Iguazu Area Ready For Key Conference On Tourism Satellite Account

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. October 14, 2008

EUROPEAN UNION, September 29, 2005. The World Tourism Organization is organizing a major conference on the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) at the Iguazu Falls from 3 to 6 October 2005, what promises to be a breaking point in "understanding tourism and designing strategies."

The conference is jointly organized and hosted by WTO and the Governments of Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay.

As one of the most important economic sectors in the world economy, tourism is a leading source of employment, income, investment, government revenue and development in many countries, but its precise impact on the economy of a single country needs to be measured professionally and strategically, WTO stresses. Tourism Satellite Accounts facilitates just that.

WTO Secretary-General Francesco Frangialli will be among speakers opening the conference and the keynote address by an official of the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean is entitled "Introducing Tourism into the Mainstream of Economics".

Traditionally, measuring tourism activity has been focused on physical indicators such as arrivals, hotel nights, etc. But the TSA is rooted in the input/output scheme of analysis that allows tourism authorities and others to focus on measuring the sector's economic impact on those countries which apply it.

Results of the TSA permit governments to better understand the true size and value of the industry and therefore make informed and intelligent decisions regarding tourism policy.

The aim of this high-level conference is to identify applications of the TSA for the benefit of all the stakeholders involved in tourism development and management.

The conference is oriented around various key-questions related to the role and impact of tourism on society and the policies and strategies that will decide its future. It constitutes an important milestone in the evolution of the tourism industry and in the way it is managed and developed.

Subjects on the second day include TSA implications for trade policies with speeches by Antonio Massieu, the chief of the WTO's Department of Statistics and Economic Measurement of Tourism, and Evelyn B. Pantig, a senior adviser to the Department of Tourism of the Philippines.

On the third day, Dirk Belau, industrial specialist on hotel catering and tourism at the International Labour Organization, will discuss monitoring labour markets in the sector, while the address by Scott Meis, Executive Director for Research at the Canadian Tourism Commission, will cover the TSA's contribution to market intelligence for action and forecasting.

Speakers on the last day will explain how to use the TSA conceptual framework to design tourism strategies in basic areas of application such as policy making, trade, marketing, employment, and analysis and research.