  Tourism is one of the most important economic activities in the world: for
many countries it represents the single largest product in their export basket.
However, it is a product difficult to chart: "exporters" of tourism do not ship
it abroad, but they welcome importers inside the country. Current research uses
social accounting matrices and general equilibrium models, but the standard
industry classifications they use make it hard to identify which domestic
industries cater to foreign visitors. In this paper, we make use of open source
data and of anonymized and aggregated transaction data giving us insights about
the spend behavior of foreigners inside two countries, Colombia and the
Netherlands, to inform our research. With this data, we are able to describe
what constitutes the tourism sector, and to map the most attractive
destinations for visitors. In particular, we find that countries might observe
different geographical tourists' patterns -- concentration versus
decentralization --; we show the importance of distance, a country's reported
wealth and cultural affinity in informing tourism; and we show the potential of
combining open source data and anonymized and aggregated transaction data on
foreign spend patterns in gaining insight as to the evolution of tourism from
one year to another.
