At present, tourism statistics is limited to head count and total foreign currency earnings only. [break]
After the system is installed, Nepal can calculate the total tourism earning and also find out the contribution of each sector in total tourism revenue.
The Ministry of Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoTCA) recently proposed United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) to assist it to set up the satellite accounting system during the UN body´s recently held annual general meeting. Officials at UNWTO had responded positively to the request.
"We will implement the project as soon as we get confirmation for assistance from UNWTO," MoTCA Secretary Dr Ganesh Raj Joshi told Republica, expressing hope that the country will very soon have the satellite accounting system for tourism sector.
So far, such satellite system have been used by some of the developed countries with the assistance of UNWTO and it has helped them get clear picture of the sector, enabling them to devise appropriate policies and plans to further develop the sector.
An official at the ministry said they had already prepared the concept paper to implement the project. “The system can help us to identify contribution of other sectors for tourism income,” he said.
Officials are hopeful that implementation of the project would help them devise effective marketing strategy. “We simply have the rough estimation. We are lacking actual data that shows the contribution of each sector in numbers,” Joshi added.
Despite healthy rise in arrivals, statistics shows that Nepal earned about $ 330 million from tourism sector in 2010, which was 12.5 percent less than earning recorded in 2009.
Joshi said the ministry can devise proper strategy to address the decline in tourism earnings only after having a proper database.
Related story
600,000 driving license cards to arrive from Germany today
_20240311121839.jpg)
-1200x560-1779450784.webp)
