Strong dollar ‘still hurting domestic tourism’ - TAA
Tourism Accommodation Australia (TAA) has identified productivity and infrastructure development as key areas that need to be addressed by the industry and government if new regional hotels and resorts are to be viable in the future.
Speaking at the Australian Regional Tourism Convention in Margaret River, Western Australia, Rodger Powell, managing director of TAA, said that in many parts of regional Australia, hotel operators have experienced flat or even negative growth over the past five years, with the national and global economic downturn and the persistently high Australian dollar affecting demand in a large number of regional and resort destinations. Conversely, costs have continued to grow, seriously affecting the bottom line for many hotel operations.
“Regional hotel operators have had the double impact of reduced demand and higher costs, and while it was thought earlier this year that the fall in the Australian dollar would provide relief for the industry, recent months have shown that the dollar has stubbornly refused to fall to the anticipated US$0.80 mark,” said Powell. “As a result, the gap between outbound departures and inbound arrivals has grown, and it continues to be a disincentive to domestic tourism.
“The flat demand has been exacerbated by rising costs. Hotel operators would welcome an urgent end to the carbon tax as it has been a key driver of increased costs, but the industry also wants to see greater flexibility in workplace conditions to increase productivity. These changes would benefit both employers and employees and are particularly relevant in regional locations, where access to appropriately qualified staff is more difficult. We need to ensure that government policies encourage a far more inclusive participation rate, and that comes through greater flexibility of workplace conditions.
“It has been encouraging to see state and regional tourism organisations embrace events as a means of driving greater domestic and international demand. It is essential that States invest in such demand generators as well as provide assistance for tourism-related infrastructure development. This could be in the form of development assistance for convention facilities, upgrading civic areas, publicly owned tourism attractions, addressing transport and parking issues, and investing in pitches for major conventions, meetings and events."
Powell said that by developing or supporting major sporting, cultural and community events, such as sporting events progressive State and regional tourism organisations had given a great economic boost to their local communities.
“State and regional governments can also develop tourism infrastructure such as cycle and walking trails, upgrade beach and foreshore facilities, add parking areas, and de-regulate restrictions that restrain businesses from serving the needs of visitors,” said Powell. “Most of these measures are relatively straightforward and inexpensive to implement, but can significantly advance tourism in regional areas.”
Powell said that it was encouraging that the Federal Government had agreed to a freeze on the passenger movement charge, but there were many other areas that could be addressed to both stimulate demand and restrain costs for hotel and resort operators.
“Attracting, retaining and training staff in regional areas is a serious issue and will require increasing attention if we are to raise service standards in these traditionally high-cost areas. International travellers are very interested in outback and regional Australia, but they also demand high standards, and that can only come through training and development.”
Source: MICEBTN, 21 October 2013
