Accommodation and food service activities, structural business statistics
10.11 - Hotels and restaurants
Frequency: Annual
Timeliness: Data pertains to the statistical year of 2008. Final figures are normally published 17 months after the last month of the statistical year. Preliminary figures on employment and turnover are published 10 months after the last month of the statistical year.
National level
440 - Transport, tourism and ICT statistics
The Statistics Act , §§ 2-2, 2-3
Council Regulation No. 58/97 of 20 December 1996
The statistics are reported to EUROSTAT.
The structural business statistics for accommodation and food service activities are part of Statistics Norway's industrial statistics, and present detailed information about the activities in this sector based on survey data and financial information.
The statistics are compiled in accordance with the EU regulation on structural business statistics, and were first published for the statistical year 1998. Since 1999 final results have been published on both the enterprise level and the local kind-of-activity unit (local KAU) level.
Preliminary figures for turnover and employment on the enterprise level were published for the first time for 2001, in accordance with the EU regulation.
Users include public and private sector agencies, private organizations, individuals and international organizations such as EUROSTAT, as well as the National Accounts and other divisions of Statistics Norway.
The structural statistics for accommodation and food service activities are organised according to the NACE standard (see section 4.2) and include the following industry division:
55 Accommodation
56 Food and beverage service activities
The structural business statistics comprise most of the enterprises that are registered in the abovementioned industry divisions, as long as the enterprise was registered with activity in Norway in the relevant statistical year.
The exception is enterprises within the public service sectors 110, 510 and 550. Such units are not included in the structural business statistics for cultural services even though they should happen to have operations in one of the abovementioned industries.
However, all other enterprises in the public sector or owned by the public sector, i.e. units with sector codes 610, 630, 635, 660 and 680, are included in the statistics if they have activity in one of the abovementioned industries.
For a sample of the enterprises and enterprises with more than one local kind-of-activity unit (local KAU) in the population, the statistics are based on Trading Statements (NO) and a supplementary questionnaire. The Trading Statements are either attached to the questionnaires or submitted electronically via the Norwegian Internal Revenue Service. Residual enterprises outside the sample are asked to report turnover through the structural survey.
Employment are collected through Employee-/employer register (A/A-register).
Information, like the accounts and turnover about enterprises with only one local KAU outside the sample, is obtained from the Register of Annual Company Reports in Brønnøysund, the VAT Register and trading statements (NO) electronically submitted via the Norwegian Internal Revenue Service.
The Register of Establishments and Enterprises at Statistics Norway is used to obtain necessary information about the population. The VAT Register, the Central Coordinating Register for Legal Entities, information from trade organizations and direct input from the enterprises are used to update the Register of Establishments and Enterprises.
Starting with the year 2008, figures for gross investments are collected from the Write-off blankett RF 1048B from the tax authority
The population consists of all enterprises in the relevant industry divisions with registered activity in the reference year. The population is divided into subpopulations, called strata, after criteria like industrial classification and number of employees. In some of the strata, all enterprises are always included in the sample. From the remaining strata, a representative selection of enterprises is drawn. All enterprises in this sample are asked to report a full set of Trading Statements and to complete a questionnaire.
This detailed survey of accounting data is combined with the additional information from the various registers and the structural survey of Statistics Norway to form the basis for the estimation of the financial structures of the different industries.
The questionnaires are sent out during April in the year following the statistical year, with a response deadline of three or four weeks. Enterprises that do not respond to the first letter are sent reminders for approximately six months from the first deadline.
Revisions and corrections are carried out on the information obtained from the sample population and the structural survey. The raw data are checked against reports for last year, the Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises, the Register of Annual Company Reports in Brønnøysund and other available sources, and by contacting the respondent if necessary.
Enterprises in the sample, with a complete tax return and questionaire, will have their actual numbers represented. The main source of data is the questionaire. Enterprises not in the sample, and with no quesionaire, will have their figures estimated. The estimation is based on the enterprises’ tax return, the relationship between qestionaire-data and taxreturn-data in the sample, and other sources of data mentioned under 3.2.
If data from less than three statistical units are represented in a table Statistics Norway will withold from publishing the actual number. The reason for this is to maintain the anonymity of our respondents.
Enterprise In the Standard Industrial Classification (SIC) an enterprise is the smallest combination of legal entities that is an organizational unit producing goods or services, which benefits from a certain degree of autonomy in decision making.
Local kind-of-activity unit (local KAU) The SIC defines a local KAU as a functional unit, which at a single physical location is engaged primarily in activities within a specific activity group.
Location The location is determined in accordance with municipal borders as of 1 January 2002. In some industry divisions an enterprise can conduct business in several municipalities and counties without being divided into several KAUs. In such cases, the combined operations of the enterprise are registered at the head office address.
