Ferðavenjur Íslendinga - 01.02.1998, Qupperneq 26

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Ferðavenjur íslendinga 1996
5. Survey on Icelandic tourism in 1996
The publication Icelandic Tourism Patterns 1996 contains
the results of a survey conducted by Statistics Iceland on the
tourism pattems of Icelanders in 1996. The objective of the
survey was to obtain reliable data on Icelandic tourists,
travelling for both business and pleasure, provided they spent
at least one night away from their usual environment. Twelve
hundred individuals were contacted by telephone and asked
about their travels in the preceding months. The survey
relates to the ongoing cooperation between the national
statistical institutes of EEA-countries where similar surveys
have recently been conducted. Eurostat, the EU statistical
office, has published a document containing methodological
definitions to be used when collecting statistical information
on tourism based on a Council Directive on the subject. The
survey was designed on the basis of these documents so that
the results can easily be compared with the results of equiva-
lent surveys in other EEA-countries.
6. Principal results
The following pages include the results of the survey in
summaries, figures and tables. The results have been inflated
to make them applicable to all Icelanders and foreign nation-
als under the age of 75 years, resident in Iceland at the time
of the survey.
Figures on the number of tourists have been broken down
into four-month periods and socio-economic groups such as
sex, age, education etc. Figures on the number of trips are
classified according to age of the tourists and various trip
characteristics, among them destination, type of accommo-
dation and means of transport. To make comparisons easier,
percentages are also included in most cases.
The first part deals with tourists, followed by a section on
the frequency of trips, and the final section deals with
overnight stays on domestic and outbound trips.
Tourísts
The first two summaries cover the number of Icelandic
tourists by sex, age and destination. Table 1 in the corre-
sponding table section contains a more detailed breakdown
of tourists by socio-economic groups. This part does not deal
with the trips as such but only the tourists themselves and to
what extent they travel inside Iceland (domestic trips) or
abroad (outbound trips) or combine both types of trips.
Almost half of all Icelanders aged 16-74 made some kind
of trip in the first and third four-month periods of the year. In
summer the number of tourists, of course, was much higher,
or 81 % of the men and 86% of the women. The survey reveals
that there is not much difference in the tourism pattems of
Icelanders according to age. Still, tourists aged 16-24 and
65-74 made up a smaller proportion of the total in the first
and third four-month periods of the year than did those aged
25-64 years. Summary 2 shows the percent distribution of
tourists according to the proportion of their domestic trips,
outbound trips or a combination of the two. Most tourists
made some domestic trip in the year, whether in summer or
winter; approximately 80% did so in the first and third four-
month periods of the year and 90% in summer. Approxi-
mately one third of all tourists travelled abroad in the first
eight months of the year and about half of them made trips
abroad in the last four months. The percentage of those who
made combined domestic and outbound trips rose as the year
progressed, from 10% to 35%. There is no significant differ-
ence between the tourism pattems of men and women as far
as domestic and outbound trips are concemed. However,
there is some difference in domestic and outbound trips
depending on the age of tourists. The proportion of those who
made domestic trips fell with a higher age of tourists in the
first and third four-month periods, from 86-90% in the age
group 16-24 yearsto 73-78% forthoseaged 65-74 years. At
the same time the proportion of those who made outbound
trips rose with higher age, from 19% to 39% in the first four-
month period, and from 45% to 61 % in the third period except
for the oldest age group.
Frequency of trips
Frequency of trips refers to the number of trips per inhabitant
in the age groups covered by the survey. The frequency is
calculated in relation to the group travelling in each four-
month period of the year and also in relation to all Icelanders
aged 16-74 years, whether or not they made any trips in the
period in question. Summary 3 gives the results on the
number of tourists, number of trips made and frequency of
trips. This Summary covers all kinds of trips whereas a
breakdown of trip frequency by length of trip, four-month
periods and age of tourists is found in table section of this
publication, in Tables 2^1.
A comparison of the four-month periods reveals that half
of the population aged 16-74 years made no trips in the first
and third periods and 16% of them did not do so in summer
either. In each of the three periods the percentage of those
who only made one trip was approximately the same. In
summer, however, 37% of all tourists took three trips or more
while much fewer did so for the rest of the year. Figure 2
shows trip frequency by four-month periods. The number of
trips per tourist was smallest, or 2.0, in the first four-month
period, while in the third period the average was slightly
higher, 2.4 trips, and in summer this number went up to 3.3
trips per tourist.
Domestic trips
Summaries 4-9 cover domestic trips and tourist nights.
Domestic trips numbered approximately one million in 1996,
257 thousand of which, or 26%, were trips made by children
under the age of 16, either on their own or accompanied by
their parents. Domestic tourist nights were close to 3.3
million.
Obviously, the main tourist season is in summer. Sum-
mary 4 shows that almost two thirds of all domestic trips are
made in the summertime and just over two thirds of all
overnight stays take place in that season. The percent
distribution by age of trips on one hand and ovemight stays
on the other provides information on the length of stay of each
age group. A different proportion of trips as opposed to
overnight stays for a certain age group indicates that the
length of stay of that particular group differs from that other
age groups. To take an example, 73% of children’s ovemight
stays occurred in summer when they made 61 % of their trips,