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Global Ocean Accounts Partnership Technical Guidance

Marine and Coastal Tourism Accounting

Circular ID TG-6.14
Version 2.0
Badge Applied
Status Draft
Last Updated August 2026

1. Outcome

1Marine and coastal tourism is, in most coastal and small-island developing economies, the largest ocean-economy sector by gross value added and employment, yet Section 6 carries a dedicated thematic Circular for every other major ocean-economy sector and none for tourism. This Circular gives compilers an ordered method for measuring it:

  • 2define the segment on a demand-side basis consistent with international tourism statistics;
  • 3isolate tourism within each industry;
  • 4apply a marine and coastal share to extract the ocean-attributable part;
  • 5report how much of the resulting receipts the economy retains; and
  • 6link the segment to the marine ecosystems whose recreation services it depends on, and read its economic flows against the condition of those ecosystems.

7Two compilation tiers are provided — one for economies with a Tourism Satellite Account and one proxy tier for the majority that do not — so the guidance is usable across the income and data-maturity range of coastal states. The aim is a segment account that reconciles with the national accounts and, where one exists, the national Tourism Satellite Account, so that ministries of tourism, finance, and environment read consistent figures.

2. Requirements

3Related: TG-2.4 Environmental (including Ecosystem) Goods and Services and TG-2.5 Structure and Function of the Ocean Economy for the recreation ecosystem service and the ocean-economy aggregate; TG-3.5 Social Accounts for tourism employment; TG-4.2 Survey Methods for Ocean Economic Activity and TG-4.3 Administrative Data Sources for the visitor-survey, arrivals-card, licensing and port data this method relies on.

3. Guidance Material

3.1 Defining marine and coastal tourism

1Tourism is a demand-side phenomenon: it is defined by the activities of visitors, not by a fixed list of industries.1 A visitor is a traveller taking a trip outside his or her usual environment for less than a year, for a main purpose other than employment by a resident entity in the place visited. A visitor who stays overnight is a tourist, and one who does not is a same-day visitor (excursionist).1 Visitor residence distinguishes the forms of tourism — domestic (residents within the country) and inbound (non-residents) together make up internal tourism — and this distinction matters for compilation, because the data sources for the two differ substantially.1

2Marine and coastal tourism is the subset of this activity that takes place in, or draws its main attraction from, the coast and the sea. Two adaptations of the standard definitions are needed. First, the purpose test: an activity counts as marine or coastal tourism where the coast or sea is the principal reason for the visitor’s presence or expenditure (beach holidays, diving and snorkelling, recreational boating and sport fishing, marine wildlife watching, cruise calls, visits to marine protected areas and aquaria). Second, the location test for activities that are coastal by setting rather than by motive (accommodation, food service, and local transport in coastal destinations), where only a share of output serves marine and coastal visitors. These activities sit in the partially ocean-related tier of TG-3.3. The indicative materiality benchmark used to admit them — around 5 per cent of establishment output — is TG-3.3’s pragmatic operational choice, not a value drawn from an external standard, and this Circular adopts it by reference rather than restating the rule.2

3.2 ISIC classification and apportionment — concordance backing Figure 6.14.1

1Marine and coastal tourism is reconstructed across four ISIC Rev.4 sections. The concordance below extends the ISIC—ocean-economy concordance in TG-3.3 (its Table 2) to the full set of tourism characteristic activities of the Tourism Satellite Account. It does not duplicate the general concordance method, which remains with TG-3.3. Each class carries an apportionment status: wholly marine (ocean ratio = 1.0, the entire class is sea- or coast-defined) or coastal-apportioned (ocean ratio < 1.0, set by the marine and coastal-purpose visitor share). Figure 6.14.1 presents the same disaggregation visually.

TG-6.14 -- ISIC Rev.4 disaggregation of marine and coastal tourism A demand-hub fan-out diagram. A central node "Marine and coastal tourism -- visitor consumption (demand-defined)" distributes to four ISIC Rev.4 section clusters: Section I (Accommodation and food service: classes 5510, 5520, 5610, 5629, 5630), Section H (Transportation: 5011 sea and coastal passenger water transport, 5110 air passenger, 4922 land passenger), Section N (Administrative and support: 7710 transport-equipment rental, 7721 recreational and sports-goods rental, 7911 travel agency, 7912 tour operator, 7990 other reservation), and Section R (Arts, entertainment and recreation: 9319 other sports, 9329 other amusement and recreation, 9000 creative and arts, 9102 museums, 9103 botanical and zoological gardens). Each class is colour-coded by ocean-economy apportionment status: teal classes (5011, 9319, 9329) are wholly marine with an ocean ratio of 1.0; ochre classes are coastal-apportioned with an ocean ratio below 1.0. The figure encodes that tourism is defined on the demand side and is reconstructed across multiple ISIC sections by applying an apportionment ratio, rather than read from a single industry branch. ISIC Rev.4 -- Marine & coastal tourism disaggregation Marine & coastal tourism visitor consumption -- demand-defined Section I Accommodation & food 5510Accommodation short-term 5520Camping / RV parks coastal facilities 5610Restaurants 5629Other food service 5630Beverage serving Section H Passenger transport 5011Sea & coastal passenger water transport 5110Air passenger 4922Land passenger Section N Admin & support svc 7710Transport rental 7721Boat / craft hire 7911Travel agency 7912Tour operator 7990Reservation svc Section R Recreation & culture 9319Other sports diving, sport fishing 9329Amusement / rec. marinas, beaches 9000Creative & arts 9102Museums 9103Gardens / aquaria Country-specific marine activities (e.g. marine wildlife watching, recreational charter) -- wholly marine; no single fixed ISIC class, assign per national adaptation. Legend Wholly marine -- ocean ratio = 1.0 Coastal-apportioned -- ocean ratio < 1.0 Out of scope (not shown) Tourism is defined on the demand side (visitor consumption), so it is reconstructed across ISIC sections rather than read from one branch. Apportionment ratio = ocean-characteristic output / total industry output, set by the coastal/marine-purpose visitor share (SF-MST tourism ratio).

