National Council of Applied Economic Research
NCAER has recently completed a seminal study on Tourism Satellite Accounts for 2015-16 for India and Indian States and UTs for the Union Ministry of Tourism. In this context, a one-day workshop was organised to launch NCAER’s Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) and to study and discuss its findings. The workshop commenced with a welcome address by Dr Shekhar Shah. Shri Yogendra Tripathi, Secretary, Ministry of Tourism, delivered the keynote address. The workshop was attended by officials from Department of Economics and Statistics of several states of India; representatives of travel and tourism training institutes; officials from Central Statistics Office (CSO), Ministry of Tourism, faculty members from NCAER and several researchers and academicians. The Senior Director, Research Planning & Monitoring Department of Nepal Tourism Board also attended the workshop.
A TSA is a powerful tool for understanding and assessing the economics of tourism. It is a framework designed to measure the value addition of goods and services associated with tourism in line with internationally agreed standard concepts and definitions. A TSA is vital to assess the size and contribution of tourism to the economy. State-level TSAs are particularly useful for improving the optimal allocation of local resources to tourism because they measure and reveal the economic impact of tourism on the State’s economy. Resources can then be deployed where their impact on value addition from tourism is likely to be the greatest, thus ensuring the best use of scarce public resources and ensuring the highest return to private investment in tourism. In this workshop, Dr Poonam Munjal presented the important highlights, methodology and estimation of India’s Third Tourism Satellite Account. This was followed by a presentation by Mr S.V. Ramana Murthy, DDG, CSO who discussed the change in methodology in estimating the Services Sector GDP in the new series which has resulted in falling share of services sector and consequently of tourism sector in GDP. The post-lunch sessions included a presentation on the Regional or State-level TSAs in India by Dr Poonam Munjal and a presentation on Data Sources used in the compilation of TSAs by Dr Palash Baruah and Mr Asrar Alam. A snapshot of the TSA Dashboard was also showcased. The workshop concluded with a vote of thanks by the NCAER study team.
NCAER has led the way since 2006 in preparing India’s regular, five-year TSAs. NCAER pioneered India’s first TSA for 2002-03 for the Ministry of Tourism. Thereafter, it prepared India’s second TSA for 2009-10, and is now completing the third TSA for 2015-16. In 2009-10, NCAER also prepared the first regional TSAs for all Indian States and UTs. This latest NCAER study continues with work on regional TSAs.
