Seychelles strengthens its system of collecting tourism statistics |07 July 2022

The workshop facilitators from the UNWTO (Photos: Louis Toussaint)

Final touches are being put to an online inbound visitor’s survey aimed at strengthening the national system for collecting tourism statistics and for developing a tourism satellite account for the country.

This was through a workshop organised yesterday by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Tourism with the support of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO).

The half-day workshop held at the Savoy Resort & Spa at Beau Vallon brought together close local tourism partners.

The UNWTO project to improve the system of collecting tourism statistics and to develop a first tourism satellite account started in 2019 with a physical survey by the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS) but was interrupted due to Covid-19. The continuation of the survey to be held online by NBS through the Travisory platform is expected to start by end of July 2022 and to be completed by end of September 2022 for the official launch of the country’s tourism satellite account.

The workshop yesterday was facilitated by Kevin Millington, UNWTO consultant, based in the United Kingdom. He was assisted by UNWTO senior project specialist, Bana Tamin.

The aim of the workshop, which was also attended by the principal secretary for Tourism, Sherin Francis, and the principal secretary for Civil Aviation, Ports and Marine, Alan Renaud, was to provide the audience with a better understanding of why visitor surveys are so important for tourism destinations, and in particular island destinations such as ours.

The audience was also expected to learn of the best practices and know how to conduct the online surveys and to give their ideas and suggestions before it will be implemented.

The online survey by NBS on inbound visitors is to measure their expenditure and other attributes, such as where they stay, what they see and do and what they think of our country.

Tourism satellite accounts are the definitive way to measure the economic impact of tourism in a destination. Over the last 20 years, they have been implemented in many destinations around the world to find out exactly what tourism contributes to the gross domestic product (GDP). It allows for tourism to be compared like-for-like with other industrial sectors such as manufacturing, mining and agriculture among other economic sectors.

In her opening remarks to launch the workshop, PS Francis stated that the importance of collecting visitor data and of having a tourism satellite account serves the basis for policies and marketing strategies and is eventually what drives the country’s economy.

She noted that the survey will provide a lot of insight into issues that will need to be addressed so that policy makers make the right policies and strategies for the development of tourism in the country.

PS Francis added that through the Travisory platform, the survey will be more assured and efficient with the provision of better data for better output. Consequently, the project is focusing on improving both demand and supply statistics related to the tourism sector for compilation of a reliable tourism satellite account.

She thanked the local and international partners involved in the project.

Patrick Joubert