Dollar costs local tourism
An article in The Sunday Tasmanian, a strong Australian dollar and cheap transport options out of the state are throwing down a challenge to Tasmania’s “holiday at home” tourism strategy.
This week RACT Travelworld and its national affiliates reported a 22 per cent increase in Australian residents holidaying overseas in September, compared with last year.
This comes in the midst of an intensive marketing strategy to encourage Tasmanians to holiday at home.
The strategy has included the polished and popular television series Discover Tasmania and print advertising campaigns.
RACT Travelworld general manager Robyn Sinfield said the high Australian dollar played a part in the increase.
“We’ve just been through a period of historically high Australian dollar values, making just about everything cheaper for Aussies overseas,” she said.
Figures from the International Air Transport Association confirmed the trend, showing a 20 per cent rise in the number of international tickets this year.
Tourism Industry Council chief executive Daniel Hanna said while the council didn’t keep figures on how many people left the state for holidays, the strength of the dollar obviously made overseas travel more attractive to Tasmanians.
And while cheap air fares and the Spirit of Tasmania ferries boosted the state’s interstate tourism, they also gave Tasmanians more opportunities to holiday away.
But Tourism Tasmania chief executive Felicia Mariani said the strong dollar did not present a major challenge to the Discover Tasmania campaign. She said it had been increasing for some time along with the propensity for people to travel overseas.
“We need to be prepared to balance our efforts on both the domestic front as well as the international front because these types of increases in international travel are always cyclical.
“In between overseas trips people still want to take short breaks for recharging,” she said.
While Tourism Tasmania’s $750,000 Discover Tasmania campaign had been effective, Mr Hanna said there were limits to what marketing could achieve.
The Tourism Industry Council and Tourism Tasmania will launch a new strategy, Tourism 21, on December 10.
Mr Hanna said the future would see demand for carbon neutral holidays.
“Our industry is going to have to be one of the leaders in climate change,” he said.
The Government is also being urged to develop tourist attractions like the Three Cape Walk proposed for the Tasman Peninsula.
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