Operators would be aware tourism funding was not immune from the Tasmanian Government spending cuts in last year’s challenging State Budget. The funding cut from Tourism Tasmania and Events represented the single largest cut in tourism funding by a Tasmanian Government since Tourism Tasmania was first established in the mid-90s.

To its credit the Tasmanian Government did try and minimise the impact of these cuts on our industry by ‘quarantining’ Tourism Tasmania’s marketing budget. However this is at a time when every other state and territory is spending more on destination marketing to grow their share of the competitive Australian tourism market.

So with this in mind we look to this year’s State Budget and a commitment from the Tasmanian Government to reinstate the funding that was cut from the Tourism Tasmania budget last year, and for this additional money to be invested in destination marketing and areas that will generate visitor demand.

TICT's submission to the 2012/13 State Budget will be released publicly soon, but essentially all we are calling for is the Tasmanian Government to honour its existing commitments to our industry – reinstate the funding cut from Tourism Tasmania and Events Tasmania last year, provide the additional funding that was promised to grow our lucrative business events and conference market, make access to the state a priority, and continue to develop our next iconic tourism products, the Three Capes Track and the Tarkine Drive.

This is a challenging time for Tasmania and the State’s budget difficulties are well documented, but the State Government also needs to invest in areas that promise to grow our economy and improve market conditions to encourage operators to continue to invest and grow their businesses. Tasmanian tourism still offers enormous potential for growth and the Tasmanian economy needs a tourism industry that is growing and moving forward, not treading water.