WA misses out on overseas tourists: AHA
WA is missing out on a big increase in international tourism to the country, according to a peak hospitality body.
Australian Hotels Association (WA) chief executive Bradley Woods said the latest international visitor survey data showed international visitor spending in WA had increased by only 1.2 per cent over the year to June, compared to national average growth of 11.5 per cent.
He said this relatively poor performance was holding back the creation of thousands of tourism and hospitality jobs.
“International visitor spend in WA has increased less than the rate of inflation,” he said. “The prospects for WA employment and wealth creation through tourism can be so much better.
“WA tourism is being held back by low level State Government funding and too much focus by the national Tourism Australia on bringing tourists to the east coast.
“The problem is that other State Governments’ spend on tourism marketing is substantially higher than WA and it keeps growing.
“The Victorian State Government recently announced an extra $80 million for tourism marketing and the NSW Government announced an additional $123.35 million to boost their marketing budget.”
Tourism Council chief executive Evan Hall said WA had been outperformed when it came to investment in tourism, resulting in fewer visitors and lower spend.
“Every other State in the country is diversifying its economy and investing heavily in tourism as the economy moves from being focused on resources to services,” Mr Hall said.
“WA is in competition with every other State and destination around Australia when it comes to appealing to visitors from around the world and we must not be left behind or we risk losing visitors to other destinations.”
The figures also reveal a significant decline in the number of international business travellers to WA, with a decline of 9,000 visitors, or 8.4 per cent. This is offset by strong growth in leisure tourism of 8.3 per cent.
“Fewer international business travellers and large business events are choosing Western Australia as a destination,” Mr Hall said.
“In this year’s State Budget, funding for the Perth Convention Bureau was slashed over the forward estimates – this will result in a further decline in visitor numbers from this high-yield demographic.
Source: The West Australian, Kent Acott, 2nd September 2015
Originally published as: WA misses out on overseas tourists: AHA
