Kathmandu, September 4

The Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) is all set to be ready by the end of the current fiscal year 2019-20. As the survey required for the TSA is moving ahead rapidly the Ministry of Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation (MoCTCA) has expected the country’s first TSA to be published by the end of this fiscal year.

“Compared to the previous days we are working more rapidly these days with enough human resources. Considering the work pace the TSA is likely to be ready by the end of this fiscal year,” said Ghanashyam Upadhyaya, spokesperson for the

ministry.

Earlier the work of TSA was halted due to lack of human resources. Moreover, the government was waiting for the arrival of the technical experts’ group. However, soon after Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) and United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) signed an agreement on May 21 to develop the TSA framework a technical experts’ team recently visited Nepal a month back to provide technical support, said Upadhyaya.

“The technical experts’ team recently visited Nepal and completed the internal work and we have already deployed human resources to the field for survey,” he added.

Although the country has a mechanism of keeping records of foreign tourists there is an absence of a mechanism to keep records of domestic tourists. Hence, NTB along with Nepal Rastra Bank and Central Bureau of Statistics is working on collecting the data of both domestic and foreign tourists under the assistance of the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) and funding from UNDP. The entire database of the TSA has to be prepared based on the guideline formed by UNWTO.

The work of TSA was started last year under the initiative of late tourism minister Rabindra Adhikari.

The TSA will help to compile data of all inbound, outbound and domestic tourism. Likewise, it will measure the contribution of the tourism industry to the national GDP, tourism’s ranking as compared to other economic sectors, number of jobs created by the sector, the amount of investment in the industry, tax revenue generated by the sector, tourism consumption, and tourism’s impact on Nepal’s balance of payments, among others.