Owners Owners include owners of sole proprietorships, or general partnerships with trade income greater than NOK 100 000, and family members who work for the enterprise on a daily basis without receiving regular wages. Co-owners of limited companies and cooperatives who are paid for working for the enterprise are not included, nor are family members of owners of sole proprietorships or general partnerships when they receive regular wages.
Employees The number of employees is collected through the Register of Employees and Employers (the A/A-register). An employee is a person who works for an employer and receive compensation in the form of wages, pay, fee, bonuses, payment in kind etc. There are conditions that the work should last for at least six days and that the employee must be employed on average four hours or more per week for the employee to be notifiable to the A/A-register.
Employment Employment is the sum of owners and employees. Compared to the register based Employment Statistics, where a person is only counted in the principal job where they are employed, the structural statistics allows persons with more than one job to be counted as employee in several industries at the same time. The statistics on employment will therefore not be directly comparable.
Employment statistics show the average number of persons employed in the year.
Turnover/sales Turnover is defined as the sum of remuneration for rendering of services to customers and sales of merchandise, and gross income from other activities. Rental income and commissions are included, while special taxes, subsidies and profits from sales of business assets are not. VAT is not included in the statistics.
Merchandise Merchandise is goods bought and resold with no value added.
Wage costs Wage costs include wages, holiday allowance, remuneration, employers' national insurance contribution, reportable pension costs and other personnel expenses. Wage costs do not include remuneration to owners of sole proprietorships or partnerships or to family members without regular pay.
Production value Production value means turnover adjusted for changes in inventory, and goods and services purchased for resale.
Value added (at factor cost) Value added is the total of production value less the purchase of goods and services (for other goods and services than those purchased for resale) and corrected for changes in stocks of raw materials and consumables. Special public grants for manufactured/sold merchandise and other public grants/reimbursements are included.
Total purchases of goods and services Total purchases of goods and services include the value of all goods and services purchased during the year for resale ment for use in the enterprise's own production process or for stock. Investments are not included in these figures.
Gross investments Gross investments are the total value of new capital goods such as buildings and plant (except housing), machinery, tools, fixtures and fittings and vehicles and other means of transport (except for personal use), both new and used. Improvements are added whereas sales of used capital stock are deducted. Investment figures are exclusive of incoming value added tax.
Acquisitions Acquisitions include all fixed assets acquired and completed in the course of the year. In assessing the value of the asset, cost price is used for purchases and production cost for own manufacturing. Acquisitions through financial leasing are included when entered as assets in the balance sheet.
Sale of assets The sale of assets is estimated at sales value (replacement value) upon realisation of used assets over the course of the year. The figures include investment tax. Assets are regarded as sold at the time of delivery.
Improvement of own assets This includes the value of all capitalised improvements and major repairs purchased and executed by others and/or undertaken by own employees on own business assets. It is required that such improvements increase the efficiency/value of and/or extend the lifetime of the asset. The improvement is estimated at cost price or at production cost for own manufacturing.
Gross operating surplus Gross operating surplus is the surplus generated by operating activities after the labour factor input has been recompensed. It can be calculated from the value added at factor cost less the personnel costs. It is the balance available to the unit which allows it to recompense the providers of own funds and debt, to pay taxes and eventually to finance all or a part of its investement.
Payments for agency workers Payments for agency workers are payments to temporary employment agencies and similar organisations supplying workers to clients' businesses for limited periods of time to supplement or temporarily replace the working force of the client, where the individuals provided are employees of the temporary help service unit. However, these agencies and organisations do not provide direct supervision of their employees at the clients' work sites. Only the payments for the provision of personnel which is not linked to the provision of a particular industrial or other non-industrial service is included.
The Standard Industrial Classification SIC2007 used in Statistics Norway is based on the EU´s NACE-standard.
Earlier time series with figures up to 2008 are published according to SIC2002 (based on EU's NACE Rev.1.). Many of the industries that according to the new industrial standard (SIC2007) constitute Accommodation and food service activities can be retrieved in StatBank in accordance to the previous standard. See head 6.1
Here you can find information about the transition to the new Standard Industrial Classification.
Sources of error in the structural statistics are mainly errors in registers that are used for stratification and in sample selection, incorrect reporting of variables asked for, and errors in scanning or recording reported data.
Returned questionnaires are read optically and automatically checked. An optical image of the form is first saved electronically and then checked manually in order to ensure that the primary data are as correct as possible. Nevertheless, the results of a statistical survey may contain measurement and processing errors.
