Feasibility study on the use of mobile positioning data for tourism statistics : consolidated report

The aim of the current study was to assess the feasibility of using mobile positioning data for generating statistics on domestic, outbound and inbound tourism flows, and to address the strengths and weaknesses related to access, trust, cost, and the technological and methodological challenges inherent in the use of such a new data source. The international consortium that conducted the study concentrated on the various aspects involved in the use of mobile positioning data in terms of tourism statistics and other domains: an overview of the situation involving the use of mobile data; accessibility to the data from the legal, technological, financial and business aspects, including possible cost and burden implications; methodological principles of statistical data collection and compilation, including evaluation by using different quality aspects and comparing the results against existing traditional methods; opportunities offered by, as well as limitations inherent in, the use of the data source. A more detailed discussion on each of these aspects can be found in the detailed reports, which can be consulted and downloaded from the Eurostat website.