Tourism Economic Impact Assesssment Study Released
The Development Planning Unit received the final results of a study of tourism economic impacts in the BVI this week. The study was financed by the European Union and the Caribbean Development Bank and is part of a six-country project, also involving Anguilla, Barbados, Jamaica, the Bahamas and St. Lucia. A summary of the findings was released to the media during a half-day workshop held at the Training Division on Monday morning. The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) carried out the two-year study. European Union Consultant to the CTO Dr. Edmund Henry of Ireland and CTO Researcher Mr. Thomas Alexander of St. Lucia were on hand to conduct the sessions.
"Today marks a milestone in the development of economic information on the impact of tourism on the economy of the British Virgin Islands," Director of Planning Mr. Otto O'Neal declared. He said this project is one of many which the DPU has either concluded or has in the pipeline, to improve statistics in general and tourism statistics in particular. Based on the study, it was determined that tourism impacts the Gross Domestic Product of the BVI; exports and imports and the Balance of Payments; employment; government revenue; the regional distribution of income and employment and investment. In 1998, tourism generated $249.9M, provided $13.17M in tourism-based government revenue and accounted for 25.1% shares of the GDP. Using data from 1997, the sector was providing 50.9% of the jobs in the BVI and According to Dr. Henry, an important outcome is that they have found a suitable model which can be used in the BVI and the smaller Caribbean countries for going beyond the direct impacts and into the indirect and induced impacts. "We feel strongly that these further two impacts should be taken into account...so we end up with this 61% generation of GDP per million dollars of tourist expenditure within the country for 1998."
He explained that direct impacts of tourism happen within the hotels where supply matches demand and there is an exchange of purchasing power; the indirect impact comes from the supplies which the hotel needs while the induced impact involves any household income coming out of direct and indirect impacts to the extent that it buys BVI outputs of goods and services. The Director of Planning said the DPU is also now working in conjunction with the Labour and Immigration Departments to develop a comprehensive state of the art border control database software. "Coupled with these initiatives and statistics and development planning, this project...will provide the DPU staff with the skills necessary to undertake this exercise annually or biannually or whenever is appropriate."
He said this project as part of government's commitment to openness, transparency and accountability, and it represents part of the DPU's effort to provide decision support information to our business community and to tourism sector operators. "We fully recognize the importance of tourism as a generator of income and a provider of employment. In fact, tourism is the largest employers, employing more than 25% of our workforce." He noted that tourism generates more economic activity than any other sector; there are more linkages between tourism and other sectors than between any other sector in the rest of the BVI economy. Mr. O'Neal said the exercise is timely, in that the BVI Tourist Board is embarking on a fuller implementation of the National Tourism Development Plan and the Development Planning Unit is completing the second of three phases of development of the Balance of Payments and National Accounts compilation system.
He said the Department provided statistics for the consultants based on the National Accounts/Balance of Payments, Household Income and Expenditure survey data, tourism, trade and government financial statistics. In terms of the BVI's contribution, he recognized the hard work of statistician Mr. Michael Malone and the supervisory efforts of Mr. Raymond Phillips of the DPU throughout this project. The Head of the Development Planning Unit told the Island Sun, this assessment of the economic impact of tourism would provide most of the management information required for the development of policies, strategies and programmes. "This study comes at a defining time in our long range thinking and planning for tourism...It is expected that the BVI Tourist Board, the Chief Minister's Office and all relevant planning agencies, will use this data to base their executive development and operational decisions."