Editorial

Dear European colleagues and friends,

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Many European destinations have no doubt recently summarised their results for the 2012 tourism year. Others are probably busy carrying out this important work right now. Those of us who deal with analysis and statistics are also currently planning and launching various analysis projects that will take shape during 2013.

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Analysis projects and needs vary from destination to destination. Perhaps some destinations will be carrying out new visitor surveys in 2013, reviewing their websites, measuring the financial effects of a conference or an event, or improving the process of collating meeting and tourism statistics at their destination.

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Whatever the size of your destination and the analysis projects you are carrying out, it’s never too late to learn more about monitoring and analysis, and to learn from how other destinations have gone about these. This is one area where you can benefit from, get involved in and keep abreast of the projects being run within ECM’s Research and Statistics group.

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I represent Malmö, which is Sweden’s third largest city, with approximately 300,000 inhabitants, 32 hotels and a tourism organisation made up of 23 full-time employees. For us, as a slightly smaller destination, being involved in some of ECM’s analysis projects has a real benefit. It has created opportunities for benchmarking, which we couldn’t have done on our own. But above all, it has improved our knowledge and given us a network of contacts with European colleagues who have been generous in sharing their experiences and their expertise.

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This opportunity for involvement in projects is open to all members of ECM. The easiest ways to stay up to date with what’s going on within the network are taking part in our Research and Statistics Knowledge Group meetings or reading our newsletters.

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So seize the chance to enhance your work with analysis news or some other improvement during 2013. Here in this year’s first edition of the Research and Statistics Newsletter you can find out more about some of the projects that you can profit from in future as an ECM member.

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The newsletter includes the following:

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