About

Summary

Acorn was contracted to support the Ministry of Tourism, Office National de Tourisme Tunisien (ONTT), and the Institut National de la Statistique (INS) to prepare an Inbound Tourism Visitor Survey (ITVS) and prepare, compile and publish an experimental Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) for the base year of 2021, based on the UNWTO-TSA methodology and recommended framework.  The development and delivery of capacity building workshops on the TSA concept and findings were also undertaken.

Our Approach

The project involved consultations within Tunisia with key stakeholders, most notably ONTT and INS, in order to design and implement the Inbound Tourism Visitor Survey.  This included discussions with INS on the development of a proposed survey methodology and data collection instrument.  Subsequently, a terms of reference was issued to interested firms in Tunisia to undertake the survey over a six-month period.

Following the commissioning, execution and findings of the ITVS, the demand-side Table 1 of the TSA (inbound tourism consumption) was constructed.  Domestic tourism consumption (Table 2) was estimated based on existing data, mainly from accommodation statistics, and INS provided assistance with the compilation of Table 5 that included the supply-side data for tourism characteristic industries.

From these key three tables it was possible to compile Table 6, which reconciles demand and supply and generates the principle indicators of tourism direct gross value added (TDGVA) and tourism GDP.

Outcome

The TSA has provided Tunisia with their first estimates of tourism direct gross value added and tourism GDP contribution to the national economy.  Whilst this was an experimental TSA that utilised data from different periods, it provided a template for undertaking data collection in future years for subsequent full TSA compilation.