Tourism has an increasingly important role in the economies of southern African countries. It is a major source of foreign exchange, income and employment, and is seen as having significant potential to contribute to economic growth in the region. The potential for improvements to tourism planning through development of tourism satellite accounts (TSA) to measure economic activity, and tourism asset resource accounts (TARA) to measure the natural asset base, was studied in southern Africa. This paper is an assessment of the potential for development and use of tourism satellite and natural resource accounts for planning and policy analysis of tourism in southern Africa.