BTA: New Form Offers Improved Tourism Data
New visitor arrival forms now in use at L.F. Wade International Airport collect more detailed data from travellers and allow the Bermuda Tourism Authority [BTA] to report more accurately on industry performance, the BTA said today.
The data collection is improved in three key areas:
- Accommodation: the new arrival form now asks whether the visitor intends to stay in a vacation rental. Vacation rentals is a growing category of lodging for visitors worldwide. Bermuda is no exception. Other categories of accommodation choices remain on the form.
- Primary Purpose of Visit: the new arrival form provides five additional choices for purpose of visit. If the passenger is visiting family and friends he/she is asked whether it’s for personal or vacation reasons. If the passenger is here for America’s Cup he/she is asked whether it’s for business or leisure purposes. A fifth new choice allows the passenger to choose destination wedding if he/she is here for that purpose. In all, there are now 11 choices in the primary purpose of visit category.
- Repeat Visitation: the arrival form now asks if the current arrival is the visitor’s first trip to Bermuda.
The new form went into effect in April of this year.
“The new form allows us to better assess the impact the BTA is having on visitor air arrivals,” said BTA Research Assistant Lamar Caines, who led the transition to the new form.
“The BTA’s mandate is to grow air arrivals in two specific categories: vacation travel and group travel. This new form allows us to monitor these categories more accurately and when we report visitor numbers it will give the public a clearer view of the BTA’s performance in these areas.”
Watch a video explanation of the new visitor arrival form:
“It’s very important to the tourism industry to make these improvements in data collection,” said the BTA’s CEO Bill Hanbury. “Traditionally business air arrivals as well as visiting friends and relatives are reported in the performance data when really the BTA has very limited influence on business people and friends and relatives who come to Bermuda.
“Now the form will give visitors here on business the option to tell us whether they’re here on individual business or as part of a group participating in a conference, meeting or incentive trip.
“These are categories the BTA will monitor closely because our business development managers in New York are working to grow specific categories of group travel. This is just one way the new form improves measurement and accountability.”
“For visiting friends and family the new form improves measurement and accountability by asking visitors to say whether they’re here for personal reasons [like attending a relative’s anniversary celebration] or for vacation reasons [like attending Bermuda Carnival],” the BTA said.
“On the business side of the equation the business field remains, but now there’s a greater emphasis on group travel. As BTA business development managers work their respective areas of group business, the new form will make it easier to track their progress because the category labels are more specific: conference/meeting, incentive and destination wedding.
“Detailed data related to America’s Cup is also now captured and will assist the ACBDA and the government in assessing the overall impact of that major event.
“The new form was improved in consultation with the Department of Immigration. Only visitors arriving at L.F. Wade International Airport are required to complete the new visitor arrival form.”
Embellish as needed…
How much money was wasted for this.
The number of “bed nights” per month, reported by all hotels, should give us an accurate picture of the state of the industry. But we never get bed night numbers. Wonder why….??
Makes you wonder what data was collected before?
So the cruise ship visitors…..????
This form isn’t worth the price of the paper it is printed on. The fly-in visitor numbers are still going DOWN that is BTA’s performance record.