TTF Reaches Anniversary as Head Takes a Shot at Politicians

As the Tourism & Transport Forum (TTF) gathers tonight to celebrate 21 years of industry advocacy, retiring Managing Director, Christopher Brown has taken a shot at both sides of politics.

Brown, who has spent the past 18 years as head of the tourism lobby group, has criticised Federal Government for taking Australia's $85 billion tourism industry for granted.

The son of former Federal Labor Minister John Brown, Brown junior said tourism should not be put in the same portfolio as resources, as it was now in the Gillard Government stating âit is an insult to the tourism industry to be tacked on to the back of the resources portfolio ⦠there is no connection between tourism and mining."

Brown also criticised Tony Abbott for demoting former opposition tourism spokesman Steve Ciobo to the back bench after the election, stating âit was an 'up yours' to the tourism industry.

"Tourism is one of the economic pillars of regional Australia but like most of the services industry in Australia, tourism is being taken for granted by government at all levels."

Brown said governments should recognise that the country was never going to have an old-style manufacturing industry again and that services now represent 70% of the Australian economy.

He added that the tourism industry was having a tough time with 25,000 jobs lost since the global financial crisis, more than half of which were in Queensland.

Brown will be stepping down as Managing Director of TTF and as Deputy Chairman of infrastructure lobby group Infrastructure Partners Australia in February.

However, tonight, Brown and TTF Chairman Bruce Baird will join with industry leaders to celebrate 21 years of the Forum at Sydneyâs Four Seasons Hotel.

It was at The Regent Hotel (now the Four Seasons) that TTF was launched in late 1989 in response to the pilotsâ strike which devastated Australiaâs tourism industry.

The organisation, which began life as the Tourism Task Force, was founded by a group of industry leaders who knew that Australiaâs tourism and aviation sectors were facing some serious challenges, but lacked an influential voice in Canberra.

Over the past 21 years, TTF's brief has expanded significantly and it now advocates the public policy interests of the 200 most prestigious corporations and institutions in the Australian tourism, transport, aviation and investment sectors.

Among many achievements, TTF has secured billions of dollars of government support for tourism agencies, encouraged Commonwealth involvement in urban planning and infrastructure, delivered the Brand Australia campaign, secured airport privatisation and established Australia's only cross-modal public transport forum.

Along the way it changed its name to entrench public transport and infrastructure within, but it remained true to its original charter as the political voice of industry.

 29th July 2010 - COALITION PLEDGES TO BACK BUSINESS EVENTS TOURISM