Providing new OECD evidence on tourism trade in value added

The ability to measure the economic impacts of tourism provides policy makers with the evidence necessary to ensure that future policies are targeted to meet strategic objectives. However, despite significant work on tourism economics, notably with the Tourism Satellite Account, a deeper understanding is needed of how tourism trade directly and indirectly contributes to the economic growth and competitiveness of countries. This report scopes out the benefits and challenges of analysing tourism from a trade in value added perspective. It identifies the priority actions to strength the underlying ‘value chain’ of national statistics needed to build analyses tourism from a trade in value added perspective, and sets out a roadmap to make progress. It builds on wider OECD work on Trade in Value Added (TiVA), and represents a first attempt to better link tourism data with the underlying Inter-Country Input-Output (ICIO) infrastructure. Pilot country analysis for Canada, Portugal and the United Kingdom is presented.