Tourism

The Australian Federal Government’s Tourism policies and strategies aim to promote sustainable growth, enhance visitor experiences, and support the tourism industry’s economic contribution to the nation. Thrive 2030 (https://www.austrade.gov.au/australian/tourism/policy-and-strategy) is designed to service Australia’s visitor economy, the fourth-largest export sector before the COVID-19 pandemic. 

The visitor economy covers all visitors who travel to and within Australia. This can be for various reasons, such as: 

  • holidays 
  • visiting friends and family 
  • business 
  • work 
  • education 
  • attending events. 

A wide range of industries provide goods and services to visitors including:  

  • accommodation 
  • transport 
  • culture, arts and recreation 
  • travel agents an 
  • d tour operators 
  • education and training 
  • business event service providers 
  • food services 
  • retail 

THRIVE 2030 aims to return the sector to pre-pandemic visitor spend and sustainable growth: 

  • returning it to $166 billion by 2024 
  • growing it to $230 billion by 2030. 

The strategy aims for regional Australia to capture about 40% of this spend. 

Thrive 20230 is set out across three phases: Recovery, Consolidation and Acceleration. 

  1. Recovery Phase 2022–2024. This will focus on rebuilding the visitor economy. It will do this by: 
  • driving domestic visitation 
  • driving targeted international visitation 
  • addressing priority supply-side issues, such as workforce shortages. 
  1. Consolidation Phase 2025–2027. This aims to achieve a consistent growth to meet targets. It will do this by: 
  • pursuing a targeted, diverse portfolio of markets 
  • investing in new products and destinations 
  • improving business practices 
  • continuing to build workforce capability. 
  1. Acceleration Phase 2028–2030. This aims to speed up growth, increase service quality and grow visitation. It will do this by building on the investment in earlier phases. This will include improvements in business processes and technology. 

Thrive 2030 summary: https://www.austrade.gov.au/news/publications/thrive-2030-strategy 

Thrive 2030 has been designed to be implemented in conjunction with Tourism Australia and Industry. Tourism Australia, the government agency responsible for marketing Australia as a premier travel destination both domestically and internationally. Key aspects of their policy include funding allocation and strategic initiatives to boost the tourism sector. 

Role of Tourism Australia 

Tourism Australia’s (TA) purpose is to grow demand to enable a competitive and sustainable Australian tourism industry (TA Corporate Plan: https://www.tourism.australia.com/en/about/our-organisation/our-performance-and-reporting.html). 

Key focus of TA is on recovery, reinvigoration of brand, maximise conversion of airline market to increase inbound travel, indigenous and sustainable tourism and support industry recovery and growth.  

Their strategic undertaking is as Australia’s national tourism marketing organisation that promotes Australia as a compelling tourism destination for leisure and business events travel. TA’s purpose is to grow demand to enable a competitive and sustainable Australian tourism industry, with the ambition to support a full recovery of Australia’s tourism industry to 2018-19 expenditure levels by 2024-25. 

Budget Expenditure and Allocation 

The Australian Federal Government allocates a significant portion of its budget to support the tourism industry and Tourism Australia’s operations. As of 2023 – 2024, the budget allocation for TA is as follows: 

Reference: TA Budget allocation: https://budget.gov.au/content/pbs/index.htm