The Seychelles Island with the support and technical expertise of its international partners has moved a step closer to developing a National Tourism Satellite account.
The archipelago island in January 2019 partnered with the World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) out to improve the system of tourism statistics in the Seychelles and develop a first tourism satellite account (TSA) for the country. The project is nearing completion with the end of September 2022 earmarked to see the country outdoor its Tourism satellite account.
The main concept behind the TSA is to reconcile tourism demand with supply. This means that the complying authorities need to have reliable sources of information regarding demand – that is tourist expenditure, and supply – that is output from tourism industries such as accommodation, food, and beverage serving services, passenger transport, and so on. This enables the calculation of the proportion of the supply of a product (such as accommodation or passenger transport) that is purchased by tourists.
A workshop held on July 6 in Seychelles aimed at providing stakeholders with a better understanding of why visitor surveys are so important for tourism destinations, and in particular, island destinations such as the Seychelles was part of the stakeholder engagement.
The session focused on online surveys, which are a trend in collecting visitor data, how they work, and examples of best practices. It introduced the plan for conducting the Seychelles Visitor Survey online and sought ideas and suggestions in advance of this being implemented.
The workshop was facilitated by Kevin Millington, a UNWTO consultant, based in the United Kingdom. He was assisted by UNWTO senior project specialist, Bana Tamim.
On her impressions of the exercise, Senior Project Specialist from the UNWTO Ms. Bana Tamim said all stakeholders were pleased with the progress of the project activities and were looking forward to completing it to be able to reap the benefits of having a TSA for the first time.
‘’It is really a pleasure to see the progress of the project activities despite all the challenges that the project faced, especially, during the pandemic. However, the great coordination and collaboration between the stakeholders of the tourism sector in Seychelles, in addition to the transparency in sharing the information, were main factors in enabling the speedy recovery and being back on track to continue the implementation of the project activities. ‘’ Ms. Bana Tamim said.
She asserted that another important factor that will contribute to the achievement of the project’s objectives is the deep understanding of the importance of the project throughout all of its phases for the development of this significant sector for the country.
‘’The discussion at the workshop between all the relevant parties demonstrated that they were fully aware that the development of the Tourism Survey, through the Travisory Platform, will provide a deep insight into the main challenges so that the future strategies will focus on addressing them, and in the end, they will have the first TSA, which is the definitive way to measure the economic impact of tourism in Seychelles and find out exactly what tourism contributes to the gross domestic product (GDP)’’ she concluded.
In her opening remarks to launch the workshop, the Permanent Secretary of Tourism Mrs.Sherin Francis stated that the importance of collecting visitor data and of having a tourism satellite account serves as 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 policymakers 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 the compilation of a reliable tourism satellite account.
The workshop was organized by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Tourism with the support of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO).
