The Tourism Satellite Account: Recommended Methodological Framework 2008 (TSA:RMF 2008), provides an updated framework for constructing a Tourism Satellite Account. The purpose of a Tourism Satellite Account is to analyze in detail all the aspects of demand for goods and services associated with the activity of visitors; to observe the operational interface with the supply of such goods and services within the economy; and to describe how this supply interacts with other economic activities. It permits greater internal consistency of tourism statistics with the rest of the statistical system of a country, as well as increased international comparability of these data. The updating process was undertaken by UNWTO under the scrutiny of the Inter-agency Coordination Group on Tourism Statistics.

The Manual is available in all UN languages on the UNSD website at: http://unstats.un.org/unsd/tradeserv/tourism/manual.html

The previous recommendations were contained in the manual Tourism satellite accounts and approved by the Statistical Commission at its thirty-first session, in 2000 [E/CN.3/2000/21].