Question NW3133 to the Minister in the Presidency
04 September 2015 - NW3133
Vos, Mr J to ask the Minister in the Presidency
In light of the fact that the Tourism Satellite Account provides information at a national level, what are the plans for Statistics South Africa to assist provinces and municipalities to produce tourism statistics at a local level in order to improve (a) planning and (b) budgeting?
Reply:
The methodology for Tourism Satellite Accounts (TSA) is only developed to monitor the contribution of the tourism sector to the economy on a national level. Noting that tourism, and the management thereof, is of particular interest to policy makers and government structures on a sub-national level, the United Nation’s World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) embarked on a process to develop Tourism Economic Accounts (TEA) that will allow for similar information on a lower level of geographic disaggregation.
This will take a number of years as there is no agreed international framework or standard. The development of provincial TEA is driven by UNWTO which produced a provisional set of concepts and definitions in May 2015. This is currently open for global consultation until September 2015.