TOURISM SATELLITE ACCOUNTS (TSA) AS AN INSTRUMENT FOR MEASURING THE ECONOMIC AND FISCAL CONTRIBUTION OF TOURISM: EMPIRICAL ANALYSIS OF EUROPEAN COUNTRIES AND SERBIA

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyse the economic contribution of tourism through the application of the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) methodology and to assess the potential of this system for measuring the importance of tourism to national and regional economies. A comparative-analytical approach was applied to examine tourism gross value added, the share of tourism in gross domestic product, and total tourism consumption across European Union countries. For Serbia, indicative estimates were derived using data from the Statistical Office of the Republic of Serbia, the UNWTO database, and the balance of payments of the National Bank of Serbia, through a proportional extrapolation model calibrated to reference countries in the region. The results show that tourism accounts for an average of around 4.5% of total gross value added in European economies, while the estimated contribution in Serbia is approximately 4% of GDP. The findings indicate that tourism represents a stable yet underutilized driver of economic development, generating notable fiscal effects through tax revenues and public investment. The study concludes that establishing a TSA system is essential for improving the precision of economic and fiscal measurement and for supporting evidence-based sustainable development policies.

Key Words: Tourism Satellite Accounts (TSA), System of National Accounts (SNA), Economic contribution, Public finance, Fiscal effects, GDP