Tourism Satellite Accounts

Tourism plays an increasing role as a socioeconomic driver for development in many developed and developing countries. However, in some cases, it does not receive a level of public concern commensurate with its real contribution to national economies. Undoubtedly, one of the reasons for this is statistical. Within most current statistical systems, it is very hard to adequately report the characteristics of the tourism sector in general and specifically the real economic impacts of visitors’ activities in a country at both national and sub-national levels. From this sprang the notion of developing a statistical tool to enable destinations to understand properly and to assess accurately the significance of the tourism sector in their economies through tracing the impact of the tourism expenditure units (visitors) on ...