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The Survey of International Air Travelers (SIAT) program provides comprehensive, comparable survey data on overseas travel patterns, characteristics, and spending patterns on international travelers to and from the U.S. The SIAT is conducted on randomly selected international flights of major airlines that voluntarily participate in the program. In recent years, several airlines have requested that data collection takes place at the airport departure gate, rather than onboard the airplane.
The SIAT is conducted for the National Travel and Tourism Office (NTTO). Through this study the NTTO is providing a valuable source of information for travel planners and marketers to analyze the characteristics and behavior of specific international visitor segments. The SIAT collects data from about 80,000 (or more) international air travelers per year, depending upon available funding.
The survey results are weighted so they represent the international travel populations of U.S. residents and non-U.S. residents based upon data from the Department of Homeland Security. The process of weighting the survey responses provides a uniquely valuable aspect of the survey - the expansion of results to represent the entire visitor population.
Starting with the 2019 SIAT, NTTO has undertaken the task of providing variance estimates for U.S. destinations presented in the national publication, “Overseas Travelers to the U.S.A.” To understand the complexity of the variance estimate calculation, termed "the Jackknife estimation method," CIC Research has written a description of the process.
This downloadable document is a simplified users’ guide to illustrate an example of the Jackknife estimation method that CIC Research used to provide variance estimates for the SIAT. The guide shows the mathematic calculations for Jackknife estimates and all the steps needed to calculate them. The guide includes information on using and interpreting the results and touches on topics of significance testing and confidence intervals. The example contained in the guide uses data from the 2018 SIAT to conduct the Jackknife estimation method for residents of Kazakhstan whose main destination is the state of New York.
For more information on this project, click on the "NTTO Information" tab above. |
