“There’s never been a more exciting time to be the Minister for Tourism and I think that’s right in the context of where the industry sits. I certainly hope to be given the opportunity to take the job on again post the second of July,” the Minister for Tourism Senator Richard Colbeck began, addressing the crowd at Travel DAZE in Sydney on Monday.

“Obviously, the industry at the moment is in a critical place with strong numbers and the figures released last week that showed a 17 per cent increase on spend over the previous year up to 37, nearly 38, billion dollars in international visitors is good news for the sector.

“If you look at the numbers that came out last week where, from China, there is a 23 per cent increase in numbers and 38 per cent increase in expenditure; the US 12 per cent increase in numbers and 22 per cent increase in expenditure; the UK 5 per cent and 10 per cent; Japan a 12 per cent increase in numbers but expenditure only up 10 per cent in comparison to that, and New Zealand continues to be strong.

“India likewise, which I think is probably the market you ought be looking at beyond China, is the next developing market, also has very strong growth coming through it as well and they are only still developing their own internal tourism sector. I think there’s an opportunity for us to engage as that sector grows internally and to develop that into an international offering, in time.

“So it then comes back to the core settings that we have across the economy and across the sector to make sure that things are as seamless and easy as possible to come to Australia and we don’t have any hiccup points when people are making the decision to come to Australia.

“In that context there’s always the old chestnut of visas. I think it’s important that we continue to monitor what’s happening internationally with our visa offering because there’s a lot of reform and a lot of innovation, to use the popular term, occurring in that space not only here in Australia but around the world and it’s often quite easy and quickly that you can see the impact of that.

Colbeck spoke about a recent encounter with some South Australian agents who’s trade had soared after the agreement of the three-year multi-entry visa from Indonesia, admitting he didn’t realise how significant the impact would be for the industry.

“Similarly, we’re working with China on the development of a 10 year multi-visit visa, which we hope to have finalised this year and also offering it online, and for the first time in Mandarin,” he added.

“It’s something that I think will have a significant impact and I hope it assists us to increase our proportion of Chinese visitors who are taking an international holiday.

But, Senator Colbeck said that amidst a strong industry, one of the pressures we really face is our “supply side constraints”, so ensuring the infrastructure that we have here is able to meet a growing market.

“Obviously, we need to be able to manage and continue to grow our labour and skills – very, very important,” Colbeck said. “Research indicates that we’ve got a significant deficit now with about 38,000 in the industry now but that’s going to continue to grow over the next decade as well.

“One of the things I think I’d really like to see is the change in the perception of the visitor economy and the tourism industry as a career. I think many of you in the room would understand only too well what a strong and positive career path this industry can provide, but it’s not necessarily the perception from outside.

“We need to collectively turn around the way that we project as a sector and it’s very, very important that people see that there is a strong career path and there’s an opportunity to make a good living in the sector, which there certainly is.

“It doesn’t necessarily depend on what your particular skills are. There are many career paths in the tourism industry and the visitor economy that can provide very strong lifestyle for anyone who wants to take that up. So we need to continue to work on that.”

Summing up, Colbeck concluded, “I think we really do have quite an exciting time in this sector over the next decade. Obviously we need to ensure that we have our fundamentals right, we need to keep an eye on the fundamentals that run and support the industry, make sure that our decisions support those things that will keep this sector strong.

“We will continue to engage quite actively with you as an industry sector so that we are well across the particular issues that focus your attention. We will continue to work cooperatively with the states and territories to particularly market for their use in their international marketing campaigns so that there is a commonality of theme, which I think is really quite important.”