Glossary of Terms

This glossary of tourism terms provides definitions of key terminology in our research and statistics data.

Visitor

Any person travelling to a place or country other than that of their usual environment or residence for a period not exceeding twelve months and the main purpose of whose visit is other than the exercise of an activity remunerated within the place or country visited.

Tourist

Any person travelling to a place or country other than that of their usual environment for at least one night and not exceeding twelve months and the main purpose of whose trip is other than the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited.

Same-day Visitor

A visitor who does not spend an overnight in the place or country visited.

Domestic Tourism

Involving residents of a country travelling only within the country.

Inbound Travel

Involving non-residents travelling in a given country.

Outbound Travel

Involving residents travelling in another country.

Holidaymaker

A tourist whose purpose of visit is for holiday or leisure reasons.

VFR

A tourist whose purpose of visit is either meeting or staying with friends and/or relatives.

A Hotel

A premises with a minimum of 10 bedrooms, registered in the register of hotels kept by Fáilte Ireland in accordance the Tourist Traffic Acts 1935 – 1979.

A Guestnight or Bednight

Defined as one person staying one night in a hotel.  Thus, one person staying three nights in a hotel is counted as three guestnights or bednights.

A Bed Space

A bed space accommodates one person, a single bed counts as one bed space, a double two.

Room Capacity

This is the number of rooms declared at the beginning of the year.  In assessing occupancy rates, allowance is made for seasonality and varying capacity during the year.  Annual capacity can thus be affected by the length of time premises are open during the year. 

Room Occupancy

This refers to the number of rooms occupied in relation to the number of rooms available.

Bed Capacity

This is the number of beds declared at the beginning of the year.  For capacity purposes, twin beds or double beds are counted as two beds.  As mentioned for room capacity, allowance is made for seasonality and varying bed capacity throughout the year.

Bed Occupancy

This refers to the number of guestnights taken up in relation to the number of beds available.  For example, if a room with a double or twin beds is occupied by one person it has a 50% bed occupancy rate.

Market Area

This relates to the country where the guest/visitor normally resides.

Respondent Age

This refers to the age of visitors/holidaymakers who responded to the survey.

Party Age

This includes the ages of those accompanying the survey respondent.

Regions Visited

Region of the country where visitors/holidaymakers spent at least one overnight.

Notation

*       less than 0.5%
n.a.  not available
-       null/zero
 

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