Following a 2017 assessment of the national tourism statistical system of the Seychelles, where a number of gaps were identified, the Ministry of Tourism, Civil Aviation, Ports and Marine entered into an agreement with the UNWTO for strengthening the system of tourism statistics and subsequently developing a Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) for the country.

The TSA, which is expected to be implemented between 2019 and 2021, commenced during the second week of January, 2019 and was led by UNWTO experts Mr. Pedro Aramburu and Mr. Kevin Millington. 

As part of the initial mission, a workshop was held on 17th January, 2019 where an overview of tourism statistics was provided to stakeholders, detailing the concepts, classification and definitions of each of the different parts which go into successfully developing a TSA. The UNWTO consultants also shared the results from the two-week mission where the country’s first Visitor Cruise survey was successfully developed and various adjustments made to the Airport Visitor Survey.