Tourism 2020 is the long-term strategy to build the resilience and competitiveness of Australia’s tourism industry and grow its economic contribution. Launched in December 2011 and running until December 2020, it was the first time that national, state and territorial strategies to drive tourism demand and policies to grow the supply side were brought together in a co-ordinated manner. In terms of roles at the federal level:
Austrade co-ordinates at the federal level to ensure policy settings support the supply side.
Tourism Australia drives international demand through marketing and industry development activities.
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade leads and manages Australia’s bilateral and multilateral tourism relationships.
Tourism Research Australia underpins the strategy with data and insight.
Tourism 2020 set the ambitious target of doubling overnight visitor spend to between AUD 115 billion and AUD 140 billion by 2020. Thanks to strong co-operation between industry and all levels of government, overnight visitor spend reached AUD 122.1 billion in 2018-19, and is on track to achieve AUD 134 billion by the end of 2020.
Since 2009, total overnight spend has increased by AUD 51.1 billion (up 72%) and an additional 40 400 rooms have been added to the accommodation stock in Australia’s top ten tourism cities. International aviation capacity has grown by 67%, while domestic capacity has grown by 21%. Linked with this, 159 500 additional employees have joined the tourism workforce. Tourism 2020 has been an unifying force within the sector, with states and territories setting their own targets for overnight expenditure, with the strategy continuing through multiple changes of federal government. The development and ongoing industry ownership of Tourism 2020 has been recognised as policy best practice, and Australia is looking to re-create this as the next strategy is developed to come into force at the beginning of 2021.
The challenges facing Australia’s tourism sector are to continue to drive sustainable growth of increased visitation and yield from a balanced portfolio of markets while at the same time managing key supply side issues such as increasing investment in tourism infrastructure, building the capacity and capability of the tourism workforce, and appropriately growing air connectivity:
Growing demand for visitation to and within Australia is vital to reaching the upper range of the Tourism 2020 spend targets. To achieve this, Tourism Australia maintains a balanced portfolio approach in its international marketing, with investment in 15 core markets reflecting the greatest opportunities for sustained growth.
Since making tourism a national investment priority, Australia has achieved record levels of international investment in tourism infrastructure. The Government has in recent times shifted its focus from investment attraction to project facilitation to ensure the pipeline of tourism infrastructure comes to fruition.
In 2015, there were 38 000 unfilled tourism positions across Australia, which restricted the sector’s ability to meet growing demand for Australia’s tourism products, services and experiences. This is being tackled by: working with the industry-led Tourism and Hospitality Labour and Skills Roundtable; establishing a Skilling Australians Fund, which provides funding to states and territories to grow the number of apprentices and trainees to support Australia's future productivity, jobs and growth; and delivering the Tourism Employment Plans (TEPS) in partnership with states and territories. These TEPS are three-year plans that outline tailored strategies for a region to meet its specific labour and skills needs.
A key pillar of the Tourism 2020 strategy is the goal of increasing international aviation capacity to Australia by 50% to 26 million annual inbound seats in total. This target was met four years early, however work has continued to ensure aviation capacity increases ahead of demand. In June 2019 there were around 58 international airlines and 1 954 international flights into Australia per week, which equates to a capacity of 26.9 million seats per annum.
Improving regional dispersal is a focus to grow the Australian tourism industry. While 44 cents in every tourism dollar is spent in regional Australia, regional dispersal remains challenging, particularly for international visitors. To this purpose the Government appointed an Assistant Minister for Regional Tourism in May 2019, and is providing funding for regional tourism infrastructure through the Building Better Regions Fund (Box 1.10).
In 2018, the Government commenced the process of developing its next 10 year tourism strategy, which is being progressed under the working title of Tourism 2030. An industry steering committee was established, which reported to Government in December 2018 on its vision for the future of the tourism industry. Challenges highlighted by the steering committee included: maintaining Australia’s competitiveness, the sharing economy, technology, ultra-long haul travel, emerging markets, international education, and social licence. Priorities included: drive visitor demand through marketing, aggregated and segmented data analytics capability, addressing capacity constraints, technology, providing a suitably skilled and available workforce, and building a sustainable tourism industry. Building on the work of the steering committee’s report, it was identified that further consultation and opportunities for direct input by state and territory governments and the broader tourism industry would help build shared ownership of the strategy. This will also ensure that the national strategy aligns with individual state and territory strategies. Development work is continuing with the intention that the strategy is considered by Ministers during 2020 with a commencement date of 1 January 2021.
