The Tourism Research Institute is fast-tracking the development of the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) designed to capture all the aspects of tourism and bring out the true value of the sector to the country’s GDP.
“TSA will help decision making by the government on tourism development including policy formulation, optimal resource allocation to the sector, infrastructure prioritization and incentives for tourism development among others,” TRI acting chief executive David Gitonga said.
He added that the development of Kenya TSA is being done based on the TSA methodological framework developed by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation.
The TSA as per recommended standards will comprise of 10 tables derived through the process of reconciliation of economic information related to tourism in the framework of Supply and Use Tables (SUT) of the System of National Accounts (SNA).
In these tables, the visitors, products, and industries will be shown in a disaggregated manner.
With a fully-fledged TSA, it will also be possible to undertake policy simulations to assess the impact of tourism policy changes on the economy using economic models such as Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) and Social Accounting Matrix(SAM) among others.
Tourism Finance Corporation (TFC) is among the stakeholders participating in the implementation of the TSA Program.
“The Tourism Satellite Account data will enable TFC to make informed decisions in determining the specific investments to be done in different parts of the country” TFC managing director Jonah Orumoi said.