Figure 6.14.1 Demand-side marine tourism reconstructed across ISIC Sections I, H, N, and R by ocean-economy apportionment ratios on visitor expenditure. Row fill encodes apportionment status. Inland/non-coastal classes omitted; use UNSD Rev.5--Rev.4 correspondence where needed. Source: ISIC Rev.4 (Sections H, I, N, R); UNWTO Tourism Satellite Account: Recommended Methodological Framework 2008 (tourism characteristic activities, paras 4.50--4.53); IRTS 2008; SF-MST 2024 (tourism ratio).

ISIC Rev.4DescriptionISIC SectionTSA characteristic-activity categoryApportionment
5510Short-term accommodation activitiesIAccommodation for visitorsCoastal-apportioned
5520Camping grounds, recreational vehicle parksIAccommodation for visitorsCoastal-apportioned
5610Restaurants and mobile food serviceIFood and beverage servingCoastal-apportioned
5629Other food service activitiesIFood and beverage servingCoastal-apportioned
5630Beverage serving activitiesIFood and beverage servingCoastal-apportioned
5011Sea and coastal passenger water transportHWater passenger transportWholly marine (1.0)
5110Passenger air transportHAir passenger transportCoastal-apportioned
4922Other passenger land transportHRoad passenger transportCoastal-apportioned
7710Renting and leasing of motor vehiclesNTransport equipment rentalCoastal-apportioned
7721Renting of recreational and sports goods (incl. marine craft)NTransport equipment rentalCoastal-apportioned
7911Travel agency activitiesNTravel agencies and reservationCoastal-apportioned (margin)
7912Tour operator activitiesNTravel agencies and reservationCoastal-apportioned (margin)
7990Other reservation service activitiesNTravel agencies and reservationCoastal-apportioned (margin)
9319Other sports activities (incl. sport fishing, diving operators)RSports and recreational activitiesCoastal-apportioned
9329Other amusement and recreation activities (incl. beaches, marinas)RSports and recreational activitiesCoastal-apportioned
9000Creative, arts and entertainment activitiesRCultural activitiesCoastal-apportioned
9102Museums activitiesRCultural activitiesCoastal-apportioned
9103Botanical and zoological gardens, nature reserves (aquaria, marine parks)RCultural activitiesCoastal-apportioned

2Only 5011 Sea and coastal passenger water transport is treated as wholly marine: its official ISIC Rev.4 scope is defined entirely by transport over seas and coastal waters (ferries, water taxis, excursion, cruise and sightseeing boats), so an ocean ratio of 1.0 is defensible.3 Note, however, that for 5011 the tourism ratio (Section 3.3, step 1) is doing the work of separating visitor travel from resident ferry commuting, which is everyday transport and not tourism. Where no Tourism Satellite Account fixes that ratio, a defensible tourism ratio for coastal ferries should be estimated separately from passenger-purpose data rather than assumed. By contrast 9319 Other sports activities and 9329 Other amusement and recreation activities are broad classes: 9319 also covers athletes, leagues, racing stables and land-based sport, and 9329 covers fairs, ski hills, discotheques and amusement arcades.4 Assigning either class an ocean ratio of 1.0 would over-attribute the bulk of its output to the ocean economy and break the demand-side logic, so both are coastal-apportioned, consistent with TG-3.3.

3Margin basis for travel agencies and tour operators. Travel agency, tour operator and reservation services (7911/7912/7990) must enter on a margin (net) basis — the service fee or mark-up, not the gross package price — following Tourism Satellite Account convention. If gross package revenue is used, the accommodation and transport bundled inside a package are counted twice: once in 5510/5011 and again in the tour operator’s turnover.5

4Marine activities without a dedicated ISIC class. Marine wildlife watching, recreational dive operators and recreational charter are wholly marine but have no single fixed ISIC class and are often informal or under-covered in the business register. Assign them by national adaptation as follows:

  • 5identify the operators from tourism-board licensing, marine-park concession records, or dive- and charter-association membership (per TG-4.3);
  • 6estimate their receipts and employment from those administrative sources where the register under-covers them; and
  • 7record them as a wholly-marine (1.0) add-on line to the apportioned 9319/9329 total, taking care not to double-count operators already captured in the register.

8Out-of-scope classes with no material ocean-attributable share are not shown.

11ISIC version note. ISIC Rev.5 was adopted by the UN Statistical Commission at its 54th session (28 February—3 March 2023). Its explanatory notes and implementation plan were endorsed at the 55th session (2024), with national implementation expected from 2027.6 Where the national business register has transitioned, apply the UNSD ISIC Rev.5—Rev.4 correspondence before using this concordance, following the interim ISIC-version protocol set out in TG-3.3 (use the operative register version; adapt via the correspondence table; document the version used in compilation metadata).

3.3 Compiling the marine and coastal tourism segment

1The segment is built from two apportionment shares — a tourism share and a marine and coastal share — followed by a reconciliation step. Two tiers are provided according to data availability.

