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CANADA TO CHAIR WTO
COMMITTEE ON STATISTICS MADRID, 22 March 2004 - The Tourism Satellite
Account (TSA) is not only about statistics, it is much more, providing
concrete proof that tourism is one of the most important economic sectors and,
thus, indispensable in today's world. To obtain wider recognition of
this issue, the World Tourism Organization is preparing a new World Conference
in 2005 to explain the usefulness of the TSA. During its fifth session, mid-March, the
Committee on Statistics and Macroeconomic Analysis elected Canada as
President for the period 2004 - 2007. Canada is represented by Mr. Scott Meis,
Executive Director of Research at the Canadian Tourism Commission.
Spain (Instituto de Estudios Turísticos) and France (Direction
Générale du Tourisme) will serve
as Vice-Chairmen. The Committee discussed several issues related
to the TSA, including its methodological framework and the organization of
the World Conference on TSA, scheduled for 2005, which will serve as an
instrument for understanding tourism and designing new
strategies. "The recent transformation of our Organization into a
specialized agency of the United Nations also sent a clear message: to reaffirm
our leading role in the development and promotion of the TSA" stressed
the Secretary-General Mr. Francesco Frangialli. According to United
Nations, WTO is "the appropriate organization to collect, to analyse, to publish,
to standardize and to improve the tourism statistics and to promote
the integration of these statistics within the sphere of the United
Nations system". "The WTO and the community of tourism
statisticians have made tremendous progress in the past fifteen years in, first,
developing a foundation of common concepts to measure, monitor and describe
the phenomenon of tourism, and second, in developing the tools - the
Tourism Satellite Account and its associated extensions and applications -- to
measure and describe the size, structure and dynamics of tourism in the
national economy" said Committee's new President Mr. Meis. Two working groups were created at the meeting,
the first on employment in tourism. It will be chaired by Spain and will
try to define actual practices and set standards for a more
comprehensive assessment of different types of employment in the tourism
industry. The second group, chaired by Canada, will be responsible for the
methodological aspects of the TSA. The WTO Department of Statistics and
Economic Measurement of Tourism will disseminate a questionnaire to all
countries, which already have implemented the TSA, in order to clarify
the most challenging problems and definitions included in the Accounts. This
group will suggest some updates in the revision of the System of
National Accounts (SNA93) which just started and provide a chance to enhance the
relation with the TSA methodological framework on aspects such as
travel agencies, package tours, etc. For this new period, the Committee will be
composed by the member States (Canada, Cyprus, Ecuador, Egypt, France, India,
Israel, Mexico, Mozambique, the Philippines, Spain and Tunisia), Associate
Members (Aruba), representatives of the affiliate members (Centro
Internazionale di Studi e ricerche sull' Economia Turistica - CISET,
International Congress & Convention Association - ICCA, International
Hotel & Restaurant Association - IH&RA, MasterCard International),
observers (non-member States: Australia, Singapore, Sweden, United States of America; and
institutions: Statistical Office of the European Community - Eurostat,
International Labour Organisation -ILO, Organization for Economic
Cooperation and Development - OECD, Ufficio Italiano dei Cambi - UIC, World
Travel and Tourism Council - WTTC). Among present at the Committee meeting were also
invitees from the Comité Régional du Tourisme (CRT) Riviera
Côte d'Azur, Hungarian National Tourist Office, of the United Nations Economic
Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean and the European Commission. For more information contact: WTO Department of Statistics and Economic
Measurement of Tourism Fax +34 91 567 8217, www.world-tourism.org |
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