Surveys on domestic tourism expenditure, health, and household travel will be part of the 80th round of the National Sample Survey (NSS), which is expected to be launched by the Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation (MoSPI) next year.
“All three surveys will be for a duration of one year. While the survey on health will be launched in January, surveys on household travel and domestic tourism expenditure are expected to be launched in July. The survey on household travel is being conducted at the request of the Ministry of Railways, which will use the data to determine the production of coaches,” a government official said, requesting anonymity.
The official stated that the objective is to assess the spatial demand matrix for different transportation modes and the influencing factors affecting the mode and destination choice. “Besides, it will also help in assessing the price elasticity of travel demand and formulating a coach production plan.”
The survey on health will build upon the 79th round of the NSS, which had covered only a few topics on health, in contrast to the latest round, which is expected to be more extensive.
The tourism expenditure survey, on the other hand, will be the third such survey in the series, as an earlier survey planned for 2020 was abandoned due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The Ministry of Tourism is the main user of this domestic tourism survey as it is one of the major and inevitable data sources for the sector. This data may be used to generate estimates of different parameters of the Indian tourism sector and UNWTO (United Nations World Tourism Organisation),” the official said.
The ministry, in its Vision 2024, had emphasised increasing the number of surveys to enable data-based decision-making.
The National Statistical Organisation (NSO) is mandated to conduct large-scale sample surveys in diverse fields across India, such as the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI), Periodic Labour Force Survey (PLFS), and Household Consumption Expenditure Survey (HCES). Earlier, the 79th round of the NSS covered the period between July 2022 and June 2023, and it undertook surveys on Ayurveda, Yoga, Naturopathy, Unani, Siddha, Sowa-Rigpa/Amchi, and Homoeopathy (AYUSH) during the round, the report for which was released recently.
First Published: Aug 12 2024 | 7:49 PM IS