May 23: Nepal Tourism Board (NTB) and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) in Nepal have recently signed an agreement with an aim to develop a Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) framework along with promoting sustainable tourism in the country.
Under the deal, the TSA will be developed with technical support from the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) and funding from UNDP.
In fact, the NTB, which has already set aside Rs 8 million for the TSA, started the work for the same last year.
It has also compiled the necessary data on the tourism sector from Nepal Rastra Bank and Central Bureau of Statistics.
According to the NTB, the project will assist in understanding the size of the tourism economy and further bolster the tourism sector’s contribution to the country’s socio-economic development. It is estimated that at least two years will take to complete the works related to TSA and from then on the team responsible for TSA will compile data every two years.
The Tourism Satellite Account will not only help in compiling data of all inbound, outbound and domestic tourism but also measuring the contribution of the tourism industry to the national GDP, tourism’s ranking as compared to other economic sectors and the number of jobs created by the sector, among others.
