Booking platforms data (Eurostat)

Existing situation and objectives

In 2020, the European Commission signed a data sharing agreement with four platforms - Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia Group and Tripadvisor. This allows the statistical office of the European Union (Eurostat), to publish data on short-term accommodation offered through these four platforms.

This is a publication of the results for Switzerland, which benefits from this agreement and is intended to provide users with an overview of the rentals yet does not claim to present rentals in entirety and cannot ensure that the same concepts have been applied as for tourist accommodation statistics.

Limitations

Publication by Eurostat

Eurostat receives the data from the platforms on a quarterly basis and publishes them on:
Collaborative economy platforms - Experimental statistics

Additional analyses

National statistics offices may publish certain additional details to address specific national needs. In Switzerland’s case, the Federal Statistical Office (FSO) is authorised to publish the data at tourist region level. The FSO receives the results of the four platforms from Eurostat, which have already been aggregated, for this purpose. The results presented below are based entirely on the data provided by Eurostat, and the FSO cannot verify or guarantee the quality of the data.

A dataset with monthly data by visitors’ country of residence and tourist region can be found here:

Methodology

The results are based on data provided by four international platforms: Airbnb, Booking.com, Expedia Group and Tripadvisor. Data for accommodation that is not offered via these platforms is therefore not presented in these results.

The statistical population under consideration is as defined under NACE 55.2 'Holiday and other short-stay accommodation'. However, the (non-harmonised) categories of accommodation used by the platforms do not correspond to the existing concepts and definitions for tourism statistics. This can lead to additional problems concerning the coverage of the statistical population under consideration.

The data is aggregated by the platforms according to local administrative districts (in Switzerland, the communes, in German, Gemeinde) and transmitted to Eurostat. The platforms allocate the data to the communes based on the geo-coordinates of the accommodation.

The data sets of the four platforms are then aggregated by Eurostat. There is an assumption that a rental is only registered on one platform at any one time. The results about the rentals of the four platforms are added together.

For detailed information, see this note on methodology from Eurostat.

Documents

Further information and ordering data

Contact: info-tour@bfs.admin.ch
Telephone: +41 58 463 61 97

If you have any questions, please call or email us. Please bear in mind, that as the FSO receives the data from Eurostat in a form that is already aggregated, we may not be able to answer all questions about the content of the statistics. Eurostat can also be contacted directly (see link below).

Links

Experimental statistics from Eurostat on collaborative economy platforms