By Margy Osmond, Chief Executive Officer, Tourism & Transport Forum Australia
While 2023 is off to a great start for the tourism sector, significant challenges remain for our industry post-pandemic. Thankfully, the federal government is listening to our concerns.
On Thursday, I was given the opportunity to lay out in detail to our federal parliamentarians the major obstacles we continue to face, when I addressed the inquiry into Australia’s tourism and international education sectors.
It’s clear our policymakers appreciate the pandemic and the resulting international border closures had a devastating effect on tourism in Australia. So how can the government help our sector bounce back?
Firstly, we must address the skills shortage still hurting our industry.
While we should encourage Australian workers to take up tourism jobs, we need dedicated programs to attract skilled workers from overseas in this highly competitive global environment.
Other countries are offering strong incentives for international workers like Canada, for example, which has introduced ‘fast track’ attraction programs to address its own skills shortage.
Australia would benefit from a similar program or business tax incentives, business funding programs or more general business support.
Secondly, we must continue to reduce delays in processing visas for visitors and skilled migrants.
The government has worked hard to cut the visa backlog to a more manageable level, increasing certainty for Australian businesses, and I’m pleased the government acknowledges further reform is needed.
Home Affairs Minister Clare O’Neil concedes the migration system needs urgent changes, or else Australia will keep losing skilled migrants to other global destinations.
We now have an opportunity for game-changing visa reform in Australia to serve the visitor economy of tomorrow.
Thirdly, Australia needs to reattract aviation routes from key markets across Asia, Europe and North America.
Despite airlines gradually reinstating flights post-pandemic, carriers have been reluctant to increase flights if demand cannot be met, with passengers facing higher prices for international air fares, driven by increased fuel costs.
Australian policymakers must continue to make the case at bilateral engagements and international forums that there is long-term growth in demand in the Australian market for additional air routes.
These are just some of the many concerns our government can help address but fortunately, we are already making progress.
It’s fantastic to see dedicated campaigns to encourage tourists to visit Australia, like Tourism Australia’s “Come and Say G’Day” campaign launched in October. Now live around the world, the campaign will be critical to enticing visitors down under, particularly from markets like the US and Canada.
Various states and territories are also launching campaigns to reattract international visitors.
And I applaud Tourism Australia’s recent decision to target Chinese tourists with a localised version of the “Don’t Go Small, Go Australia” campaign, now China’s borders have reopened, and Chinese travellers are slowly returning to Australia.
Our sector is resilient and we can return to our pre-pandemic success, but we need support to get there.