Tier 1 — where a national Tourism Satellite Account exists

  1. 1Isolate tourism within each industry using the tourism ratio. The tourism share of an industry is the part of its output acquired by visitors (internal tourism consumption), and the tourism ratio expresses that share as a fraction of the industry’s total output.5 The ratio is applied to output and intermediate consumption to derive the tourism-attributable value added of each industry. The headline aggregates — tourism direct gross value added (TDGVA) and tourism direct gross domestic product (TDGDP) — are then obtained through the Tourism Satellite Account Table 6 reconciliation of internal tourism consumption against domestic supply, with TDGDP adding the net taxes on tourism products. TDGVA/TDGDP are therefore not simply value added multiplied by a ratio, and TDGDP in particular cannot be apportioned by a single per-industry multiplier.7 Where a national Tourism Satellite Account exists, start from its published tourism ratios rather than re-estimating them.
  2. 2Apply the marine and coastal share. Multiply each industry’s derived tourism aggregate by the marine and coastal-purpose share for that class — 1.0 for wholly marine classes, and the coastal/marine visitor-purpose share otherwise. This second share is the TG-6.14-specific contribution and is the operational form of the per-class apportionment in Section 3.2. Two cautions apply. First, measure both shares on the same population: the tourism ratio covers internal tourism (domestic + inbound), so the marine and coastal share must also be measured on internal tourism, or estimated separately for domestic and inbound demand and recombined — applying an inbound-only share (for example one read straight off international arrivals cards) to an internal-tourism aggregate will misstate the segment wherever domestic and inbound marine propensities differ. Second, applying the share directly to value added assumes the marine and non-marine portions of a class carry the same value-added ratio. Where establishment data allow, apply the share at the output level and derive value added from class-specific margins.
  3. 3Reconcile. The national-accounts industry totals are the binding control, and the Tourism Satellite Account is the cross-check where it exists, with the two themselves required to be mutually consistent. Anchor the segment to the reliable supply-side total and adjust the apportioned demand-side estimate to it. Following TG-3.3, flag any discrepancy exceeding about 10 per cent of the initial estimate for investigation rather than silent absorption, and document the residual.

4Sourcing the marine and coastal share. This is the single hardest number in the method, and the available sources are not interchangeable. A visitor expenditure survey is best — it gives the marine and coastal expenditure share directly, and the share should be expenditure-weighted rather than arrival-count-weighted, since high-spend marine activities (diving, charters) and low-spend beach visits differ. Arrivals-card purpose data are a national-level proxy only. They do not resolve to the industry or destination level, and they systematically miss same-day, cruise and domestic visitors — precisely the visitors most concentrated in marine recreation — so they must be supplemented for those segments. Emerging sources — e-VISA records and mobile-positioning data — are increasingly used to allocate where visitors actually go and can support destination-level shares (see TG-4.2 and TG-4.3).

Tier 2 — where no Tourism Satellite Account exists (proxy method)

1Most coastal and small-island developing states have no operational Tourism Satellite Account, and their visitor surveys often do not separate marine from non-marine purposes. In these contexts the segment is built using the simplified proxy method of TG-3.3 (its Section 3.7), which this Circular adopts as the default Tier 2 path:

  • 2obtain accommodation receipts by district and identify coastal districts;
  • 3calculate the marine-purpose arrivals share from arrivals cards or port-of-entry surveys;
  • 4multiply coastal accommodation, food-service and local-transport receipts by that share; and
  • 5add explicitly marine recreational expenditure (diving, charters, sport fishing) from operator licensing records.8

6In the proxy case the two shares of Tier 1 collapse into the single applied marine-purpose share — the proxy already conflates the tourism and marine-purpose steps — so compilers should not additionally apply a tourism ratio and double-discount. A Tier 2 estimate is a legitimate first account, to be upgraded to Tier 1 as a Tourism Satellite Account and visitor-expenditure surveys become available.

3.4 Value added, employment, and trade

1Production account. Compile output, intermediate consumption, gross and net value added for the segment, carrying the marine and coastal share into the derived tourism aggregates as set out in Section 3.3 (and observing that TDGDP, which includes product taxes, is reconciled rather than scaled). Marine tourism-specific fixed assets — cruise ships and yachts, marinas, dive boats and charter vessels — are the capital counterpart and should be identified in the gross fixed capital formation of the segment.9

2Cruise and international visitors. Cruise is the hardest case and warrants explicit treatment. Cruise passengers entering the economic territory are visitors, and unless they overnight ashore they are international same-day visitors (excursionists). Whether their ashore expenditure is recorded as internal tourism consumption of the country of reference depends on applying the residence and economic-territory concepts to the ship they arrive and leave on: it is conditional, not automatic.10 In practice, ashore expenditure is estimated as passengers landed x average per-passenger shore expenditure from port-of-call intercept surveys, passenger and port taxes are recorded separately as government revenue, and fares and on-board spending accrue to the cruise operator, which is typically non-resident (a balance-of-payments leakage). Note that under the balance-of-payments standard cruise fares are recorded in the travel item, not in passenger transport, distinguishing them from ordinary international passenger fares.10 Inbound visitor expenditure is recorded as exports of travel services and outbound as imports, and the segment’s inbound component should be aligned with the balance-of-payments travel credit so the two are not estimated independently and inconsistently.

3Employment. Employment is first measured in the tourism industries on a domestic, establishment basis — the standard Tourism Satellite Account Table 7 measure — because labour is associated with the establishment in which output is produced, not with the residence of the visitor served.11 The tourism-attributable portion is obtained by applying each industry’s tourism ratio to its employment, and the marine and coastal segment by applying the marine and coastal share. Applying the ratio to employment carries the stated assumption that the visitor-serving fraction of output has the same labour intensity (production function) as total output, which should be made explicit.11 Coastal tourism labour markets are strongly seasonal and carry a high incidence of informal employment. Because the establishment survey is exactly what misses informal dive guides, beach vendors and seasonal crew, in high-informality settings the labour-force survey (ideally a peak-season round) and operator licensing should be the primary employment source, with the establishment survey as a lower bound. Report both peak-season and annual-average employment so the seasonal swing is visible. See TG-3.5 Social Accounts for the wider tourism-employment treatment.

4Trade and retention. Beyond gross value added and export earnings, the question finance ministries ask first is how much of tourism receipts the economy actually keeps. Gross value added measures production within the economic territory, not the income that remains there, and for a marine tourism segment built on foreign-owned resorts, foreign-flagged vessels and imported supply the two can diverge widely. The SF-MST treats this as tourism leakage and identifies two distinct channels, which should be reported separately rather than combined into a single headline number.12 Figure 6.14.2 sets out the reduction from gross segment receipts to retained value.

