Page 1327 - Week 05 - Wednesday, 12 May 2021
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government launched the framework for recovery of our visitor economy, accompanied by an action plan with an ambitious goal of growing the total annual domestic visitor spend from $1.28 billion dollars in September last year, back to $2½ billion by mid-2022.
To achieve this we have introduced the tourism cooperative marketing fund which provides matched funding to local tourism operators for campaigns that seek to attract visitors to the ACT. I am pleased to advise the Assembly that to date grant funding has been invested across 24 projects in partnership with 87 tourism businesses in our city.
We have also established the COVID-safe tourism co-investment program to support businesses to develop new COVID-safe tourism products and infrastructure that can bring more visitors to Canberra. Again I am pleased to inform the Assembly that the assessment of applications for the first round of funding under this program is now underway. We are also growing visitor numbers and spending through marketing and partnerships with tourism industry partners, including VisitCanberra’s More Than campaign.
It is fair to say that—whilst there is always the risk of further COVID outbreaks that impact on travel—this strategy, these sets of investments alongside the relaxation of border restrictions from other states and territories are working for our tourism sector. More people are staying in Canberra. The ACT’s commercial accommodation occupancy level in March was 66.9 per cent and its private accommodation occupancy level—that includes providers like Airbnb—was at 69.7 per cent, both well above national levels.
The government has also invested in initiatives to support the recovery of our aviation sector, and we have done so in partnership with the Canberra Airport. Our objective is very straightforward—we want to make it easier and cheaper for people to travel to Canberra. It is pleasing that with the announcement last week of Qantas of a direct flight to Darwin that Canberra is now better connected within Australia than at any point before. We have seen the establishment of new direct routes between Canberra and the Sunshine Coast, Cairns, Hobart, Port Macquarie, Ballina and now Darwin.
I think for the first time in over a decade Canberra has a direct flight to every capital city in the country. We even have competition on some of these routes, which is a pleasing outcome and perhaps somewhat surprising given where domestic aviation was at the peak of the pandemic. I take this opportunity to thank Rex Airlines for stepping up and launching seven daily services—49 flights a week—between Canberra and Sydney, stepping in to provide competition on one of the busier domestic aviation routes out of our city.
Canberra Airport is now operating more than 300 flights a week, around 85 per cent of pre-COVID flight levels. There is still room for further recovery in aviation. It will, of course, be some time before we see frequent international travel. However, we will continue to work with Canberra Airport to establish new routes and re-establish those that were broken by the pandemic. Particularly we have an opportunity in the short-term to develop new trans-Tasman services.
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