following country groupings:
- Central and Eastern: Bulgaria, former Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Poland, Romania, former USSR;
- Northern: Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Ireland, Norway, Sweden, UK;
- Southern: Gibraltar, Greece, Italy, Malta, Portugal, San Marino, Spain, former Yugoslavia;
- Western: Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Monaco, The Netherlands, Switzerland;
- East Mediterranean: Cyprus, Israel, Turkey.
Most tourism statistics are available for Northern, Southern and Western Europe and the East Mediterranean. Comprehensive data are not available for tourism activity in Central and Eastern Europe. The WTO collects data on arrivals at frontiers, international and domestic tourist arrivals at accommodation establishments, international and domestic overnight stays, and the contribution to GDP from national tourist administrations (eg, WTO, 1993a). Recent trends on some of these indicators can be found in the Statistical Compendium. In addition, for most EU countries, Eurostat compiles data on tourism capacity, utilisation, visitor flows and employment in the tourism industry (eg, CEC, 1992a). The two principal indicators are tourist arrivals at accommodation establishments, and overnight stays. However, little information is available on the types of recreation and other activities that tourists undertake, their precise destinations (such as coasts, mountains or rural areas) within countries, or on seasonal flows. Further, as data are collected from national tourist bodies, they are not easily comparable across countries. As a result, much of this chapter is qualitative rather than quantitative.