Ethiopia has launched the first-ever Tourism Satellite Account (ET-TSA), aiming to effectively harness and utilize the economic potential of its tourism sector.
The Tourism Satellite Account is a globally recognised statistical framework developed by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) in collaboration with the United Nations Statistics Division, the International Monetary Fund and other international bodies.
Launching the account on Tuesday, Ethiopia’s tourism minister Nasisie Chali said the account was designed to measure goods and services associated with tourism on international standards, concepts, classifications and definitions.
‘The establishment of TSA is a strategic initiative aimed at realizing the full economic potential of Ethiopia’s tourism sector by providing essential data for evidence-based policy formulation, decision making and strategic planning,” she said.
Indicating that Ethiopia lacks a robust statistical framework for accurately measuring and analyzing the sector’s economic contributions, Chali said TSA will serve as an instrument to measure the generation of tourism economic data (such as the direct contribution of Tourism to GDP) that could be comparable with other economic statistics.
According to the minister, the gaps as well as the fragmented approach to data collection limits the country’s ability to fully capitalise on the benefits of tourism and optimise its economic impact and hinders effective policy development, implementation, evaluation as well as the efficient operation of businesses within the sector.
TSA is set to offer insights about the contribution of tourism to GDP, job creation, investment among others.
The TSA project was started on February 4, 2023 in collaboration with the Ministry of Planning and Development and various stakeholders from both public and private sectors, it was learned.
MG/as/APA