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Patrick Chitumba Victoria Falls Reporter
THE Zimbabwe Tourism Authority (ZTA) has submitted a request to the Government to avail necessary resources that will pave way for the implementation of the tourism satellite accounting system (TSA), an official said. The Tourism Satellite Accounting (TSA) is a statistical framework in the field of tourism and measures goods and services according to international standards, concepts, classification and definitions which allow valid comparisons from country to country in a consistent manner.
It also contains a detailed production of accounts of the tourism industry and their linkages to other industries, employment, capital formation and additional non-monetary information on tourism.
As part of efforts to set up the accounting system, a technical team comprising officials from the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ), Zimbabwe National Statistics Agency, tourism sector and ZTA has already been put in place to build capacity for the setting up of the system.
In an interview yesterday, ZTA chief operating officer, Givemore Chidzidzi said TSA was recommended by the United Nations World Tourism Organisation so that the true value of tourism was realised.
TSA captures among other critical information visitor/exit numbers, their origin, mode of transport, their likes and dislikes to establish where the money is spend in the country.
“The implementation of the tourism satellite accounting requires a lot of money but is very critical for national planning purposes because the survey or information from it can be used by investors and the government in planning purposes.
“So the TSA is critical as it will enable the government to have more accurate record on the contribution of the tourism sector to the gross domestic product,” said Chidzidzi.
Chidzidzi said they had submitted their request for the necessary resources to the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development.
“Once we have that in place then we can fully account for what goes into the country since we feel the current figures understate the value of tourism in the country because of lack of the tourism satellite accounting system,” he said.
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