Ministry of Culture and Tourism

Government of Indonesia World Tourism Organization

with the cooperation of

International Labour Organization United Nations Statistics Division Organisation for Economic
Co-operation and Development

5th UNWTO International Conference on Tourism Statistics –

Tourism: An Engine for Employment Creation

Bali, Indonesia, 30 March – 2 April 2009

Technical Note

This is the fifth edition of the UNWTO International Conference on Tourism Statistics that has been
held during the last two decades. In the previous four Conferences in Ottawa (1990), Nice (1999), Vancouver
(2001) and Iguazú (2005), the core components of tourism statistics have been defined and established.
These have included a number of key concepts, definitions, classifications and indicators, which are viewed as
the foundation of the System of Tourism Statistics (STS).

A first objective of the Bali Conference is to discuss the “way forward”, now that the 2008
International Recommendations for Tourism Statistics have been approved by the United Nations (39th
session of the Statistical Commission, February 2008). This revision was needed because the Tourism
Satellite Account (TSA) has already expanded beyond the conceptual framework of the 1993
Recommendations. A number of key changes have been introduced to the existing framework of basic tourism
statistics, including, among others, a) the relevance given to monetary variables; b) clarifications regarding the
measurement of the three forms of tourism based in common grounds; c) the relevance of supply side data as
well as employment statistics; d) the reconciliation between demand and supply; and e) the identification of
tourism in the balance of payment.

Another significant objective of the Bali Conference in 2009 is to address the issue of the
measurement and quality of employment in the tourism industries. The Conference will focus, for the first
time at the global level, on employment as a key challenge for National Tourism Administrations and the
tourism industries. This will certainly demonstrate the benefits of having more and better statistics including on
employment in the field of tourism, in order to gain further support for the tourism sector within National
Governments.

Case studies will be presented during the Conference referred to different types of applications of the
TSA: the measurement of the economic contributions of tourism, the use of TSA data for business and
policy analysis, as well as tourism employment.

Besides the technical sessions, the Bali conference will include ministerial sessions on (i)
employment policy issues in tourism, (ii) employment and decent work in tourism as a tool for poverty
alleviation, (iii) UNWTO guidelines for fostering employment and decent work and (iv) ILO employment and
decent work tool-kit and its application to tourism.

More information on the Bali conference will be available shortly on UNWTO website: www.unwto.org