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The Hon Sin Chung Kai said yesterday (March 14) at the Special Meeting of the Legislative Council Finance Committee that the over $100 billion tourism receipts estimated by the Government was different from the figure ($29.3 billion) published in the Government's latest Economic Report. The Tourism Commission spokesman said, "These two sets of figures are calculated on the basis and methodologies widely used in economics and tourism statistics, and such figures should not be directly comparable."
The over $100 billion tourism receipts mentioned above is the "Tourism Expenditure Associated to Inbound Tourism" based on the recommended methodology of the World Tourism Organisation. The expenditure items to be included are visitor spending on goods and services in Hong Kong, such as hotel accommodation, shopping, meals and entertainment etc, and receipts of Hong Kong-based carriers for cross-boundary transportation of these visitors by air, sea and land.
The HK$29.3 billion tourism receipts quoted by the Hon Sin Chung-Kai at the meeting refers to the "direct value added contribution of tourism industry" in the First Quarter Economic Report 2005 published by the Government. The analysis of the above report is based on the 2003 figures. This figure shows the value added brought about by the overall tourism industry in Hong Kong instead of the total expenditure. It is calculated by deducting from the "Tourism Expenditure Associated to Inbound Tourism" the value of imported goods and the value of goods and services consumed by business establishments when serving Hong Kong tourists (e.g. banking services and communications services).
"The above two sets of figures are based on two completely different definitions in measuring the economic contribution of the tourism industry, and the figures concerned are calculated with tourism data in different years. Both figures are correct; however, direct comparison will cause confusion," the spokesman stressed.
Ends/Wednesday, March 15, 2006
Issued at HKT 20:43
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