Abstract copyright UK Data Service and data collection copyright owner.The International Passenger Survey (IPS) aims to collect data on both credits and debits for the travel account of the Balance of Payments, provide detailed visit information on overseas visitors to the United Kingdom (UK) for tourism policy, and collect data on international migration.
The depositor recommends that only expert users who are familiar with the coding and weighting structures use this dataset as limited support is available. Some considerable understanding of the data is required before meaningful analyses can be made, and care must be taken when performing time series operations as codes can vary from year to year. Not all variables from one years dataset are used in other years. The data cover four subject areas, AIRMILES, ALCOHOL, QREGTOWN and QCONTACT (held quarterly per subject area). These can be joined together using the variables YEAR, SERIAL, FLOW and QUARTER. The weighting of IPS data is complex and done in several stages. When working with the system weights, great care should be taken to read the documentation concerning weighting procedures as not all records are treated in exactly the same way. For the fifth edition, the IPS Travel Trends, 2003 report was added to the documentation.
Main Topics:
The main dataset for 2003 contains 143 variables, and covers: AIRMILES - quarter; flow; serial; United Kingdom port or route; direct leg overseas port; final overseas port; distance from United Kingdom port to first port; from first to second port; from United Kingdom port to second port. ALCOHOL - year; quarter; month; flow; serial; money spent on spirits; wine; beer; cigarettes; hand-rolled and other tobacco. QREGTOWN - year; quarter; month; flow; serial; towns stayed in overnight; number of nights spent in towns; expenditure in towns; regional stay weight; regional visit weight; regional expenditure weight; various validation checks. QCONTACT - year; quarter; month; flow; serial; nationality; country of visit/residence; United Kingdom counties; date visit began; purpose of visit; organised conference; intended length of stay; number of people; package tour and cost; expenditure pre, post and during visit; flight prefix and suffix; first carrier air or shipping line; direct leg overseas port; final overseas port; long or short haul; type of vehicle; number travelling in vehicle; fare type and cost; class of travel; business trip; type of flight; flight origin or destination; gender; age group; United Kingdom port or route; quality of response; date of interview; money transfer, net and total expenditure; Belgian language spoken; distance driven in UK by overseas driver; miles or kilometres; type of transport; arrivals (number of adults); departures (type of travelling group, number of adults and children); weighting variables; various validation checks.
Multi-stage stratified random sample
Face-to-face interview
