Cyprus: Wot no tourism data?

**Serious repercussions for other statistics **

Fellow data maniacs eagerly awaiting the release of March tourism data will have been severely disappointed that the Statistical Service of Cyprus (CYSTAT) will not be producing any tourism data for March.
“The Statistical Service announces that for March 2012 the surveys at Larnaka and Pafos airports were not conducted and consequently the production and dissemination of statistics related to the arrivals of tourists and revenue from tourism are not possible,” said CYSTAT in a statement.
Reasons for the absence of data were not given. But a hint of the reason came in the second part of the statement: “It may be noted that due to the particular characteristics of the surveys the data collection is carried out daily on a twenty four hour basis by casual staff.”
As a wild guess, it means that the budget cuts in late 2011 got rid of all casual staff, so no one could pay the little army of researchers at the airports.
Lack of data on a sector that accounts for some 10% of GDP will doubtless play havoc with all kinds of other numbers—the real size of GDP, the real size of the budget deficit as a percentage of GDP, and inflows and outflows on the balance of payments.
In other words, it is an economist’s nightmare.
The Statistical Service says it apologises to users for any problems arising.
Fiona Mullen
www.sapientaeconomics.com