A new study by the UNWTO shows how the economic importance of tourism extends to the meeting market as well.
“The meetings industry has come of age and placed itself firmly at the center of tourism’s future by engaging in this fundamental analysis of its societal worth and by claiming its rightful place in the public-private partnership framework of UNWTO global leadership of our sector,” said Assistant Secretary-General Geoffrey Lipman.
The report “Measuring the Economic Importance of the Meetings Industry. Developing a Tourism Satellite Account Extension” is the result of two years of work by UNWTO, ICCA, MPI and Reed Travel Exhibitions (RTE).
It recommends extending the United Nations’ Tourism Satellite Account (UNTSA) to measure the global economic magnitude of the meeting industry.
Developed over the past 10 years and supported by government and industry bodies, UNTSA has become a standard on tourism statistics. It was approved in 2000 by the UN Statistics Commission and is currently used in a joint project between UNWTO and ILO to measure employment in tourism industries.
Tourism has evolved into a major cluster of industries which cover leisure and business demand and a range of supply side industries which provide goods and services, said UNWTO.
Tourism is today one of the largest economic sectors representing 3 to 5% of GDP, jobs and investment in industrialized states and up to 30% in developing states, representing a socioeconomic lifeline for the poorest states for whom it is a top export, the organization added.
Report by David Wilkening
