Commission Delegated Regulation (EU) 2019/1681 of 1 August 2019 amending Regulation (EU) No 692/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council concerning European statistics on tourism, as regards the transmission deadlines and adaptation of Annexes I and II (Text with EEA relevance)

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION,

Having regard to the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union,

Having regard to Regulation (EU) No 692/2011 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 6 July 2011 concerning European statistics on tourism and repealing Council Directive 95/57/EC [^ntr1-L_2019258EN.01000101-E0001], and in particular Article 3(2) and Article 9(5) thereof,

Whereas:

• (1) Regulation (EU) No 692/2011 lays down the transmission deadlines of European statistics on tourism.

• (2) Timeliness is an essential element of quality of official statistics, and technical development enables statistical authorities to produce data with shorter delays. Therefore, the transmission deadlines for monthly data on occupancy of tourist accommodation establishments should be shortened, taking into account the existing data collection practices in the Member States.

• (3) Combatting seasonality remains a crucial action for public authorities and economic operators in the area of tourism at national, regional and destination level. Therefore, monthly data on nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments should be transmitted at regional level.

• (4) Tourism is one of the economic domains contributing to opportunities as well as challenges for European cities, and measuring the relevance of tourism for the development of individual cities contributes to benchmarking, analysing and designing relevant development strategies. Therefore, data on nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments in major or tourism intensive cities should be transmitted.

• (5) Tourism is a major contributor to the blue economy with a high potential for sustainable jobs and growth, and coastal tourism can be better analysed for different degrees of urbanisation of the area. Therefore, data on nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments jointly analysing the coastal or non-coastal nature and the degree of urbanisation should be transmitted.

• (6) Tourism is an economic activity where supply and demand decisions often take place at destination level, beyond the level of NUTS 2 regions for which data is available by Regulation (EU) No 692/2011. Therefore, data on nights spent at tourist accommodation establishments should be transmitted at the level of NUTS 3 regions.

• (7) Directive (EU) 2015/2302 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 25 November 2015 on package travel and linked travel arrangements [^ntr2-L_2019258EN.01000101-E0002] applies to packages offered for sale or sold by traders to travellers and to linked travel arrangements facilitated by traders for travellers.

• (8) Offering and using accommodation and transport services through online platforms can give a greater choice to customers and create new entrepreneurial opportunities for businesses and citizens, generating positive and negative side effects; and the phenomenon can be measured from a demand side perspective using the framework for European statistics on tourism. Therefore, adaptations should be made to the variables and breakdowns for tourism trips.

• (9) Regulation (EU) No 692/2011 should therefore be amended accordingly, while not imposing significant additional administrative burdens on the Member States and on the respondents,

HAS ADOPTED THIS REGULATION:

Article 1

Regulation (EU) No 692/2011 is amended as follows:

• (1) In Article 9, paragraph (4) is replaced by the following:

‘4.   Member States shall transmit:

• (a) the validated annual data listed in Sections 1 and 2 of Annex I within 6 months after the end of the reference period, unless otherwise specified in Annex I;

• (b) the validated monthly data listed in Section 2 of Annex I within 8 weeks after the end of the reference periods for reference years 2020 and 2021, and within 6 weeks after the end of the reference period as of reference year 2022;

• (c) the validated data listed in Section 4 of Annex I within 9 months after the end of the reference period, if the Member State concerned opts in favour of transmitting them;

• (d) the validated data listed in Annex II within 6 months after the end of the reference period.’;

• (2) Annex I is amended as follows:

• (a) in Section 2, point ‘A. Variables and breakdowns to be transmitted for annual data’, is amended as follows:

• (i) the first row of the table under ‘(1) At regional NUTS 2 level and at national level’, is replaced by the following:

• (ii) in the table ‘(2) At national level’, the following row is added to the top:

• (b) point ‘D. Rapid key indicators’ is deleted;

• (c) in Section 3, the following point F is added:

‘F. Cities

The cities for which data shall be transmitted shall be in accordance with Article 4b(3) of Regulation (EC) No 1059/2003 and they shall include at least:

— those cities that, jointly, account for 90 % of the annual nights spent at tourism accommodation in cities in the country;

— the capital city;

— all cities with 200 000 inhabitants or more.

For this purpose, cities are those local administrative unit (LAU) where at least 50 % of the population lives in an urban centres; an urban centre is a cluster of contiguous grid cells of 1 km² with a density of at least 1 500 inhabitants per km² and collectively a population of at least 50 000 inhabitants. The Commission (Eurostat) together with the Member States shall regularly update the list of cities. Member States shall transmit the data for the most recent list of cities available on 31 December of the reference year.’;

• (3) In Annex II, section 2, point ‘A. Variables to be transmitted’, rows 8 to 15 of the table, are replaced by the following:

Article 2

This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union.

It shall apply from 1 January 2020.

This Regulation shall be binding in its entirety and directly applicable in all Member States.

Done at Brussels, 1 August 2019.

For the Commission

The President

Jean-Claude JUNCKER

[^ntr1-L_2019258EN.01000101-E0001]: OJ L 192, 6.7.2011, p. 17.

[^ntr2-L_2019258EN.01000101-E0002]: OJ L 326, 11.12.2015, p. 1.