Republic of Moldova

The regional workshop for CIS countries and Georgia "Developing National Systems of Tourism Statistics: Challenges and Good Practices" was launched in Chisinau

Chişinău, 29 June 2010 – Specialists in tourism statistics from the national statistical offices and central banks from 10 CIS countries and Georgia, as well as representatives of the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD), UN World Tourism Organization (UNWTO), EUROSTAT, ILO and other specialized organizations, met on June 29 in Chişinău within the framework of a regional workshop to discuss perspectives on the development of national tourism statistics systems. For the first time the Republic of Moldova benefited of the opportunity to hosts an event in the field of tourism statistics of such magnitude.

The objective of the workshop is to assist the participating countries in strengthening their statistical capacity in the area of tourism statistics by training them and providing practical advice on organizing and improvement of the national programmes of tourism statistics under various country specific circumstances. The workshop aims also at promoting and facilitating the inter-agency cooperation to ensure that tourism statistics is compiled in an integrated and efficient way and the disseminated data serve the needs of national tourism agencies, national statistical offices and central banks in the best possible way.  

"The availability of high-quality tourism statistics is very important for an effective fact based policy making. The task of providing the policy makers and society at large with the necessary and reliable information squarely falls on the compilers of tourism statistics both in national statistical offices and in national tourism administrations. This makes the strengthening of a strategic alliance between these institutions as well as between them and the central banks a crucial precondition for the success of national tourism statistics programmes. The workshop is useful not only for country participants, but it would be valuable experience for the specialized international organizations (UNWTO and UNSD) as these will further develop their technical assistance programmes in tourism statistics", said Karoly Kovacs, chief of Statistics of International Trade in Services Section of the UN Statistics Division, reading aloud the opening statement on behalf of UNSD’s Director, Paul Cheung.

During four days (June 29-July 2), workshop participants will analyze and share their best practices on statistical data collection and processing in the field of tourism. During the working sessions, several important issues will be raised, including: the role of tourism statistics as part of the national statistical systems; relationship between tourism statistics and international trade in services statistics, balance of payment and national accounts; basic concepts and definitions used in the field of tourism statistics; classifications of products and productive activities for tourism; employment in the tourism industries. Another topic under discussion refers to the data sources, i.e. administrative and survey based data used in the reference field. During the workshop the participants will present the national best practices in the collection of primary (current) data, i.e. data sources, encountered deficiencies during the data collection, cooperation between the statistical offices and public authorities at the national level. Also, the workshop will also tackle tourism data at the local level.

The Regional Workshop is organized by the UN Statistical Department in collaboration with the UN World Tourism Organization and the National Bureau of Statistics of the Republic of Moldova, with the UNDP support .

Statistical information on the activities of travel agencies and tour operators in Moldova in the period of January-March 2010 is available on the NBS website: http://www.statistica.md/newsview.php?l=ro&idc=168&id=3004

For contact: Aurelia Spataru, Project Manager, Strengthening the National Statistical System Project, tel.: (373 22) 40.31.42, fax: (373 22) 21.08.68; E-mail: aurelia.spataru@undp.org