‘Tourism statistics standard to be shaped by sustainability’

Wednesday, October 31, 2018

The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) is working on creating a framework that will better measure the sustainability of tourism.

A new framework is being created by the World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) to measure the sustainability of tourism.

The key focus will be on developing specific needs, credible data standards for measuring the impact of tourism around the world concerning sustainability.

According to a recently released UNWTO statement the main idea is to have a new standard adopted by the UN Statistics Commission.

The new framework known as Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism or MST is created after successful pilot studies that took place in Germany, Philippines and Saudi Arabia. It was designed to test whether credible and comparable data can be created.

UNWTO said in a statement that to develop tourism potential , better manage the sector and support effective evidence-based policy decision it is needed to better measure tourism using high-quality official statistics that will cover economic, social and environmental sustainability.

MST plans to expand its existing tourism measurement beyond its primarily economic dimension that will also take care of the social and environmental dimensions.

Three statistically based tourism indicators is being refined and documented by the MST which will be used for monitoring Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and their targets.

This will enable the countries to produce data that can be used across countries, time period and other standards.

Tourism-related indicators are coordinated by the UNWTO with countries and UN agencies. Further in 2019 the draft framework during the meeting of the governing body will be presented.

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