St. Lucia - Travel services (% of commercial service exports)

The value for Travel services (% of commercial service exports) in St. Lucia was 88.91 as of 2020. As the graph below shows, over the past 44 years this indicator reached a maximum value of 100.00 in 1981 and a minimum value of 62.19 in 1984.

Definition: Travel services (% of commercial service exports) covers goods and services acquired from an economy by travelers in that economy for their own use during visits of less than one year for business or personal purposes. Travel services include the goods and services consumed by travelers, such as lodging and meals and transport (within the economy visited).

Source: International Monetary Fund, Balance of Payments Statistics Yearbook and data files.

See also:

Year Value
1976 100.00
1977 100.00
1978 100.00
1979 98.82
1980 100.00
1981 100.00
1982 66.00
1983 66.79
1984 62.19
1985 62.88
1986 90.76
1987 90.12
1988 82.72
1989 83.27
1990 81.01
1991 84.35
1992 86.60
1993 87.45
1994 87.53
1995 86.91
1996 89.03
1997 88.18
1998 89.03
1999 85.58
2000 86.95
2001 85.61
2002 84.53
2003 89.02
2004 89.08
2005 87.85
2006 86.00
2007 85.20
2008 86.02
2009 84.55
2010 83.99
2011 84.76
2012 86.77
2013 87.20
2014 94.44
2015 93.68
2016 93.84
2017 94.05
2018 94.75
2019 95.70
2020 88.91

Development Relevance: Trade in services differs from trade in goods because services are produced and consumed at the same time. Thus services to a traveler may be consumed in the producing country (for example, use of a hotel room) but are classified as imports of the traveler's country. In other cases services may be supplied from a remote location; for example, insurance services may be supplied from one location and consumed in another.

Limitations and Exceptions: Balance of payments statistics, the main source of information on international trade in services, have many weaknesses. Disaggregation of important components may be limited and varies considerably across countries. There are inconsistencies in the methods used to report items. And the recording of major flows as net items is common (for example, insurance transactions are often recorded as premiums less claims). These factors contribute to a downward bias in the value of the service trade reported in the balance of payments. Efforts are being made to improve the coverage, quality, and consistency of these data. Eurostat and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, for example, are working together to improve the collection of statistics on trade in services in member countries. Still, difficulties in capturing all the dimensions of international trade in services mean that the record is likely to remain incomplete. Cross-border intrafirm service transactions, which are usually not captured in the balance of payments, have increased in recent years. An example is transnational corporations' use of mainframe computers around the clock for data processing, exploiting time zone differences between their home country and the host countries of their affiliates. Another important dimension of service trade not captured by conventional balance of payments statistics is establishment trade - sales in the host country by foreign affiliates. By contrast, cross-border intrafirm transactions in merchandise may be reported as exports or imports in the balance of payments.

Statistical Concept and Methodology: The balance of payments (BoP) is a double-entry accounting system that shows all flows of goods and services into and out of an economy; all transfers that are the counterpart of real resources or financial claims provided to or by the rest of the world without a quid pro quo, such as donations and grants; and all changes in residents' claims on and liabilities to nonresidents that arise from economic transactions. All transactions are recorded twice - once as a credit and once as a debit. In principle the net balance should be zero, but in practice the accounts often do not balance, requiring inclusion of a balancing item, net errors and omissions. The concepts and definitions underlying the data are based on the sixth edition of the International Monetary Fund's (IMF) Balance of Payments Manual (BPM6). Balance of payments data for 2005 onward will be presented in accord with the BPM6. The historical BPM5 data series will end with data for 2008, which can be accessed through the World Development Indicators archives. The complete balance of payments methodology can be accessed through the International Monetary Fund website (www.imf.org/external/np/sta/bop/bop.htm).

Aggregation method: Weighted average

Periodicity: Annual

Classification

Topic: Private Sector & Trade Indicators

Sub-Topic: Exports