Organization: UNDP Saudi Arabia, through Stars Orbit Consultants and Management Development (SOC).

VA No. VA24-95

Position Title: Tourism Statistic Expert
Consultancy Type: International Expert

Duty Station: Riyadh, Saudi Arabia

Duration: 16 Weeks

Vacancy Date of Issue: 6 June 2024

Vacancy Closure Date: 12 June 2024

Expected Starting Date: As soon as possible

This vacancy is announced by UNDP Saudi Arabia through Stars Orbit Consultants and Management Development (SOC). SOC is a sub-contractor for UNDP Saudi Arabia, assisting the programme in implementing their activities through HR and contract management of consultants working in their support.

Office/Unit/Project Description

Tourism is a key sector for the Saudi economy and an important pillar in Saudi Vision 2030. This sector is growing rapidly which requires a method consistent with this growth to measure it accurately and in a timely manner.

The flash estimation and nowcasting models are a good way to respond to this growing demand of accurate and timely tourism economic indicators which will help in achieving Saudi Vision 2030 targets.

Developing flash estimation and nowcasting models are mostly about aligning them with international best practices while making sure local context is still reported in the best way possible. Complying with international recommendations requires transparency on reporting tourism flash estimation and nowcasting models using all credible sources to estimate the direct Tourism contribution to the GDP in a quarterly basis following the guidelines by UNTWO Tourism Satellite Account: Recommended Methodological Framework 2008 (TSA: RMF 2008).

Furthermore, this development includes developing methodologies for tourism economic and employment indicators as well as integrating and harmonizing these methodologies with the available GASTAT methodologies.

In this respect the economic tourism consultation´ expert is needed to be working on improving current tourism statistics models and indicators in several ways that are specified in the Scope of Work.

Reason for need, Developing tourism economic models and indicators methodologies.

Scope of Work

The scope of work will consider the following exercises with the objective to build methodologies of data processing and analytics of an annual economic survey “Tourism Establishments Survey” along with building needed dashboards, and to develop tourism economic models and indicators of tourism sector in the kingdom as well as integrating and harmonizing these methodologies with the overall economic statistics methodologies that would help decision makers and Tourism-related organizations in implementing Tourism-related activities.

The Consultant will be required to:

• Review and validate the results of the tourism economic indicators from different sources including the supply and demand surveys as well as the tourism satellite account outputs and find different untraditional data sources to use in this regard, and handover a report and documentations of the revision and validation of the results as well as the new untraditional data sources, and benchmarks if any.

• Develop an automated flash estimation model of tourism direct contribution to the GDP in a quarterly basis using advance analytics tools like R & Python as well as integrating and harmonizing this methodology with the overall quarterly GDP flash estimations methodology, and handover a report and documentation of the model, methodology, codes, and benchmarks if any.

• Develop an automated nowcasting model of tourism direct contribution to the GDP in a quarterly basis using advance analytics tools like R & Python as well as benchmarking the best international practices on that regard, and handover a report and documentation of the model, methodology, codes, and benchmarks if any.

• Develop automated methodologies of calculating tourism employment and establishments indicators at sub national spatial levels in a quarterly basis using advanced analytics tools such are R & Python as well as aligning and harmonizing these methodologies with quarterly Labour Force Statistics publications, and handover a report and documentation of the methodologies, codes, and benchmarks if any.

• Develop automated methodologies for calculating tourism economic indicators in a quarterly basis using advanced analytics tools such are R & Python as well as aligning and harmonizing these methodologies with economic statistics department, and handover a report and documentation of the methodologies, codes, and benchmarks if any.

• Elaboration and improvement of reporting and publication of Tourism Economic Indicators product based on the methodologies developed, and handover a pilot proposal of improved reporting and publication of Tourism Economic Indicators.

• Develop automated methodologies of data processing of Annual Tourism Establishment Survey using advanced analytics tools such as R & Python as well as aligning and harmonizing these methodologies with international best practices, and handover a report and documentation of the methodologies, codes, and benchmarks if any.

• Develop methodologies of automated data analytics of Annual Tourism Establishment Survey using advanced analytics tools such as R & Python as well as building needed dashboards using Power BI or Tableau based on best practices, and handover a report and documentation of the methodologies, codes, dashboards, and benchmarks if any.

• Elaboration and improvement of reporting and publication of Annual Tourism Establishments Statistics product based on the methodologies developed, and handover a pilot proposal of improved reporting and publication of Tourism Establishments Statistics.

• Knowledge transfer including training & workshops, and handover training and workshop materials.

  Technical support:

• Review and validate the results of the tourism economic indicators from different sources including the supply and demand surveys as well as the tourism satellite account outputs and find different untraditional data sources to use in this regard, and handover a report and documentations of the revision and validation of the results as well as the new untraditional data sources, and benchmarks if any.