TG-6.14 -- Marine and coastal tourism leakage: from gross segment receipts to retained value A schematic waterfall chart with no data values, showing how gross marine and coastal tourism receipts reduce to value retained in the economy through two distinct leakage channels. The first bar on the left, in ochre, is gross marine and coastal tourism receipts, the segment output derived in sections 3.3 and 3.4. The second bar, in coral and descending, is primary-income leakage: gross operating surplus and compensation of employees accruing to non-resident economic units and not reinvested locally, sourced from the resident and non-resident split of the segment's gross value added, compensation of employees and gross operating surplus, with establishment-ownership counts as the fallback indicator. The third bar, also in coral and descending, is import-content leakage: value added not remaining in the economy because inputs to tourism production such as food, fuel, construction materials and vessel maintenance are imported, derived from the supply-and-use reconciliation and characteristically high in small-island settings. The final bar, in emerald, is retained value added, the residual remaining in the economy. A separate grey dashed bar sits outside and to the right of the waterfall, labelled cruise fares and on-board expenditure, marked as never entering segment output at all because it accrues to a typically non-resident operator; an annotation warns that a retention ratio computed on landed shore expenditure alone will overstate what a cruise-dependent destination retains. A rules panel states that the two leakage channels must be reported separately rather than combined into a single headline number, that all indicators must be computed on tourism-ratio-adjusted industry figures or industries with a low tourism ratio such as food and beverage serving will dominate the aggregate, and that the retention indicators are a memorandum presentation and not a deduction from gross value added. Bar heights are illustrative only. Gross segment receipts → retained value: the two leakage channels SCHEMATIC · ILLUSTRATIVE PROPORTIONS · NO DATA VALUES 0 Gross receipts segment output §3.3--3.4 Primary-income leakage GOS + COE to non-resident units SF-MST 3.33 Import-content leakage imported inputs: food, fuel, materials SF-MST 3.34 Retained value added remains in the economy Report these two channels separately not as a single headline leakage number Outside segment output Cruise fares & on-board spending accrues to a non-resident operator Never enters segment output. A retention ratio on landed shore expenditure alone overstates what a cruise-dependent destination keeps. Compilation rules 1. Compute on tourism-ratio- adjusted industry figures. Unadjusted totals let low-ratio industries (food & beverage serving) dominate the aggregate. 2. Preferred: resident / non- resident split of GVA, COE, GOS. Fallback: establishment-ownership counts (SF-MST Table 3.3). 3. Memorandum presentation -- not a deduction from GVA. Legend Gross segment receipts Leakage (value leaving the economy) Retained value added Outside segment output entirely (cruise operator revenue) Measured on the segment's own aggregates, not on total tourism (§3.4).

Figure 6.14.2 Schematic waterfall from gross marine tourism receipts to retained value via primary-income and import-content leakage channels. Bar heights illustrative (no data). Retention is a memorandum beside segment GVA, not a deduction from it. Source: SF-MST (2024) paras 3.33--3.34 and Tables 3.3--3.5; this Circular §3.4 ("Trade and retention").

  • 5Primary-income leakage. Gross operating surplus generated by the segment that accrues to non-resident economic units and is not reinvested locally. The SF-MST’s preferred treatment is to split the segment’s gross value added, compensation of employees and gross operating surplus between resident and non-resident units. Splitting compensation of employees as well as operating surplus matters in this sector, because non-resident managerial and specialist labour is common in resort and dive operations. Where that split is unavailable, the count of resident- and non-resident-owned establishments supports a coarser ownership-based indicator.
  • 6Import-content leakage. Value added that does not remain in the economy because the inputs to tourism production (food, fuel, construction materials, vessel maintenance) are imported. This is derivable from the supply-and-use reconciliation and is characteristically high in small-island settings.

7One caution governs both. The retention indicators must be computed on tourism-ratio-adjusted industry figures. Applying them to unadjusted industry totals allows industries with a low tourism ratio, food and beverage serving being the standard case, to dominate the aggregate and misstate retention for the segment as a whole.12 Marine tourism adds a further channel not present in inland tourism: cruise fares and on-board expenditure accrue to a typically non-resident operator and never enter the segment’s output at all (see the cruise treatment above), so a retention ratio computed on landed shore expenditure alone will overstate what a cruise-dependent destination retains. Report the retention indicators as a memorandum presentation alongside the segment’s gross value added rather than as a deduction from it.

8Visitor-paid conservation levies and access fees. Marine protected area entry fees, dive-site levies, reef taxes and operator conservation surcharges are a material receipt in marine destinations, and their treatment is a consumption-boundary question that belongs to this Circular. A fee paid by a visitor during a trip is part of that visitor’s tourism expenditure and therefore enters internal tourism consumption and the segment aggregates of Sections 3.3 and 3.4, on the same basis as any other product acquired on the trip. An operator conservation surcharge that is a component of the price of a dive or excursion is not separable: it is part of the operator’s output and flows through the supply-and-use reconciliation before it ever reaches a conservation fund. The destination of the money does not change the recording of the transaction.

11For the recording of the revenue itself, the environmentally related taxes and fees account, and the conservation expenditure it finances, see TG-3.7 Governance Accounts, which carries marine protected area access fees as an account line and classifies environmental taxes by their tax base rather than their declared purpose.13 For capital expenditure on marine conservation and the rule preventing the same outlay entering both gross fixed capital formation and environmental protection expenditure, see TG-2.6 Ocean-related Investment. For the design of conservation finance instruments, see TG-1.8 OA and Project-Level Finance.

3.5 Environmental interactions

1The connection between tourism and the environment runs both ways. For marine and coastal tourism the marine ecosystem asset supplies the service that visitors consume: reefs, seagrass meadows, beaches and clear coastal water are the biophysical basis of the attraction, but it is the service flow they yield — not the asset stock itself — that links them to tourism.14 This Circular adapts the environmental dimension of the SF-MST to the marine case rather than restating it. Figure 6.14.3 sets out the asset -> service -> account linkage.

