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This indicator measures the direct value added by tourism as a percentage of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the number of jobs in tourism industries.

Tourism Direct GDP (TDGDP) is defined as the sum of the part of gross value added (at basic prices) generated by all industries in response to internal tourism consumption plus the amount of net taxes on products and imports included within the value of this expenditure at purchasers’ prices (TSA: RMF 2008 para. 4.96). Presenting this economic contribution of tourism as a share of GDP shows the relative size of the tourism sector in the economy. Additionally, this indicator shows the relative importance of jobs in the tourism industries as a share of the economy’s total job.

Belize Tourism Board and Statistical Institute of Belize

Belize Tourism Board and Statistical Institute of Belize

Annual

Percentage (%)

Regarding jobs, the agreement between an employee and the employer defines a job and each self-employed person has a job. The number of jobs in the economy thus exceeds the number of persons employed to the extent that some employees have more than one job (SNA 2008 para. 19.30 in IRTS 2008 Compilation Guide para. 7.6). Consequently, the number of jobs (demand side) and the number of persons employed (supply side) are dissimilar categories and therefore usually do not match. In this respect, it should be noted that employment in the tourism industries refers to all the jobs (in all occupations) in both tourism-characteristic activities and non-tourism-characteristic activities in all establishments in tourism industries.

Gross Domestic Product (GDP) measures the monetary value of final goods and services—that is, those that are bought by the final user—produced in an economic territory country in a given period of time (say a quarter or a year). It is calculated without making deductions for depreciation of fabricated assets or for depletion and degradation of natural resources. GDP can be measured using the expenditure approach as the sum of expenditure on final consumption plus gross capital formation plus exports less imports, the production approach as the value of output less intermediate consumption plus any taxes less subsidies on products not already included in the value of output, or the income approach as compensation of employees plus gross operating surplus plus gross mixed incomes plus taxes less subsidies on both production and imports.

The “tourism industries”, or tourism characteristic industries, comprise all establishments for which the principal activity is a tourism characteristic activity, i.e. the activities that typically produce tourism characteristic products (IRTS 2008 paras. 5.10-5.11). For international comparability purposes these are (according to ISIC Rev. 4 categories): accommodation for visitors (5510, 5520, 5590, 6810 and 6820), food and beverage serving activities (5610, 5629 and 5630), railway passenger transport (4911), road passenger transport (4922), water passenger transport (5011 and 5021), air passenger transport (5110), transport equipment rental (7710), travel agencies and other reservation service activities (7911, 7912 and 7990), cultural activities (9000, 9102, 9103), and sport and recreational activities (7721, 9200, 9311, 9319, 9321 and 9329).

(a) by tourism industries (e.g. accommodation for visitors, the different kinds of passenger transportation, etc.).

(b) by sex , by status of employment and by tourism industries.

Method of computation:

(a) Tourism Direct GDP (as % total GDP and in growth rate)

(TDGDP/GDP)*100

(b) Number of jobs in tourism industries (as % total jobs and growth rate of jobs, by gender)

(Jobs in the tourism industries/ Total Jobs)* 100

This indicator is useful for policy on tourism at national level and the level of sub-national regions as it gives the only credible measure of the economic contribution of tourism, which can be compared to GDP contributions of other economic activities. The indicator has been found especially useful in promoting and mainstreaming tourism in policy agendas at all levels. The indicator can also be compared across countries, although true international comparability of the figures needs to be improved. This indicator can also help in job creation in Tourism industries.

It has been difficult to measure the contribution of tourism to GDP. The development of the tourism satellite account has been an important step in advancing the measurement of the economic contribution of tourism (see the World Tourism Organization (United Nations et al., 2010). TSA measures direct contributions of tourism consumption to the national economy. However, it does not account for the indirect contributions of tourism to GDP. Tourism’s direct contributions to GDP can be calculated by subtracting domestic business travel from tourism expenditures (treating as intermediate purchase), then using the resulting expenditures to calculate the direct contribution of tourism to GDP.

TDGDP/GDP part of this indicator can complement Target 14.7’s indicator: “Fisheries as a % of GDP” in order to cater to tourism dimension of this target.

All the metadata shown in this document was gathered from United Nation Statistics Division. The metadata was extracted from https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/metadata/.