Manual on Statistics of International Trade in Services

2. Travel 
3.77. The 
travel 
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 component of EBOPS differs from 
most other internationally traded services in that it is the 
consumer of these services that gives travel its 
distinctive characterization.  The consumer (or 
traveller
48
) moves to another economy to obtain goods 
and services. Thus, unlike most other services in 
EBOPS,  travel is not a specific product; rather it is a 
range of goods and services consumed by travellers. It is 
for this reason that travel is not identified with any 
corresponding categories of CPC, Version 1.0. 
3.78.  Travel covers primarily the goods and services 
acquired from an economy by travellers during visits of 
less than one year to that economy. The goods and 
                                                 
47
 The term travel, as used in the present Manual, is 
synonymous with the term travel used in BPM5 and 
consistent with the term tourism used in the 1993 SNA. It is 
also related to the term tourism used in the Tourism Satellite 
Account: Recommended Methodological Framework, jointly 
published by the World Tourism Organization, Eurostat, 
OECD and the United Nations (see para. 2.39 above). The 
differences between the present Manual and BPM5, on the 
one hand, and TSA on the other hand, relate to expenditure by 
students and medical patients if they stay in the host economy 
for one year or more and expenditure by certain types of 
employees (see annex VII).  
48
 The 
term 
traveller used here differs from the TSA definition 
of  visitor primarily in the areas of students residing in other 
countries for education purposes, patients receiving long-term 
health care abroad and some aspects of employment abroad.  

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39 
services are purchased by, or on behalf of, the traveller 
or provided, without a quid pro quo (that is, are provided 
as a gift), for the traveller to use or give away. Excluded 
are transportation of travellers within the economies that 
they are visiting, where such transportation is provided 
by carriers not resident in the particular economy being 
visited, as well as the international carriage of travellers, 
both of which are covered in passenger services under 
transportation. Also excluded are goods purchased by a 
traveller for resale in the traveller’s own economy or in 
any other economy.  
3.79.  A traveller is an individual staying for less than 
one year in an economy of which he or she is not a 
resident for any purpose other than (a) being stationed 
on a military base or being an employee (including 
diplomats and other embassy and consulate personnel) 
of an agency of his or her government, (b) being an 
accompanying dependent of an individual mentioned 
under (a), or (c) undertaking a productive activity 
directly for an entity that is a resident of that economy. 
Expenditures made by individuals covered in (a) and (b) 
are recorded under government services, n.i.e.  
Expenditures made by individuals (including seasonal 
and border workers) covered in (c) in the economy of 
the employing enterprise are included under travel. The 
one-year guideline does not apply to students or to 
patients receiving health care abroad, who remain 
residents of their economies of origin even if the length 
of stay in another economy is one year or more. 
3.80.  Although BPM5 recommends a breakdown of 
travel into business  and  personal  travel in its standard 
components, the present Manual recommends a further 
breakdown of each of these components of travel.  
3.81.  Business travel covers the acquisition of goods 
and services by business travellers, who are going 
abroad for all types of business activities, such as carrier 
crews stopping off or laying over, government 
employees on official travel, employees of international 
organizations on official business, and employees doing 
work for enterprises that are not resident in the 
economies in which the work occurs. They may visit an 
economy for sales campaigns, market exploration, 
commercial negotiations, missions, meetings, production 
or installation work, or other business purposes on 
behalf of an enterprise resident in another economy. 
Business travel also includes the acquisition of goods 
and services for personal use by seasonal, border and 
other workers who are not resident in the economy in 
which they are employed and whose employer is 
resident in that economy. 
3.82.  Business travel includes the goods and services 
acquired for their own personal use by travellers whose 
main purpose of travel is for business (including goods 
and services for which business travellers are reimbursed 
by employers) but not the sales or purchases that they 
may conclude on behalf of the enterprises they represent.  
3.83. The acquisition of goods and services for 
personal use by seasonal, border and other workers, who 
are not resident in the economy in which they are 
employed and whose employer is resident in that 
economy, is separately identified in the EBOPS 
subcomponent  expenditure by seasonal and border