TG-6.14 -- Marine ecosystems, recreation services, and the marine and coastal tourism account A left-to-right linkage diagram with three layers and a feedback loop. Layer one, on the left, holds three teal marine ecosystem asset boxes -- coral reefs (cross-reference TG-6.1), seagrass meadows (cross-reference TG-6.3), and beaches and coastal waters -- each carrying an extent and condition account recorded as a physical stock. This layer is annotated with the rule that SF-MST records ecosystems whole and does not partition them or derive a tourism share (SF-MST 4.89). Solid service arrows run from each asset into the central sky-coloured hub in layer two: the recreation-related ecosystem service, the ecosystem contribution that enables visitor use and enjoyment per SEEA Ecosystem Accounting (cross-reference TG-2.4). A further solid arrow runs from the recreation-service hub into layer three on the right: the ochre marine and coastal tourism segment economic account, measuring tourism direct gross value added and gross domestic product, apportioned by the tourism ratio multiplied by the marine and coastal share. This node is annotated that apportionment applies to the economic account only, not to the ecosystem asset accounts. A set of dashed pressure arrows flows back from the tourism segment to the ecosystem assets, labelled anchoring and trampling damage, marine litter (cross-reference TG-6.12), wastewater and nutrients, and greenhouse-gas, energy and water flows recorded as SF-MST flow accounts. A trade-off note records that tourism use is weighed against coastal-protection and water-purification services to residents (SF-MST 4.106). Colour encodes role: teal for whole ecosystem assets, sky for the service flow, and ochre for the apportioned economic account. Marine ecosystems → recreation service → tourism account Marine ecosystem assets extent & condition account (physical stock) Coral reefs attraction asset -- recorded whole → TG-6.1 Seagrass meadows attraction asset -- recorded whole → TG-6.3 Beaches & coastal waters attraction asset -- recorded whole Recorded whole -- SF-MST does not partition ecosystems or derive a tourism share (SF-MST 4.89). Apportionment does NOT apply to these asset accounts. Recreation-related ecosystem service ecosystem contribution enabling visitor use & enjoyment (per SEEA EA) recreation service → TG-2.4 enables Economic account demand-defined; apportioned Marine & coastal tourism segment TDGVA / TDGDP -- apportioned (tourism ratio × marine & coastal share) Apportionment applies HERE, not to the ecosystem asset accounts. Pressures (degradation feedback) Anchoring & trampling damage · Marine litter (→ TG-6.12) Wastewater & nutrients · GHG / energy / water flows (SF-MST flow accounts) Legend Marine ecosystem asset -- recorded whole Recreation ecosystem service -- the linking flow Apportioned economic account Ecosystem service flow (solid) Pressure / degradation feedback (dashed) Trade-off: tourism use is weighed against coastal-protection and water-purification services consumed by residents (SF-MST 4.106).

Figure 6.14.3 Recreation-related ecosystem services link marine assets to the tourism segment; assets stay whole while only the economic account is apportioned. Dashed arrows = tourism pressures returning to assets. Source: adapted from SF-MST (2024) §4.3; SEEA EA Chapters 6 and 9.

2Recreation ecosystem services. The flow that links marine ecosystems to tourism is the recreation-related ecosystem service — the contribution of an ecosystem’s biophysical characteristics that enables visitors to use and enjoy it — recorded following the SEEA Ecosystem Accounting.15 It is a final ecosystem service whose beneficiary is the visitor, recorded in the physical ecosystem-service account and conceptually distinct from, and must not be added to, the tourism direct gross value added of Sections 3.3—3.4 (the former values the ecosystem’s contribution, the latter the produced output of tourism industries). For marine and coastal tourism these services are supplied by coral reefs, seagrass and coastal waters, and their measurement should draw on, and not duplicate, TG-6.1 Coral Reef Ecosystem Accounting, TG-6.3 Seagrass Ecosystem Accounting, and the recreation-service treatment in TG-2.4. A measure of total recreation services in a destination, set against ecosystem carrying capacity, indicates how dependent the local tourism economy is on the condition of its marine ecosystems.15

3Extent and condition of marine tourism assets. Compile a tourism-related ecosystem asset register and regional extent account that includes the relevant marine ecosystem types — for example marine shelf systems, coral reefs and seagrass meadows — using a national classification cross-walked to the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology as the reference, with condition measures for each marine asset.16 Condition characteristics should be organised under the SEEA EA ecosystem condition typology (ECT) and its six condition-characteristic classes, so that marine variables (live-coral cover, water clarity and turbidity, seagrass density) are mapped to ECT classes rather than chosen ad hoc.17 The SF-MST does not recommend partitioning ecosystems or deriving a tourism share of an ecosystem asset. The asset is recorded whole, and its extent and condition are tracked as a physical stock.16 This is a key contrast with the economic accounts of Sections 3.2—3.4, where apportionment is central, and compilers should not carry the marine and coastal share into the ecosystem asset accounts.

6Pressures specific to marine tourism. Record the marine-specific pressures the activity places on these assets:

  • 7physical damage to reefs and seagrass from anchoring, trampling and dive contact;
  • 8marine litter from vessels and beach use (cross-reference TG-6.12 Marine Litter and Plastics Accounting);
  • 9wastewater and nutrient discharge to coastal waters;
  • 10freshwater abstraction by coastal resorts in water-scarce settings; and
  • 11greenhouse-gas, energy, water and solid-waste flows.

12The flow side and the asset side are apportioned differently, and the contrast must be kept explicit: the physical pressure flows are SEEA Central Framework accounts and do carry a tourism share — only the tourism share of the environmental flow is included — whereas the marine asset is recorded whole, with no tourism share, its degradation tracked as a change in ecosystem condition.19 Where these pressures degrade the ecosystems that supply the recreation service, the joint economic-environmental account is meant to make the resulting trade-off visible, for example between tourism use and the coastal-protection or water-purification services consumed by residents.15

13Attributing degradation to tourism. Coral and seagrass decline in a tourism destination is rarely caused by tourism alone. Bleaching driven by marine heatwaves, agricultural and urban runoff, coastal development and fishing pressure act on the same assets at the same time, and a condition series alone cannot separate them. Two rules follow. First, the attribution question is asked of the flow, not the asset: the SF-MST recommends estimating the contribution tourism activity makes to changes in an environmental asset, whilst holding that this contribution must not be read as a share of the asset itself.20 Second, the attribution should rest on localised measurement rather than assumption. The SF-MST recommends that pressure and condition measurement be concentrated in the specific locations where the issue is apparent and potentially attributable to tourism, rather than compiled at national scale, and that stock data (asset quality) be combined with flow data (pollutants and emissions) so that the two can be read together.20 For marine tourism this means site-level monitoring at the dive sites, anchorages and beaches carrying the visitor load, with an unvisited or lightly visited reference site of comparable exposure where one is available. Where the pressure cannot be separated from other drivers, record the pressure flow and the condition change and state the limitation, rather than asserting a tourism-attributable share the data do not support.

