Tourism has long been recognized as a major contributor to the country’s economic growth through the influx of foreign exchange earnings from tourism expenditures, investments, and revenues. Efforts to assess the economic significance of tourism in the Philippines has been carried out since 1988 when the National Statistical Coordination Board (NSCB), thru its Grants-in-Aid statistical development program provided funds and technical assistance to the Department of Tourism (DOT) in conducting a study which found that using input-output analysis, tourism accounted for 2.8 percent of the economy in 1987. ¹

The following summarizes the development of a tourism satellite account for the Philippines after the initial efforts done in 1988:

1996

• NSCB, DOT and WTO collaborated to come up with a simulated satellite account on tourism for the Philippines, which showed that travel and tourism accounted for 8.7 percent of the GDP in 1997
• NSCB and DOT signed a MOA to support the development of the PTSA

1997

• NSCB created an Inter-Agency Committee on the Development of a Satellite Account on Tourism (IAC-DSAT) that shall oversee the development of a TSA for the country
• IAC-DSAT conceptualized the framework for the PTSA

1999

• NSCB and DOT forged a project that operationalized the PTSA conceptual framework
• NSCB and DOT released the preliminary results of the Philippine Tourism Satellite Account (PTSA) covering the years 1994 and 1998.

2001

• The Philippine experience in developing tourism satellite account was presented in a joint UN-ESCAP/WTO workshop in Thailand

¹ Measuring the Contribution of Tourism to the Economy: The Philippine Tourism Satellite Account, a paper by Romulo A. Virola, Marriel M. Remulla, Lea H. Amoro and Milagros Y. Say presented during the 8th National Convention on Statistics, Westin Philippine Plaza, Manila, 1-2 October 2001.