Australian tourism lashed for under-performing
GOLD COAST – Strong criticism of the performance of the Australian tourism industry has set the agenda for the country’s biggest tourism show, Australian Tourism Exchange, starting in Perth in less than two weeks.
Christopher Brown, managing director of peak industry body, Tourism and Transport (TTF) Australia, told a tourism conference on the Gold Coast that since the 2000 Sydney Olympics the number of overseas travellers visiting Australia had grown by just 0.3 per cent.
He said Australia’s tourism industry needed to face reality and admit they were doing it tough.
“Despite all our award nights, despite all our accreditation schemes, all the positive press releases and good times that we always tell ourselves that we’re in, we’re quite frankly not,†said Brown,
“We’ve lost our mojo. We have effectively, at best, plateaued.
“We are the flatlining country in a region that’s going through the roof.â€
Getting accommodation in five-star hotels for around A$200 a night was a “disgrace†and indicated the industry had lost pride in its product, Brown said.
He said Australia had failed to utilise a boom in tourism in the Asia Pacific, which itself had done more poorly than the global tourism industry.
Australia’s Asian rivals had increased by 1.9 per cent from 2000 to 2007, while globally, tourism was up by four per cent.
Brown accused the Australian industry of riding off the back of the successful Paul Hogan advertising campaigns in the 1980s.
“This is a massive generalisation, but we’ve sat around for 20 years, waiting for the next killer ad to come along … we forgot about strategy and supply, we just went to market,†he said.
The industry needed to focus on its product and work together without looking to government for help, he said.
Ian Jarrett
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