14Reading economic flows against ecosystem condition. The joint account allows a diagnostic that neither the economic nor the ecosystem account yields alone: the segment’s tourism direct gross value added series read against the condition series for the reef and seagrass assets that supply its recreation service. Figure 6.14.4 sets out the pairing and the constraints on it.

TG-6.14 -- Reading marine tourism economic flows against marine ecosystem condition A schematic time-series chart with no axis values, presenting two independently compiled series on a shared time axis. The horizontal axis is time, running from a base period on the left to a current period on the right. The first series, drawn in ochre and labelled marine and coastal tourism segment gross value added, rises steadily from left to right. The second series, drawn in teal and labelled marine ecosystem condition covering live-coral cover, water clarity and seagrass density, falls steadily from left to right. The two series begin close together at the base period and separate progressively, and the widening gap between them is shaded in coral and labelled divergence, indicating that receipts are rising whilst the asset supplying the recreation service is being drawn down. An annotation marks the point where the series cross as the earliest signal, noting that the divergence is visible in the account before it appears in the revenue. Three rules are stated beneath the chart: the two series are a presentational pairing and not a new aggregate; they must not be netted or combined into a single index; and the condition series must not be adjusted by the marine and coastal share, consistent with the no-partition rule. A panel on the right lists the source of each series, the tourism segment gross value added from section 3.4 of this Circular and the ecosystem condition account from TG-6.1 for coral reefs and TG-6.3 for seagrass, and states that read against carrying capacity the pairing is the evidence base for visitor-quota and site-rotation decisions. The chart is explicitly labelled schematic, with illustrative shapes and no data values. Economic flow ↔ ecosystem condition: the divergence diagnostic SCHEMATIC · ILLUSTRATIVE SHAPE ONLY · NO DATA VALUES higher lower time → base period current period divergence receipts rise as the asset is drawn down Marine & coastal tourism segment GVA §3.4 · apportioned economic account (rising) Marine ecosystem condition live-coral cover · water clarity · seagrass density (falling) divergence begins here visible in the account before the revenue Compilation rules 1. A presentational pairing of two independently compiled series -- not a new aggregate. 2. The series must not be netted or combined into a single index. 3. The condition series must not be adjusted by the marine & coastal share (no-partition rule, SF-MST 4.79). Series sources Economic flow · segment TDGVA → this Circular §3.3--3.4 Ecosystem condition · ECT-organised → TG-6.1 (reef) · TG-6.3 (seagrass) Attribution of degradation → SF-MST 4.74, 4.79 Read against carrying capacity, the pairing is the evidence base for visitor-quota and site-rotation decisions. Legend Apportioned economic flow (tourism segment GVA) Ecosystem condition index (asset recorded whole) Divergence -- the asset supplying the service is being drawn down Attribution to tourism requires site-level monitoring, not assumption (§3.5).

Figure 6.14.4 Presentational pairing of tourism economic flows against ecosystem condition series; the two are compiled independently and never netted. Curves illustrative (no data). Condition series carries no marine/coastal share. Source: this Circular §3.4--3.5; series construction follows SF-MST (2024) 4.74 (combining stock and flow data) and 4.79 (no tourism share of environmental assets); condition characteristics organised under the SEEA EA ecosystem condition typology.

A destination in which segment gross value added rises whilst live-coral cover, water clarity or seagrass density falls is drawing down the asset that underpins the receipts, and the account makes the divergence visible before it appears in the revenue. The diagnostic is a presentational pairing of two independently compiled series, not a new aggregate. The two must not be netted or combined into a single index, and the condition series must not be adjusted by the marine and coastal share, consistent with the no-partition rule above. Presented against ecosystem carrying capacity, the pairing is the evidence base for visitor-quota and site-rotation decisions, and it is the most direct answer this account gives to a tourism ministry asking whether current visitor volumes are sustainable.

15Reef-dependent tourism indicator. The marine-tourism segment gross value added of Section 3.4 can be set against the reef- and seagrass-dependent recreation share to give an indicative reef-dependent tourism value — the most policy-salient output for an environment ministry. This is an attribution of economic value to ecosystem condition, not a partition of the ecosystem asset, and is therefore consistent with the no-partition rule above. Any monetary ecosystem-service estimate (SEEA EA Chapters 9—11, which have recommendation rather than standard status) is complementary to, and must not be summed with, the segment’s tourism direct gross value added.21

3.6 Worked example

1This example extends the Country B coastal-tourism illustration in TG-3.3 Section 3.7 rather than re-deriving it from scratch. Country B has no Tourism Satellite Account, so it is a Tier 2 (proxy) case. The inputs are as follows:

  • 2coastal-district accommodation receipts of USD 120M;
  • 3arrivals cards indicating that 55 per cent of visitors cite beach or marine recreation as the primary purpose;
  • 4coastal food-service and local-transport receipts of USD 45M; and
  • 5licensed marine-recreation operators (diving, charters) reporting USD 8M.

