Question NW3720 to the Minister of Tourism
04 November 2015 - NW3720
Vos, Mr J to ask the Minister of Tourism
In view of the fact that the Tourism Satellite Account provides information at a national level and in view of the Minister in The Presidency’s reply to question 3133 on 4 September 2015 in which he states that the United Nations has embarked on a process to develop provincial tourism economic accounts that will allow for similar information on a lower level of geographic disaggregation, which will take a number of years to come to fruition, what plans does his department have in place for Statistics South Africa to assist (a) provinces and (b) municipalities to produce tourism statistics at a local level to improve planning and budgeting?
Reply:
It is important note from onset that the limitations with regards to compilation of tourism economic account at sub-national level are not unique to South Africa. It is for this reason that the development of such a framework is being championed by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation. Thus, at this stage, there is no framework that can be used for production of statistics at provincial and municipal level in the same manner that the Tourism Satellite Account is produced.
The Department has establish the National Tourism Research and Knowledge Management Committee, a technical committee comprised of officials responsible for tourism data at provincial level. This committee serves as a platform to strengthen initiatives related to tourism data collection at provincial and local level. Statistics South Africa is a standing member of this committee. This committee, was afford an opportunity to make input into the UNWTO process of developing a tourism economic account.
Furthermore, the department invites StatsSA on a regular basis to engage with tourism stakeholders at platforms such as the National Tourism Stakeholder Forum (NTSF) which constitutes of representatives from government i.e. ((a) provinces and (b) municipalities) and private sector to share information related to tourism statistics. This information includes methodologies for compilation of different data sets as well as tourism standard definitions to ensure comparability.