Anticipating Italian census tourism data before their official release: a first solution and implementation to Piemonte, Italy

Tourism is a complex and highly competitive sector. In this scenario, incoming tourism flows represent one of the key indicators for public institutions, willing to adopt an informed decision making process for resource allocation. The accurate and timely knowledge of both the inter-regional and the foreign component at a sufficiently detailed geographical level of such flows allows a better strategical, tactical and operational planning of marketing activities. The paper describes a methodology to complete the database of the official statistical data on tourism flows with an estimate of missing data, which are originated by non-respondent accommodation structure. The methodology has been applied to the inbound tourism flows into Piemonte, Italy.