6The proxy applies the single marine-purpose share to the setting-based categories and adds the wholly marine line:

CategoryCoastal receipts (USD M)Marine/coastal shareMarine tourism (USD M)
Accommodation (5510/5520)1200.55 (arrivals-card proxy)66
Food and beverage serving (5610/5629/5630)45 (with transport)0.5525
Marine recreation operators (9319/9329 add-on)81.0 (wholly marine)8
Total marine tourism contribution99

7In a Tier 1 economy the same destination would instead start from the Tourism Satellite Account tourism ratio for each class to isolate the tourism part of output, then apply the marine and coastal share — measured on the same internal-tourism population (Section 3.3) — with sea and coastal passenger transport (ISIC 5011) and the licensed marine operators entering at 1.0, and reconcile the resulting tourism direct gross value added to the national accounts and the Tourism Satellite Account. Either way, the proxy assumptions — particularly the arrivals-card share and the receipts source — should be documented in compilation metadata so users can assess sensitivity, and the segment’s recreation-service dependence read against the condition of the reef and seagrass assets in the destination’s ecosystem register. A fuller synthetic application adding the greenhouse-gas, water and solid-waste flow accounts of Section 3.5 will be developed as those flow accounts mature.

TG-6.14 -- Marine and coastal tourism leakage: from gross segment receipts to retained value A schematic waterfall chart with no data values, showing how gross marine and coastal tourism receipts reduce to value retained in the economy through two distinct leakage channels. The first bar on the left, in ochre, is gross marine and coastal tourism receipts, the segment output derived in sections 3.3 and 3.4. The second bar, in coral and descending, is primary-income leakage: gross operating surplus and compensation of employees accruing to non-resident economic units and not reinvested locally, sourced from the resident and non-resident split of the segment's gross value added, compensation of employees and gross operating surplus, with establishment-ownership counts as the fallback indicator. The third bar, also in coral and descending, is import-content leakage: value added not remaining in the economy because inputs to tourism production such as food, fuel, construction materials and vessel maintenance are imported, derived from the supply-and-use reconciliation and characteristically high in small-island settings. The final bar, in emerald, is retained value added, the residual remaining in the economy. A separate grey dashed bar sits outside and to the right of the waterfall, labelled cruise fares and on-board expenditure, marked as never entering segment output at all because it accrues to a typically non-resident operator; an annotation warns that a retention ratio computed on landed shore expenditure alone will overstate what a cruise-dependent destination retains. A rules panel states that the two leakage channels must be reported separately rather than combined into a single headline number, that all indicators must be computed on tourism-ratio-adjusted industry figures or industries with a low tourism ratio such as food and beverage serving will dominate the aggregate, and that the retention indicators are a memorandum presentation and not a deduction from gross value added. Bar heights are illustrative only. Gross segment receipts → retained value: the two leakage channels SCHEMATIC · ILLUSTRATIVE PROPORTIONS · NO DATA VALUES 0 Gross receipts segment output §3.3--3.4 Primary-income leakage GOS + COE to non-resident units SF-MST 3.33 Import-content leakage imported inputs: food, fuel, materials SF-MST 3.34 Retained value added remains in the economy Report these two channels separately not as a single headline leakage number Outside segment output Cruise fares & on-board spending accrues to a non-resident operator Never enters segment output. A retention ratio on landed shore expenditure alone overstates what a cruise-dependent destination keeps. Compilation rules 1. Compute on tourism-ratio- adjusted industry figures. Unadjusted totals let low-ratio industries (food & beverage serving) dominate the aggregate. 2. Preferred: resident / non- resident split of GVA, COE, GOS. Fallback: establishment-ownership counts (SF-MST Table 3.3). 3. Memorandum presentation -- not a deduction from GVA. Legend Gross segment receipts Leakage (value leaving the economy) Retained value added Outside segment output entirely (cruise operator revenue) Measured on the segment's own aggregates, not on total tourism (§3.4).

Figure 6.14.2 Schematic waterfall from gross marine tourism receipts to retained value via primary-income and import-content leakage channels. Bar heights illustrative (no data). Retention is a memorandum beside segment GVA, not a deduction from it. Source: SF-MST (2024) paras 3.33--3.34 and Tables 3.3--3.5; this Circular §3.4 ("Trade and retention").

4. Acknowledgements

1This Circular has been approved for public circulation and comment by the GOAP Technical Experts Group in accordance with the Circular Publication Procedure.

2Authors: [To be confirmed]

3Reviewers: [To be confirmed]

5. References

Footnotes

  1. 1

    United Nations & World Tourism Organization (2008). International Recommendations for Tourism Statistics 2008 (IRTS 2008). Statistical Papers, Series M No. 83/Rev.1. New York and Madrid. Visitor, tourist, same-day visitor, and usual environment: paras 2.9, 2.13, 2.21—2.25; forms of tourism (domestic, inbound, internal): paras 2.39—2.40; tourism as a demand-side phenomenon: para 1.1. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. 2

    TG-3.3 Economic Activity Relevant to the Ocean, Section 3.2 (“Operational decision rule for partially ocean-related activities”). The ~5 per cent of establishment output benchmark is described there as a pragmatic operational choice, not a value drawn from an external standard. ↩

  3. 3

    United Nations (2008). International Standard Industrial Classification of All Economic Activities, Rev.4 (ISIC Rev.4). Series M No. 4/Rev.4. Class 5011 (Sea and coastal passenger water transport) is defined by transport over seas and coastal waters; inland water passenger transport is class 5021. ↩

  4. 4

    ISIC Rev.4, classes 9319 (Other sports activities) and 9329 (Other amusement and recreation activities n.e.c.); official scope notes confirm both are broad classes containing substantial non-marine activity. ↩

  5. 5

    United Nations, World Tourism Organization, Eurostat & OECD (2008). Tourism Satellite Account: Recommended Methodological Framework 2008 (TSA:RMF 2008). Studies in Methods, Series F No. 80/Rev.1. Tourism share: para 4.51; tourism ratio: para 4.56 (carried in Table 6). Travel agency, tour operator and reservation services are measured on a margin basis as a distinct tourism characteristic product. ↩ ↩2

  6. 6

    UN Statistical Commission, 54th session (2023) — adoption of ISIC Rev.5; 55th session (2024) — endorsement of explanatory notes and implementation plan, with national implementation expected from 2027. UNSD publishes an ISIC Rev.5—Rev.4 correspondence table. ↩

