Reforms in Tourism Industry of Australia Free-Samples Myassignment

Question: Write an Essay on Reforms in Australias Tourism Industry. Answer: Introduction: The tourism industry of Australia is the most growing sector of the country. There has been a tremendous rise in the number of international visitors to the country in the past two decades, to 7.4 million in 2015 from 2.5 million in 1992. This industry contributed almost 10.9% of the GDP in 2016, which is approximately 183.2 billion AUD. According to Sherry (2015), the tourism industry is outgrowing the mining sector in terms of revenue and employment. This sector employs almost 6 million people by the end of 2016, which is more than the employment in mining sector. In the next twenty years, the industry has the potential of contributing almost $250 billion AUD to the GDP of the country. There has been an addition of $11 billion AUD in the Gross State Product of Australia in 2013-14 by the tourism sector (Hooper Zyl, 2012). However, there are rooms for reform in this industry. The government plans to increase the visitor spending to double by the end of 2020. It also plans to redecorate Sydney to attract more people to live and visit. To make this plan a success, the NSW government is putting efforts in the improvement of the infrastructure of Sydney. Although it is an already established global city, still it needs big ideas and innovation to attract more tourists. However, it requires proper strategies and right direction to exploit the huge scope for improvement. Proper reform actions should be taken to make Sydney a tourist hub in the near future (Australias International Tourism Industry, 2015). Analysis of the tourism sector: Australia is a country with over 20 million populations. Here, cultural tourism is an integral part of the total tourism sector. This part of the industry is the one of the major attractions for the international tourists. The tourism industry comprises of accommodation, transport facilities like on road, air, and water, retail trades like restaurants, cafes, and other cultural services, events and festivals. The NSWs gross value added was $27.6 billion. The visitor exports and imports is also a part of the total export and import of the country (Australias International Tourism Industry, 2015). The contribution of travel and tourism industry has grown significantly in the past 10 years, as shown in the diagram below. (Source: Data.worldbank.org. 2017) Outline of the tourism business 2015 (Source: tra.gov.au, 2016) Travel and tourism sector is a demand driven sector. The products of this sector are consumed by both the tourists and the citizens. Therefore, not only the tourists, but the local citizens also contribute in the growth of the tourist locations as well as the products and services. The regional development of tourism is more evident in Australia. The government websites show that, there has been a huge boost in regional growth, employment, foreign currency imports, improvement in the transport services and other services, which led to a significant growth of the overall tourism industry. Many reform measures has been taken in regional sections, such as, national parks of Tasmanian Island would be reformed to attract more visitors (Arid, 2017). In the last 5 years, the increase in the total visitor nights was by 3.8%, and numbers of visitor increased by 2.2% annually. The consumption of tourism products grew from $103 billion to $121 billion. 66% of the total earnings come from small and medium businesses of this industry (Tra.gov.au., 2017). (Source: Austrade.gov.au., 2016) Reform policies for the growth of tourism industry: The tourism industry of Australia has introduced a reform plan, named, Tourism 2020 to address the growth opportunities and challenges. It has a growth framework. It also plans to help the businesses in staying competitive in the dynamic market of global tourism. The key points of this policy are to ease the rigidities and regulations of the industry and encourage a high quality of tourism, creating innovative marketing strategies for pushing the demand and supporting infrastructural development. The policy aims to double the amount of spending by overnight global and local tourists, up to $140 billion. For this, the sector needs to develop 6,000 to 20,000 rooms of international standard, by 2020. The international flying capacity should be increased by 40% to 50% and domestic capacity by 23% to 30%. This requires addition of almost 1.9 million seats in the flights, employment of 152,000 people and more efficient promotion strategies (Austrade.gov.au., 2016). Recommendations for the industry: The following reform policies could be adopted by the travel and tourism industry of Australia: The visa processing should be done on a priority basis to make it faster and more competitive. Especially, the visa applications from markets like China, should be processed at a lower cost and without much rules and regulations (australia.com., 2017). More restrictions should be put on the secondary airports and not on the primary airports, which acts as gateways for the visitors. The jobs should be more of permanent nature rather than being contractual or part time. The city tours should be made easier to access. For example, an Opal card should be issued by the tourism department to the visitors, which would make city tour easier. A city, which is more livable, will attract more tourists also. The amenities should be developed according to international standard. Workforce should be trained more for a better customer service. Better marketing promotion opportunities and partnerships should be identified and implemented for attracting more international tourists. The national and state tourism plans must be integrated to develop the regional infrastructure. The cross portfolio collaboration must be done by the government of Australia to drive the visitor economy reforms (Hooper and Zyl, 2012). Conclusion: The travel and tourism industry of Australia has emerged as an economic powerhouse in the past few years. The industry has contributed significantly in the total GDP, GVA and GSP of the country. However, the industry needs some reform measures to improve the products and services. The policy of Tourism 2020 is a reform policy formulated to develop the industry further and increase the number of visitors. The policy also includes the plans for innovations and big ideas to make the major cities more attractive and livable. Hence, to achieve these objectives, the tourism department and the government of Australia should work hand in hand. References: Arid, H. (2017). Tasmanian tourism industry pushes for reform of 'outdated' parks and reserve legislation. ABC News. Retrieved from https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-28/tasmanian-tourism-wants-national-parks-act-updated/8219790 Austrade.gov.au. (2016). About Tourism 2020 - Austrade. Retrieved 28 April 2017, from https://www.austrade.gov.au/Australian/Tourism/Policy-and-Strategy/tourism-2020 Australias International Tourism Industry. (2015) (1st ed.). Retrieved from https://www.pc.gov.au/research/completed/international-tourism/international-tourism.pdf Data.worldbank.org. (2017). International tourism, receipts (current US$). Retrieved 28 April 2017, from https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/ST.INT.RCPT.CD Hooper, K., Zyl, M. (2012). Australias Tourism Industry. RBA. Retrieved 28 April 2017, from https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/bulletin/2011/dec/pdf/bu-1211-3.pdf Sherry, A. (2015). Australias tourism industry needs innovation and big ideas to continue to grow. The Daily Telegraph. Retrieved from https://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/nsw/australias-tourism-industry-needs-innovation-and-big-ideas-to-continue-to-grow/news-story/53078ef6405ad0c433612722c6fdbde7 Tourism.australia.com. (2017). Tourism Statistics - Research - Tourism Australia. Retrieved 28 April 2017, from https://www.tourism.australia.com/statistics.aspx Tra.gov.au. (2017). Tourism Research Australia. Retrieved 28 April 2017, from https://www.tra.gov.au/