Tourism is recognised as an important economic, social and cultural factor in modem societies. However, statisticians still face an enormous challenge when it comes to measuring the economic importance of tourism for given national economy. In his paper author examines the position of tourism in System of National Accounts (SNA-as presented in the version from 1993) and in European System of Accounts (acronym ESA, from 1995). He comes to the conclusion that is impossible to get the full answers on the importance of tourism for the given national economy within those frameworks. The main reason for such conclusion he has found in the fact that tourism is the multifacet activity, with difficult concept to define, let alone measure. He gets the proof for his conclusion comparing the different methodologies for defining who is the tourist, finding six different criterias in application at the moment. The results obtained are, of course, differing considerably, what makes them strictly incompatibles. The comparison of such data is for that reason difficult to make and the comparative results are of limited use. Author advocates a need to make on international level a Unified Tourism Economic Account (UTEA), covering the main activities of tourism sector. He regards the existing work by OECD and WTO as a good basis for further work. Only when majority countries would make UTEA, based on accepted methodology, could be the cross-country comparison made on scientific basis.
Globalization and the Contribution of the Media Economy to a National Economy: A Cross-Country Empirical Study