• Develop an automated flash estimation model of tourism direct contribution to the GDP in a quarterly basis using advance analytics tools like R & Python as well as integrating and harmonizing this methodology with the overall quarterly GDP flash estimations methodology, and handover a report and documentation of the model, methodology, codes, and benchmarks if any.

• Develop an automated nowcasting model of tourism direct contribution to the GDP in a quarterly basis using advance analytics tools like R & Python as well as benchmarking the best international practices on that regard, and handover a report and documentation of the model, methodology, codes, and benchmarks if any.

• Develop automated methodologies of calculating tourism employment and establishments indicators at sub national spatial levels in a quarterly basis using advanced analytics tools such are R & Python as well as aligning and harmonizing these methodologies with quarterly Labour Force Statistics publications, and handover a report and documentation of the methodologies, codes, and benchmarks if any.

• Develop automated methodologies for calculating tourism economic indicators in a quarterly basis using advanced analytics tools such are R & Python as well as aligning and harmonizing these methodologies with economic statistics department, and handover a report and documentation of the methodologies, codes, and benchmarks if any.

• Elaboration and improvement of reporting and publication of Tourism Economic Indicators product based on the methodologies developed, and handover a pilot proposal of improved reporting and publication of Tourism Economic Indicators.

• Develop automated methodologies of data processing of Annual Tourism Establishment Survey using advanced analytics tools such as R & Python as well as aligning and harmonizing these methodologies with international best practices, and handover a report and documentation of the methodologies, codes, and benchmarks if any.

• Develop methodologies of automated data analytics of Annual Tourism Establishment Survey using advanced analytics tools such as R & Python as well as building needed dashboards using Power BI or Tableau based on best practices, and handover a report and documentation of the methodologies, codes, dashboards, and benchmarks if any.

• Elaboration and improvement of reporting and publication of Annual Tourism Establishments Statistics product based on the methodologies developed, and handover a pilot proposal of improved reporting and publication of Tourism Establishments Statistics.

• Knowledge transfer including training & workshops, and handover training and workshop materials.

  Capacity Development

  • Applying data validation checks of tourism economic indicators and using untraditional data sources.
  • Developing an automated flash estimation model of tourism direct contribution to the GDP in a quarterly basis using advance analytics tools like R & Python.
  • Developing an automated nowcasting model of tourism direct contribution to the GDP in a quarterly basis using advance analytics tools like R & Python.
  • Developing automated methodologies of calculating tourism employment and establishments indicators at sub national spatial levels in a quarterly basis using advanced analytics tools such are R & Python.
  • Developing automated methodologies for calculating tourism economic indicators in a quarterly basis using advanced analytics tools such are R & Python.
  • Improving the reporting and publication of Quarterly Tourism Economic Indicators.
  • Developing automated methodologies of data processing of Annual Tourism Establishment Survey using advanced analytics tools such as R & Python.
  • Developing automated data analytics methodologies using R& Python and developing dashboards using Power BI or Tableau.
  • Improving the reporting and publication of Annual Tourism Establishments Statistics.

Institutional Arrangement

• The Agriculture Statistics Expert will work in close collaboration with the Chief Technical Advisor (CTA), other consultants and the relevant GASTAT technical staff.

Duration of the Work

• The expected duration of the assignment is expected to be up to 16 weeks with the possibility of extension.

Duty Station

• The assignment will be In Country Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He/ She will be embedded within the within the Survey Unit at GASTAT.
• If unforeseen travel outside the consultant’s home-based city is requested by UNDP and not required by the Terms of References (ToR), such travel shall be covered by UNDP in line with applicable rules and regulations and upon prior written agreement. In such cases, the consultant shall receive living allowances not exceeding the United Nations (UN) Daily Subsistence Allowance (DSA) rate for such other location(s).
• Note: A written approval from UNDP and relevant authorities will be required to facilitate the consultant’s travel to any locations than stated on this TOR on official missions where necessary.

Working Arrangements:

• The duty station of the Agriculture Statistics Expert is GASTAT at Riyadh – Saudi Arabia
• The Agriculture Statistics Expert will work in close collaboration with the Chief Technical Advisor (CTA), other consultants and the relevant GASTAT technical staff.

REQUIRED QUALIFICATIONS

Education:

University degree in economics, Tourism Statistics, Spatial Statistics, tourism and hospitality development, or any other relevant fields.

Min. years of relevant Work experience

• At least 10 years of experience in providing consultancy services on tourism statistics, particularly building tourism economic models and dashboards and processing, and analysing data and developing tourism satellite accounts.
• An industry expert with a good understanding of the structure of Saudi Arabia economy and can draw international best practice in building tourism economic models and recommendations to apply into local level.
• Previous experience in providing advisory support on tourism economic models development and good knowledge about the nature of both the national, regional, and international tourism industry will be valuable.

Competencies

• Economic analysis, tourism research, destination analysis, communication, organization

Required Language:

Fluency in English