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Monitoring of sustainable tourism

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Tourism
Data sources and processing
Insights about this data
Data sources and processingRelated articlesRelated charts
Insights about this dataRelated articlesRelated charts

What you should know about this indicator

  • The Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) and System of Environmental and Economic Accounts (SEEA) are standardized methods used by countries to measure tourism's impacts.
  • TSA tables track economic aspects such as tourist spending, production of tourism-related goods and services, and employment.
  • SEEA tables monitor environmental impacts, including consumption of resources like water and energy, and emissions of greenhouse gases and waste.
  • The number of tables implemented indicates how comprehensively tourism's impacts are being tracked.
Monitoring of sustainable tourism
Number of standardized data tables implemented within the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) and System of Environmental and Economic Accounts (SEEA) to track tourism's economic and environmental impacts.
Source
UN Tourism (2025) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
January 21, 2026
Next expected update
January 2027
Date range
2008–2023
Unit
tables

Related research and writing

Sustainable development goal 12: Responsible Consumption and Production

Ensure sustainable consumption and production patterns

Our World in Data team

What you should know about this indicator

  • The Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) and System of Environmental and Economic Accounts (SEEA) are standardized methods used by countries to measure tourism's impacts.
  • TSA tables track economic aspects such as tourist spending, production of tourism-related goods and services, and employment.
  • SEEA tables monitor environmental impacts, including consumption of resources like water and energy, and emissions of greenhouse gases and waste.
  • The number of tables implemented indicates how comprehensively tourism's impacts are being tracked.
Monitoring of sustainable tourism
Number of standardized data tables implemented within the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) and System of Environmental and Economic Accounts (SEEA) to track tourism's economic and environmental impacts.
Source
UN Tourism (2025) – processed by Our World in Data
Last updated
January 21, 2026
Next expected update
January 2027
Date range
2008–2023
Unit
tables

Sources and processing

This data is based on the following sources

UN Tourism – UN Tourism Statistics Database

UN World Tourism Organization collects data from countries through annual questionnaires that follow the International Recommendations for Tourism Statistics (IRTS 2008) standard, a framework approved by the United Nations. The data covers various aspects of tourism, such as inbound tourism (including arrivals by region, main purpose, and mode of transport, as well as accommodation and tourism expenditure in the country), domestic tourism (including trips and accommodation), outbound tourism (including departures and tourism expenditure in other countries), tourism industries (such as accommodation in hotels and similar establishments), and employment (including the number of employees in tourism industries).

Retrieved on
January 21, 2026
Retrieved from
https://www.untourism.int/tourism-statistics/tourism-statistics-database
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
"World Tourism Organization (2025). UN Tourism Statistics Database, Madrid. Data updated on 23 December 2025. More information: https://www.untourism.int/tourism-statistics/tourism-statistics-database"

UN World Tourism Organization collects data from countries through annual questionnaires that follow the International Recommendations for Tourism Statistics (IRTS 2008) standard, a framework approved by the United Nations. The data covers various aspects of tourism, such as inbound tourism (including arrivals by region, main purpose, and mode of transport, as well as accommodation and tourism expenditure in the country), domestic tourism (including trips and accommodation), outbound tourism (including departures and tourism expenditure in other countries), tourism industries (such as accommodation in hotels and similar establishments), and employment (including the number of employees in tourism industries).

Retrieved on
January 21, 2026
Retrieved from
https://www.untourism.int/tourism-statistics/tourism-statistics-database
Citation
This is the citation of the original data obtained from the source, prior to any processing or adaptation by Our World in Data. To cite data downloaded from this page, please use the suggested citation given in Reuse This Work below.
"World Tourism Organization (2025). UN Tourism Statistics Database, Madrid. Data updated on 23 December 2025. More information: https://www.untourism.int/tourism-statistics/tourism-statistics-database"

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All data and visualizations on Our World in Data rely on data sourced from one or several original data providers. Preparing this original data involves several processing steps. Depending on the data, this can include standardizing country names and world region definitions, converting units, calculating derived indicators such as per capita measures, as well as adding or adapting metadata such as the name or the description given to an indicator.

At the link below you can find a detailed description of the structure of our data pipeline, including links to all the code used to prepare data across Our World in Data.

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Reuse this work

  • All data produced by third-party providers and made available by Our World in Data are subject to the license terms from the original providers. Our work would not be possible without the data providers we rely on, so we ask you to always cite them appropriately (see below). This is crucial to allow data providers to continue doing their work, enhancing, maintaining and updating valuable data.
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Citations

How to cite this page

To cite this page overall, including any descriptions, FAQs or explanations of the data authored by Our World in Data, please use the following citation:

“Data Page: Monitoring of sustainable tourism”, part of the following publication: Bastian Herre and Veronika Samborska (2023) - “Tourism”. Data adapted from UN Tourism. Retrieved from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260205-144556/grapher/implementation-of-tools-to-monitor-economic-and-environmental-tourism.html [online resource] (archived on February 5, 2026).

How to cite this data

In-line citationIf you have limited space (e.g. in data visualizations), you can use this abbreviated in-line citation:

UN Tourism (2025) – processed by Our World in Data

Full citation

UN Tourism (2025) – processed by Our World in Data. “Monitoring of sustainable tourism” [dataset]. UN Tourism, “UN Tourism Statistics Database” [original data]. Retrieved February 5, 2026 from https://archive.ourworldindata.org/20260205-144556/grapher/implementation-of-tools-to-monitor-economic-and-environmental-tourism.html (archived on February 5, 2026).