News
Tourism Can Cushion Tasmanian Economy
Posted on Wednesday, 25 February 2009 | Permalink
The Tourism Industry Council of Tasmania says the industry has the potential to cushion the State’s economy against prolonged economic downturn.
TICT chief executive Daniel Hanna said today tourism continued to be a powerhouse of the Tasmanian economy.
“Major events like today’s Launceston Cup attract visitors as well as generate intrastate travel and benefit the whole Tasmanian economy,” Mr Hanna said.
“At a time when governments around the world and around Australia are looking at ways to prime the economy to generate new jobs and protect existing jobs, investment in tourism marketing is something they, and the industry, can do now which will have an immediate impact,” he said.
The TICT is currently surveying its members to get a clear picture of how much the industry is investing in marketing to offset the economic downturn.
“The private sector has invested billions into tourism product over recent years and this benefits all sectors from construction to hospitality, agriculture and even manufacturing,” Mr Hanna said.
“Last September we released figures which showed plans for another 66 tourism-related projects worth over $1 billion and we need to invest in marketing to increase our market share to ensure businesses remain confident to go ahead with those developments.
Mr Hanna said tourism delivered $2.2 billion annually directly to the pockets of Tasmanians and the industry provided 25,000 real jobs year round.
“Recent calls by the Manufacturing Industry Council to take money away from tourism and redirect it to manufacturing show a very poor understanding of the importance of tourism to Tasmania’s economy,” Mr Hanna said.
“Tourism is not just a three or four month job and comments by the Manufacturing Industry Council’s Richard Lowrie that it is not something that can give someone a stable salary for the whole year is just plain rubbish.
“Successive surveys show people believe our future prosperity lies in tourism.
“Rather than cut tourism marketing we need to aggressively sell Tasmania in our key national markets. Just a half a percentage point gain in Tasmania’s share of interstate trips taken by Australians will deliver industry growth of between 8% and 9% over the coming year which will generate an extra $120 million in revenue and could create between 1500 and 2000 direct and indirect jobs.
“The value of aggressive marketing at this time has been proved by the TT-Line’s strong booking performance on the back of a sales and marketing campaign. On its own this campaign increased travel of mainland visitors to Tasmania which will drop tens of millions of dollars straight into the pockets of businesses in all parts of the State,” Mr Hanna said.
“The time to act is now,” he said.