Measurement errors are defined as data errors due to the measurement instrument. Examples of such errors are vague or ambiguous questions, misunderstandings or incorrect data supplied by the respondent. A typical error can be the use of incorrect units of measurement, for instance NOK instead of NOK 1 000.
Processing errors are defined as errors due to data processing at Statistics Norway. Examples of such errors are misinterpretation of the answers on printed questionnaires when these are read optically, for instance if the figure 1 is read as the figure 7, or if correct figures are considered incorrect and changed.
Non-response, that is when the respondent does not return the form or returns the form with incomplete information, will always be an aspect of form-based surveys. In the structural business statistics, non-respondent enterprises are treated the same way as enterprises outside the sample population.
In the structural business statistics, the Register of Establishments and Enterprises, the Register of Annual Company Reports in Brønnøysund, the VAT Register and the Register of Employees and Employers (the AA Register) are used in order to define the population and help collect the necessary data.
Errors in these administrative registers - like time gaps in registration, incorrectly identified unit characteristics etc. may therefore be a potential source of uncertainty in the statistics and may for instance have an impact when dividing the population into adequate strata.
The variables in the preliminary figures (number of enterprises, employment and turnover) are based on a full census, and sampling errors are not relevant for these variables.
The structural business statistics use the Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises, the Register of Company Accounts, the VAT Register and the Registrarr of Employees and Employers to define the population and collect the necessary data.
The most common errors are those caused by delayed registration. Such delays can be a result of a delay in reporting to the registers or the fact that changes are normally recorded some time after they have occurred. As a result, the registers are not updated at all times, which may lead to sample skewness or the use of old data.
When drawing samples, characteristics such as industry code, status etc in the Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises are also important. The quality of these characteristics is imperative when dividing the population into adequate strata, and may affect the quality of the sample.
Generally, when making comparisons with previously published figures it must be kept in mind that older data may have been corrected during later revisions. Updating of industries in the Central Register of Establishments and Enterprises may also have entailed revisions for some of the industries. These changes are not back dated.
Starting in 2004 employment numbers is gathered directly from the Registrar of Employers and Employees (“Arbeidsgiver-/ og arbeidstakerregisteret” a.k.a. “A/A-registeret”). Previously employment numbers was assembled through a combination of forms, sent out to enterprises in our sample, and the Registrar of Employers and Employees. Enterprises that were not in our sample, and without a record at the Registrar of Employers and Employees, had their employment numbers estimated using variables like personnel costs and turnover. The change in main source represents a methodolocigal break in the time series for employment numbers. At the same time with this change in source, the method for estimating number of employees at enterprises not recorded with the Registrar of Employers and Employees was changed. This change adds to the methodolocigal break. An analysis conducted on the effect of this transition concluded that employment numbers fell on average by approximately 2 %. This rate varied greatly between industry subclasses.
Method for calculating employment at enterprises that does not appear in employment registers was changed in 2005. Employment figures for 2004 and 2005 therefore does not constitute an uniterupted time series. The new method has resulted in slightly higher employment figures in 2005.
In previous years gross investments was calculated from enterprises in the sample to the entire population. Starting with the year 2008, figures for gross investments are collected from the Write-off blankett RF 1048B from the tax authority. This source provides more correct figures for gross investments.
Revision of industries Up to and including 2001, the Standard Industrial Classification 1994 (SIC94) was used. As of 2002, the Standard Industrial Classification 2002 (SIC2002) is used. This is noted with explanatory notes and/or breaks in the tables affected. The change in classification has no influence on 2- and 3-digit level.
Starting with the reference year 2008, the Standard Industrial Classification 2007 (SIC2007) is used. The most important changes for accommodation and food service activities is that accommodation and food and beverage serveice activities had become seperate divisions on 2-digit level. In addition, some of the subclass was divided and organised into new groups. For exampel, holiday and short-stay accommodation, camping grounds, recreational vehicle parks and trailer parkds was seperated from other accommodations.
The structural business statistics for Accommodation and food service activities are adapted to the EU regulation on structural business statistics, in the same way as the structural business statistics for wholesale and retail trade, business activities and construction that are also compiled by Statistics Norway.
When making comparisons with other statistics for employment, for instance the labour force survey at Statistics Norway or statistics based on the Register of Employees and Employers, it must be kept in mind that definitions and methodology varies between the statistics. The structural business statistics are compiled according to definitions given by the EU regulation on structural business statistics (see section 4.2).
The structural business statistics are used as a base when making the National accounts.
See accounts statistics for information about non-financial limited companies in the accommodation and food service sector.
See other statistics on Tourism.
The statistics are published electronically via Today's Statistics and in StatBank on Statistics Norway's website.
Primary data and information on sample units and population are stored temporarily in the programming language SAS, and stored permanently as text-files.
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