  7. 7

    TSA:RMF 2008, paras 4.47 and 4.58—4.59 (derivation of tourism direct gross value added and tourism direct gross domestic product via the Table 6 reconciliation; TDGDP adds net taxes on tourism products), 4.81 (recommended-aggregates list) and 4.88—4.94 (definitions of TDGVA and TDGDP). ↩

  8. 8

    TG-3.3 Economic Activity Relevant to the Ocean, Section 3.7 (“Simplified proxy method for countries without TSA infrastructure”), including the Country B worked mini-example extended in Section 3.6 here. ↩

  9. 9

    TSA:RMF 2008, tourism characteristic products (water passenger transport: passenger line and ferry, cruise ship, yacht) and tourism specific fixed assets (para 2.47, e.g. cruise ships, marinas). ↩

  10. 10

    IRTS 2008, paras 2.13 and 2.61—2.63 (classification of cruise passengers as visitors, generally same-day visitors/excursionists, with treatment conditional on applying residence and economic-territory concepts to the ship) and para 10.77 (cruise fares recorded in the travel item of the balance of payments). Consistent with BPM6. ↩ ↩2

  11. 11

    TSA:RMF 2008, Table 7 and paras 4.62—4.68: employment in the tourism industries is measured on an establishment basis; seasonality and informality are identified as the major measurement challenges; the tourism-attributable portion is obtained by applying the industry tourism ratio (para 4.64), which assumes the visitor-serving fraction of output has the same production function as total output. See also OECD/UN Tourism guidance on the Employment Module linking employment data to the TSA. ↩ ↩2

  12. 12

    SF-MST (2024), paras 3.33—3.34 and Tables 3.4—3.5. Para 3.33 defines tourism leakage as operating surplus generated from tourism activities that does not fully accrue to local economic units, sets out the preferred resident/non-resident split of gross value added, compensation of employees and gross operating surplus, offers establishment-ownership counts (Table 3.3) as the fallback indicator, and warns that indicators derived from Table 3.5 must be adjusted using the tourism ratio for each industry or industries with a relatively lower tourism ratio (food and beverage serving is the cited example) may inappropriately dominate aggregated results. Para 3.34 covers the imported-input channel and the related OECD trade-in-value-added work. ↩ ↩2

  13. 13

    TG-3.7 Governance Accounts, Section 3.3.5 “Compilable governance account tables”: the environmental protection expenditure account adapted from SEEA CF Table 4.4 (SEEA CF paras 4.49—4.50, 4.85) and the ocean governance environmental tax account following SEEA CF paras 4.148—4.155, which carries marine protected area access fees and fishing licence fees as account lines and classifies environmental taxes by tax base rather than declared purpose. Coastal and marine tourism also appears there under COFOG 04.7.3. ↩

  14. 14

    UN Tourism (formerly UNWTO) & United Nations Statistics Division (2024). Statistical Framework for Measuring the Sustainability of Tourism (SF-MST), adopted by the UN Statistical Commission at its 55th session (2024). Tourism—environment connection: paras 4.1—4.6. ↩

  15. 15

    SF-MST (2024), paras 4.99—4.107: recreation-related ecosystem services defined following the SEEA Ecosystem Accounting (a final service to the visitor); carrying capacity (para 4.103); trade-offs with non-tourism ecosystem services such as coastal protection and water purification (para 4.106). See also SEEA Ecosystem Accounting (United Nations et al., 2021), Chapter 6. ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  16. 16

    SF-MST (2024), paras 4.82—4.94: tourism-related ecosystem asset register and regional ecosystem extent and condition accounts, including marine areas, with national classifications cross-walked to the IUCN Global Ecosystem Typology (paras 4.84, 4.86); para 4.89 — SF-MST does not recommend partitioning ecosystems or deriving a tourism share of an ecosystem asset. ↩ ↩2

  17. 17

    SF-MST (2024), para 4.93: ecosystem condition characteristics should cover the six classes of the SEEA EA ecosystem condition typology (ECT). ↩

  18. 18

    TG-1.9 Safe Usage of Monetary Valuation, Sections 3.3.1 (exchange value versus welfare value, and the exclusion of consumer surplus), 3.4 (the SEEA EA valuation preference hierarchy), 3.6 (the distinction between the consumer expenditure method, which yields exchange values, and the traditional travel cost method, which estimates total willingness to pay including consumer surplus), and 3.7.1—3.7.2 (contingent valuation and choice experiment results are not appropriate for direct entry in accounts; stated-preference data may be used only as inputs to a simulated exchange value calculation, adjusted for consumer surplus and flagged for sensitivity analysis). See also TG-6.1 Coral Reef Ecosystem Accounting for the reef-tourism simulated exchange value construct and its reef ecosystem share. ↩

  19. 19

    SF-MST (2024), Section 4.2 and Tables 4.1—4.6 (tourism GHG emissions, solid waste, water and energy flow accounts), and Section 4.6 (para 4.161): only the tourism share of an environmental flow is included — in contrast to the whole-asset treatment of ecosystems in paras 4.79/4.89. ↩

  20. 20

    SF-MST (2024), para 4.79 (no tourism share of environmental assets; the contribution tourism activity makes to changes in an environmental asset may be determined but must not be interpreted as a share of the asset itself), para 4.74 (combining stock data on the quality of ecosystem assets with flow data on pollutants and emissions, with measurement concentrated in locations where the issue is apparent and potentially attributable to tourism rather than compiled across the whole country), paras 4.71—4.73 (pairing emissions to water with water quality in coastal and marine areas, recorded through an ecosystem condition account), and Annex 4.1 (paras 4.143—4.145) on the attribution of environmental flows to tourism. ↩ ↩2

  21. 21

    SF-MST (2024), para 4.107, and SEEA Ecosystem Accounting Chapters 9—11 (monetary valuation, recommendation rather than standard status): monetary ecosystem-service values are complementary to, and must not be summed with, tourism direct gross value added. ↩

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