ATEC sees continued need to keep getting inbound tourism right

Following the impressive tourism industry growth figures revealed in the latest International Visitor Survey, the Australian Tourism Export Council (ATEC) sees that the nation needs to over come barriers to further growth.

Commenting on the impressive growth in spending by international visitors, ATEC Managing Director, Peter Shelley advises “export tourism is a major contributor to the Australian economy and one that continues to grow as our industry works to embrace all of the opportunities the global phenomenon of travel brings.

“As more and more of the world’s population looks to explore and seek greater satisfaction from travel, Australia remains one of the most desirable destinations for many people.

“These results show the appeal of Australia is unabated and we have much more success to draw on.”

Shelley said the tourism industry had been fully engaged in a process of growing and improving its international appeal and these results are a reflection of this investment.

He added “given export tourism is such an important part of our economic future, it is incumbent on our political leaders to support this future growth and get their tourism policies right as part of the current Beyond Tourism 2020 strategy under development.

“This will include addressing a range of issues that have the potential to become barriers to further growth as well as fully embracing the opportunities for our economy like jobs growth.

“We are now seeing an obvious increase in visitors from our major markets, while emerging markets like India are growing steeply - this gives us the challenge of building the backbone of our industry by attracting more people to work in tourism.

“There is no doubt that now is a great time to be looking for a career in the tourism industry and we look forward to building the strength of our industry alongside the government going forward.”

Image: Victoria's Great Ocean Road.