The Ghana Statistical Service (GSS) has launched the 2023 Domestic and Outbound Tourism Survey.

Three other surveys - Ghana International Travellers’ Survey (GITS), Accommodation Units Survey (AUS), and Tourism Supply Establishment Survey (TSES) are expected to be launched later in the year.

The surveys, according to the GSS, are critical components in computing the TSA and will be undertaken over a three –year period

According to the United Nations World Tourism Organization, the sector in 2019 generated $1.7 trillion in revenues and employed one out of every 10 workers globally. Although the ensuing year (2020) saw a decline owing to the Covid-19 pandemic the subsequent years 2021 and 2022 have witnessed a strong rebound.

It is to this end that the GSS is conducting the four surveys primarily aimed at compiling the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) which will serve as a basis for computing the sector’s true relevance to the national economy.

The GITS which is a year-long survey commenced in 2022 is mainly intended to obtain inbound tourism expenditure to develop Tourism Satellite Accounts (TSA) for Ghana.

The main objective of the Accommodation Units Survey (AUS) is to measure the level of supply and demand for commercial accommodation facilities in Ghana and the TSES is envisioned to provide benchmark data on the revenue of tourism establishments to compute the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) for the country. Both the AUS and TSES shall commence in the last quarter of 2023.

The current survey being launched, the DOTS is a national survey which is designed to obtain domestic and outbound tourism data that will lead to the computation of the TSA.

 Preparatory activities for the DOTS commenced in May 2022. The final preparatory activity, the listing of structures to select the required households was completed in early April, 2023.

To enhance quality, the GSS said field officers after the listing exercise are being retrained for deployment for the first round of data collection.

Teams from GSS will cover the entire country seeking the aforementioned data.