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Leonard Ncube in Victoria Falls
THE Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) has intensified efforts to establish a Tourism Satellite Account (TSA), which will measure performance of the tourism industry.

The TSA was developed by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) after realisation that some economies were failing to accurately measure tourism’s contribution and economic impact. Government had earmarked to launch the model facility last year.

ZTA chief operational officer, Mr Givemore Chidzidzi, told Business Chronicle that there was an urgent need to carry out outstanding surveys and data protocols, which would see Zimbabwe establishing the experimental TSA.

“While tourism has tremendous benefits to the economy of any country, the full contribution of the tourism sector in Zimbabwe to the economy remains understated as a result of lack of a proper accounting system,” he said.

“Zimbabwe is lagging behind in producing Real Time Tourism Statistics. There is great need to improve the compilation and dissemination of tourist arrival statistics by using modern technologies such as the Advanced Passenger Processing System, which produces accurate, real time statistics which are critical for the TSA, destination marketing and planning purposes.”

The major objectives of TSA are to measure the proportion of tourism to a country’s GDP, size of the tourism industry relative to other sectors of a country’s economy, number of jobs generated by tourism activity, the value of public and private investment related to tourism, the effect of international tourism on a country’s balance of payments as well as the value of Government income generated by tourism in the country.

“Tourism Satellite Account is a system, which makes comparisons and measurability. We are working on it as we want to measure impact of tourism, taxes collected, direct expenditure by tourists, incomes earned and impact on other sectors,” said Mr Chidzidzi.

The indicators will also help the country assess how far it has gone towards meeting the targeted $5 billion economy as well as build security against unwanted elements such as terrorism. In the region only South Africa, Mozambique and Namibia have already established experimental TSAs while others are at varying stages. It is through the TSA that the country can compare and measure itself with other nations as it will provide a set of tables that would sum up all activities in tourism such as employment.

@ncubeleon