Addis Ababa: Ministry of Tourism revealed that Ethiopia’s first Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) will officially be launched tomorrow.
TSA is an accounting framework adopted by the United Nations and designed to measure goods and services associated with tourism according to international standards, concepts, classifications and definitions. In general, it is an instrument that measures the generation of tourism economic data (such as the direct contribution of Tourism to GDP) that is comparable with other economic statistics.
Briefing journalists today, Tourism State Minister Sileshi Girma announced that Ethiopia has established its TSA in collaboration with other ministries and pertinent stakeholders.
Accordingly, the state minister said Ethiopia’s first Tourism Satellite Account will officially be inaugurated tomorrow at the Adwa Victory Memorial Museum in Addis Ababa.
The establishment of TSA is a strategic initiative aimed at realizing the full economic potential of Ethiopia’s tourism sector by provid
ing essential data for evidence-based policy formulation, decision making and strategic planning, he added, indicating that Ethiopia lacks of robust statistical framework for accurately measuring and analyzing the sector’s economic contributions relying mainly on international tourist arrivals and visitor exit surveys.
The gaps as well as the fragmented approach to data collection limits the country’s ability to fully capitalize on the benefits of tourism and optimize its economic impact and hinders effective policy development, implementation, evaluation as well as the efficient operation of businesses within the sector, the state minister emphasized.
TSA will offer insights for the contribution of tourism to GDP, the sector’s size relative to other economic sectors, job creation, tourism’s contribution to investment, the impact of international tourism on the balance of payments and government revenue generated by tourism activities.
The TSA project of Ethiopia was started on February 4, 2023 in collabor
ation with the Ministry of Planning and Development and various stakeholders from both public and private sectors, it was learned.
Tourism Satellite Account is a globally recognized statistical framework developed by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) in collaboration with the United Nations Statistics Division, the International Monetary Fund and other international bodies.
Source: Ethiopian News Agency