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Oz ponders tourism dive
TRAVELCONSUMERDAILY.COM AUSTRALIAN Consumer Price Index figures this week recorded the sharpest fall in two decades in domestic holiday and accommodation costs, which were down 6 per cent. But that seems to have been too little, too late to prevent the local tourism industry from entering a tailspin which will be difficult to correct as statistics show Australians are leaving the country in record numbers, discouraged by high prices and poor service at home. The CPI figures highlighted the impact of heavy discounting by airlines and domestic tourism operators to keep the industry afloat during the global financial crisis, The Australian reported. But two powerful travel industry figures have indicated in interviews this week that they think Australia’s tourism industry woes are all its own fault. The secretary-general of the World Tourism Organisation, Jordan’s Taleb Rifai, says Australia needs to ditch the "island mentality" that bred complacency and a misplaced belief that international holidaymakers would beat a path to its door. "Australia has lived for a long time . . . happy with its isolation," Dr Rifai says. "That's not going to work any more." Rifai was one of the star turns at a recent international conference, Tourism Futures, that examined over what had gone wrong with Australian tourism and how it could recover. Australia now exports vastly more in tourist dollars than it earns, with the Tourism and Transport Forum (TTF) predicting that the negative balance of trade for 2010-11 will approach a record $A9 billion. Some 6.58 million Australians travelled overseas in the year ending April, up 13 per cent and comfortably surpassing the 5.65 million international visitors who entered the country over the same 12-month period. Virgin Group founder Richard Branson, also visiting Australia this week, says he is is baffled by Australia’s inability to sell itself as an attractive holiday destination. He told Business Spectator Australia was a “very, very easy sell” and he was “surprised that the advertising people can’t get the message across”. “If they want to use me to plug Australia, I’d be delighted to do so because I can’t think of another country I’d rather visit,” Branson said.
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