vienna, March 2006 EUROPEAN COMMISSION EUROSTAT Directorate F: Social Statistics and Information Society ICT and the tourism sector in the EU A statistical portrait Bettina Knauth IndicatorsIndicatorsIndicatorsIndicators europa.eu.int/comm/eurostat/

Essential Methodology Coverage of household survey - individuals aged 16 to 74 Coverage of enterprise survey - Enterprises with 10 or more persons employed - Accommodation sector: Hotels and similar establishments, camping sites and other provisions of short-term stay - Wider economy: Manufacturing – construction - distributive trade - accommodation sector - transport, storage and communication - real estate, renting and business activities – motion picture, video, radio and television activities.

Essential Methodology Size structure of the enterprises covered by the survey Small (10 – 49) Medium (50 – 249) Large (250 +) Accommodation sector 83.3% 14.9%1.8% Wider economy83.1%14.1%2.8%

The good news The accommodation sector: a forerunner in the usage of ICT for managing client relationships Example: use of websites or homepages Share of enterprises that have a website or a homepage

Share of enterprises offering access to catalogues/prices through their websites, 2005

Use of services related to travel and accommodation Share of internet users having used specific services within the three months prior to the survey Sending s 82% Finding information about goods and services75% Using services related to travel and accommodation47% Using internet banking37% Playing or downloading games or music37% Seeking health information on injury, disease or nutrition30%

Use of the internet for purposes of travel and accommodation by level of education, EU25

Share of enterprises with websites actually receiving orders via the web

The bad news The accommodation sector: a laggard regarding the full implementation of e-business Example: share of enterprises that have IT systems for orders and purchases that link automatically to other internal IT systems

Usage of ICTs Share of enterprises using ICT for education and training purposes: - In the wider economy: 21% - In the accommodation sector: 17% Share of enterprises using ICT for banking and financial services: - In the wider economy: 70% - In the accommodation sector: 68%

IT infrastructure in the accommodation sector - High connectivity

But: Low adoption of advanced technologies

The final question: who was first - the chicken or the egg ? Does the usage that an enterprise wants to make of information and communication technologies determine its choice of technologies? Or Do the technologies available to an enterprise determine the type of usage of these technologies?

Thank you for your attention * * *