The Surveys Section is responsible for all survey projects and outputs across the domestic and international market sectors.  These survey projects are some of the largest, on-going surveys in Australia and the world. There are three main survey programs:

International Visitor Survey

National Visitor Survey

Destination Visitor Survey

Each of the survey projects go through a cycle. This cycle generally commences with questionnaire design developed in close negotiation with stakeholders and the consultants. Tourism Research Australia attempts to keep the questions and concepts consistent across the time-series, for both domestic and international travellers, in order to compare and contrast the two sectors and create a total tourism industry picture. 

Once finalised, the questionnaires are uploaded into computer software which enables more efficient and respondent specific data to be collected. The preliminary surveys are piloted off-line with test respondents. Once the pilot improvements to the questionnaire designs are made, extensive interviewer briefings are undertaken before the real surveys are commenced in the field.

All data collected is downloaded from the interviewers computer systems and delivered to Tourism Research Australia in the form of a unit record file. Tourism Research Australia undertakes extensive quality checks before applying weights to the data to ensure close representation of the population. These population statistics are supplied to Tourism Research Australia by the Department of Immigration and Multicultural Affairs and the Australian Bureau of Statistics.

When satisfied the data is thoroughly clean, Tourism Research Australia generates numerous reports, which are disseminated to key stakeholders and subscribers.