Tourism emerges from “lost decade"

Tourism emerges from “lost decade"
By admin


Australian tourism is emerging from a “lost decade” which saw the industry become complacent in the aftermath of the Sydney Olympics, tourism leaders have agreed.

Speaking to students today at the Sydney Hotel School, Accor Australia chief operating officer Simon McGrath spoke of a “false sense of security” in the aftermath of the Olympics that led to Australia focusing too heavily on traditional markets.

However, the overall outlook for the industry is now “very positive,” McGrath said.

He highlighted Japan as an example of a past mistake, stressing it had been in decline for the last 10 years. “But we’ve continued to focus our efforts there,” he said.

“It’s a relationship built industry, so when a relationship isn’t really working for us, we tend to continue with that relationship rather than forging new territories”.

But tourism was now back on track, with the emerging markets of India and China representing huge opportunities for Australia, McGrath said. But he repeated warnings that competition for these markets is high.

“We talk about China at our tourism forums and leadership forums, but let me assure you that every country around the world is doing exactly the same,” he said. “We need to make sure the Chinese market is welcome and we need to demonstrate actions to support that.”

He referred to Accor’s own Chinese Optimum Service scheme, now rolled out across 40 of its Australian properties. The scheme uses third parties to accredit the scheme on an annual basis so that hotels “can’t slip back”.

“You need to build that trust,” he said. “Make sure that the words are not cheap and that the actions are very, very strong.”

Meanwhile, Tourism Australia managing director Andrew McEvoy agreed there had been a degree of complacency in the wake of the Games.

“There was probably a bit of a lost decade from around 2000 to 2010,” he said.

But he insisted the industry was successfully turning things around.

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