ATEC calls for early GST refunds, 'fresher' product

MICEBTN Archive Stories Issue 29

Thursday, 20 September 2007

That’s the view of peak industry body — the Australian Tourism Export Council (ATEC) — which says while international travel is increasing universally, Australia's figures are below the global growth rate of 4.5 per cent.

ATEC was commenting on the latest Tourism Research Australia International Visitor Survey, which revealed that 5.1 million international visitors came to Australia in the 2006/07 financial year - three per cent up on the previous year.

ATEC managing director, Matthew Hingerty, said while the figures were positive, Australia had also failed to lift its market share from around one per cent of global travellers.

“The good news, however, is that the total economic value that foreign tourists inject into our economy has lifted by 10 per cent to A$22 billion annually,” he said.

“This is more than other export sectors, with the exception of mining — and it’s time that the true value of foreign tourism is recognised by the wider government and business community.”

Hingerty said if Australia were to increase its market share, government and industry would need to invest in attracting and retraining quality staff — particularly young people — and in developing new product and experiences.
“The ongoing investment in Tourism White Paper initiatives plus Tourism Australia’s strategies to target longer-staying, higher-spending tourists is paying off — but it’s just one part of the mix,” he said.

“We can’t simply keep putting new marketing labels on the same product and experiences and expect visitors to keep coming or to make return visits.

“Nor can we continue to blame external factors such as the high Australian dollar, surge in low-cost carriers or competition from ‘new’ destinations although all of these are certainly impacting on our market share.

“If Australia is to stand out, we need to be more innovative in areas such as targeting new markets and investing in educating and training young and enthusiastic entrepreneurs who will be the future of our industry.”

Hingerty said innovation did not necessarily mean a big dollar investment, but could involve initiatives such as developing new products like health tourism, indigenous tourism and the inbound drive market - and encouraging businesses to take a greater interest in the tourism education sector.

Reforms could also be implemented in areas such as tourism shopping to enable overseas visitors to claim back GST before they reached the airport - and therefore have greater opportunity to spend their refund in Australia.

“These are all things that we could do tomorrow that would require limited financial investment, but could reap huge rewards,” added Hingert