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The TSA is compiled according to the international standard, Tourism Satellite Account: Recommended Methodological Framework, which was ratified by the United Nations Statistical Commission in 2000. Chapter 2 contains concepts and definitions relevant to the treatment of tourism expenditure. Paragraphs 2.1 and 2.4 define tourism and tourists:
“Tourism comprises the activities of persons travelling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited.” (para 2.1)
“The persons referred to in the definition of tourism are termed ‘visitors’. A visitor is any person travelling to a place other than that of their usual environment for less than 12 months and whose main purpose of trip is other than the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited.” (para 2.4)
It is the combination of the concepts of usual environment and 12-month time limit that defines a tourist. Tourists must be travelling outside their usual environment for less than one year for their expenditure to be considered part of tourism demand.
The appendix contains paragraphs from chapter 2 of the international standard that are relevant to international students. The treatment of international students has been influenced by para 2.13, which states:
“Students travelling abroad, even for more than one year and still depending economically on their families, are considered part of their family’s household. Consequently, they remain residents of the place where their household has its centre of economic interest, but their usual environment includes their university and the place where they live. Sick persons staying in a hospital or similar facility some distance from their original residence for more than one year are still part of the household from which they come if economic ties are maintained with that household, even though their usual environment now includes the hospital where they are staying. The same can be said of persons serving a long-term prison sentence. All these classes of persons are not visitors to the places where they now reside. But if other members of their original households travel to see them, then they are visitors to these places.” (para 2.13)
This has been interpreted to mean that all international students, regardless of their length of stay in New Zealand, are located in their ‘usual’ environment, which includes both their normal country of residence and the place where they live to study. They have not been classed as visitors in the TSA and consequently their expenditure on recreational and cultural activities in the town or city in which they are studying is excluded because it occurs within their usual environment. Expenditure on tourism activity is only included in the TSA if the student travels away from the city where they are studying. This is the same as the treatment for domestic tourists.
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