Page 3067 - Week 09 - Thursday, 21 September 2006
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travel to Canberra. I am told that it has become a pattern, particularly with young people, to go onto web sites for airlines and simply flick down and find the cheapest place they can go to. The first consideration is the price and they decide they will go to the Gold Coast or somewhere else. Unfortunately, Canberra is rarely appearing on that. Mr Quinlan, the former minister, used to open up many speeches at tourism events that I attended by making a fairly derisive remark about Jetstar, an airline we do not have flying into Canberra, saying, “I understand it is a once in a lifetime experience.”
I will not say that flying on Jetstar has been what I would rank as my most pleasurable travel experience—I do go back to see my mum in Hobart and that is about the best way to get there—but there is an economic impact from their absence in Canberra; that is, that Virgin Blue obviously do not have a discount carrier with which to go head to head. Qantas is doing very well out of the business market and the government market here and I wish them the best of luck. Alan Williams, who runs the airline here, is a very good manager and I am quite sure that he is happy with the level of competition that does or does not exist on the routes into and out of Canberra.
Unfortunately, the challenge for the minister and his team and for this Assembly if we want to see tourism grow is somehow to tackle that issue. I am not suggesting that the government step in and start subsidising airlines. The world has a long history of airlines going broke. I know it is a consequence of market forces but, whilst people from Sydney may be able to drive to and from here in three hours, it is a real problem for the ACT and I am not quite sure how we could overcome it. Tasmania ended up buying boats to get people down there and has now got a $126 million problem, I believe, thanks to the idea to rush into sea travel in a highly unionised environment. The Tasmanian government is saddled with a burden now that will be paid for by generation after generation.
In the time I have available, I would like to move to another area; that is, Canberra’s share of the backpacker market.
Mr Barr: It went up by six per cent, Mr Mulcahy.
MR MULCAHY: Do not rush in too quickly, minister, because we need to look at the whole story. Australian Capital Tourism’s Floriade and spring campaign actively highlights a shift in the focus on a target audience from the traditional focus on garden lovers and seniors to younger demographics. I believe that this is an important step in appreciating the importance of attracting young people, which includes backpackers, to the ACT. The minister recently announced, I acknowledge, at the state of tourism lunch that the number of backpackers visiting the ACT increased by 6.2 per cent in the year ended June 2006 from the previous year. Whilst I recognise this slight improvement, I believe that it is an area of the market in which Canberra can dramatically improve.
The importance of this section of the market is clear. In 2004, 482,000 international visitors and 439,000 domestic visitors spent at least one night in backpacker or hostel accommodation. All up, in 2004 close to 15 million nights were spent in backpacker accommodation. Forty-two per cent of the backpackers are aged between 20 and 24 and a further 25 per cent are aged between 25 and 29. The vast majority of these people are travelling for the purpose of holidaying. Research by Tourism Australia shows that these people spend more time engaging in activities such as shopping and going to restaurants, pubs and clubs than any other type of visitor. It is significant that backpackers tend to
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