Tourism industry in cry for help
Australia’s peak national tourism lobby group, Tourism and Transport forum (TTF) is calling for urgent government assistance for the industry following news of another downturn in international arrivals.
There was a 9.0 percent slump in monthly arrivals in September (down 42,700 to 432,200) dragging international visitor numbers for 2011 into the red.
The September results mean that total international arrivals to Australia for the first nine months of 2011 are in negative territory – down 0.3 percent to 4.18 million – while departures are up 10.3 percent to 5.7 million.
TTF chief John Lee said tourism is suffering because of its image.
“Tourism is seen as a friendly face, a service industry based around having a good time,†Lee said, “but many tourism operators around Australia are not having a good time.â€
“The number of international visitors to Australia has fallen in 2011 while the number of Australians travelling overseas continues to grow at double digit pace, giving us a tourist deficit of more than 1.5 million for the first nine months of the year.
“The car, steel and cattle sectors have received hundreds of millions of dollars in government assistance to address the problems they are facing, yet the tourism industry – which employs nearly three times as many people as those three sectors combined – has been left to its own devices.â€
Lee said Australia’s tourism marketing agencies needed additional funding to ensure their message was being heard in an increasingly crowded and competitive international marketplace.
“We need to increase funding for marketing activities in countries which are responding to the opportunity of visiting Australia – China, India and South-East Asian countries in particular.


“It’s not enough to redirect existing budgets to those markets from others – we need to at least maintain our presence in all our key markets and ramp up our promotion, advertising and engagement campaigns in the near-world countries which are showing growth,†Lee added.
Ian Jarrett
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