Page 2766 - Week 07 - Tuesday, 29 June 2010
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In the destination management planning area, Australian Capital Tourism is involved in this national working group, looking particularly at the Sustainable Tourism Cooperative Research Council portal area on destination management, and looking at identifying gaps in research and dissemination that prevent key stakeholders from undertaking effective destination management planning. That work is vital for regional tourism areas such as the ACT. In the tourism access area, Canberra airport is involved as part of that national working group, looking particularly, obviously, at the national aviation strategy.
In the area of industry resilience, we are working to distribute a user-friendly web brochure to industry to provide a climate change current policy snapshot that can be easily updated as policy settings progress and change across the country, and working to identify programs to assist tourism small businesses to adapt to climate change.
Another important area of work is in quality assurance and accreditation. The Tourism Quality Council of Australia membership is to be finalised and we will launch the tourism quality TQUAL brand to industry shortly.
There is also work underway in the area of Indigenous tourism—obviously not a major component of the ACT’s tourism strategy but nonetheless an important and developing one for the territory. We will be working with Indigenous representatives both locally and nationally on that strategy. An area that we are particularly focused on relates to digital distribution, the national online distribution action plan to enhance online product and distribution. The ACT has taken a leading role here with our e-strategy, and we will continue to develop a program and resources to improve the tourism industry’s capability to become more proficient in digital marketing and distribution.
We have signed up as part of the research and development advisory process. We will be participating in the state of the industry outlook conference and reporting that commences, I understand, at a one-day launch conference later this year, in November.
Through our engagement with the national long-term tourism strategy, we are working on specific ACT areas of supply side need but also working with the Australian government and with other states and territories, and particularly New South Wales as we are part of the capital tourism region, to ensure that there is a consistency in tourism policy across those levels of government. That is important. We must work in a collaborative way with Tourism Australia, Tourism New South Wales and indeed Tourism Victoria as we are all within the one tourism region and it is important that we have that cooperative working relationship.
In conclusion, the government will continue our investment in the tourism industry, delivering more jobs, more low-cost accommodation, more events and more visitors to our city. We value the economic contribution of tourism. We value the jobs for more than 13,000 Canberrans that the industry employs and, therefore, I commend the investments in this budget to the Assembly.
Last year, the Canberra Liberals voted against funding measures for Canberra’s tourism industry as part of their doctrine of opposition for opposition’s sake. The
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