Biography

After finishing two University Courses related to Export and Tourism at the University of Economics Vienna 1990 and the study in Geography at the University of Vienna in June 1992, Mr. Laimer has been started working at Statistics Austria in May 1993 and since 1998 he is responsible for the official “Tourism and Travel Statistics” (Tourism Satellite Accounts (TSA), Travel Balance of Payments, CATI-surveys).

Mr. Laimer is presently Deputy Director of the Directorate “Spatial Statistics” at Statistics Austria, which involves - apart from Tourism and Travel Statistics - Motor Vehicles Re-gistration Statistics, Road Safety Statistics, Environ-mental/Energy Statistics and Agriculture/Forestry Statistics.

Since mid 1990s he is Austrian delegate of several Working Groups and Task Forces at EUROSTAT, OECD and UN/ UNWTO, 1999-2003 he was participating as a technical expert in the EUROSTAT MedTour-program (MedStat I) related tourism statistics (Jordan; doing TES-courses), continuing the work within MedStat II in 2007 (Lebanon; in particular related Tourism Satellite Accounts).

Between 2000 and 2002 Mr. Laimer was working as a consultant on methodological issues related to “Tourism Statistics” and “Tourism Satellite Accounts” (TSA) for EUROSTAT (e.g. co-author to the “European Implementation Manual on TSA”); furthermore, he was one of the experts involved related to the development of “TSA: Recommended Methodological Framework”.

Related to TSA he was engaged as a consultant for the European project 2008/2009 related to TSA; since 2013 he is one of the experts assessing the three annual Eurostat publication “TSA in Europe” (2023 edition). In November 2017 he was leading a UNWTO/DG GROW Workshop on TSA in Brussels and a TSA Workshop in October 2018 (Luxembourg). In 2019, 2021 and 2022 he acted as the course leader within the European Statistical Training Programme (ESTP) related to TSA.

Furthermore, Mr. Laimer has been member of the UNWTO Committee on Statistics since many years; he was chairing the Committee in 2016 and 2017, since 2018 he is Co-Chair. Since 2016 he is being been leading the Working Group of Experts on Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism. Furthermore, since 2017 he is leading an UN/UNWTO Expert Group on Compilation Guide for TSA. He has been repeatedly working for several UNWTO programmes (e.g. UNWTO Statistics Capacity Building Programmes).

Since 2004 Mr. Laimer has been doing consultancies related to tourism statistics and TSA in several countries, i.e. Croatia (2004, 2007, 2008), Cyprus (2008), Georgia, Hungary, Iran (2017), Oman (2005), Kingdom of Saudi Arabia (2022/23), Slovenia, Taiwan, Turkey (2013, 2014 and 2019). He has been invited speaker, moderator and chair in various conferences (UN/UNWTO Conferences on Tourism Statistics (e.g. “UNSD Regional Workshop on the Compilation of the TSA“, 19-20 June 2017, Manila), Eurostat/OECD Global Forum on Tourism Statistics) and countries (e.g. Egypt, Thailand).

Between 2001 and 2006 he was chairman of the “Statistical Working Party” of the OECD Tourism Committee, until 2016 member of the Bureau of the Committee.

Since 2000 Mr. Laimer is teaching at the University of Linz and Fürstenfeld (University Course in Tourism Management) and at the Bachelor's Programme in Tourism Management at the University of Applied Science for Management and Communication in Vienna, giving regular lectures in statistics with particular stress on tourism.

Since 2003 he is member of the “International Association of Scientific Experts in Tourism” (AIEST), since 2017 board member of the “Club Tourism– Tourism Network Austria”.