The Variant of the Standard Classification of Countries and Areas of Interest 2019 for Travel Statistics was developed to create groupings of countries to enable the production of integrated statistics when publishing travel statistics data. These groupings are based on those used by the World Tourism Organization (WTO).
The Variant of the Standard Classification of Countries and Areas of Interest 2019 for Travel Statistics has three levels: 6 geographical macro-regions, 23 geographical sub-regions and 251 countries or areas of interest. This variant is defined in terms of countries or areas of interest in the Standard Classification of Countries and Areas of Interest (SCCAI) 2019. The hierarchical structure of the classification shows the relationship between the three levels of the classification variant.
Level 1: Geographical macro-regions
Level 2: Geographical sub-regions
Level 3: Countries and areas of interest
This variant has a coding structure built on the United Nations numeric code (NUM-3) for countries or areas. This three-digit code is preceded by two numeric digits, where the first digit represents the macro-region and the second digit identifies the sub-region within the macro-region.
Conformity to relevant internationally recognized standards
This standard is based on the composition of geographical macro-regions and geographical sub-regions of the WTO Footnote 1. However, some differences remain. The main differences are:
- in this standard, the six geographical macro-regions are based on the variant Countries and Areas of Interest for Social Statistics – SCCAI 2019 rather than the WTO
- in this standard, the eight WTO geographical sub-regions of East Asia and the Pacific, South Asia, and the Middle East are reassigned to the geographical macro-regions of Asia and Oceania from the variant Countries and Areas of Interest for Social Statistics – SCCAI 2019
- in this standard, a geographical sub-region was created for the geographical macro-region of Antarctica and Adjacent Islands
- in this standard, the list of countries and areas of interest is based on SCCAI rather than the WTO. Additional countries and areas of interest were allocated to the corresponding geographical macro-regions and geographical sub-regions based on their geographic location.