Lack of funding casts shadow over O’Neill Tourism Review

Peak industry group the Tourism & Transport Forum (TTF) says that NSW is set to continue its post-Olympics tourism slide, with no new money allocated to tourism in today’s NSW Budget and no funding support for the O’Neill Review into Tourism.

TTF Managing Director, Christopher Brown, said Tuesday’s Budget shows the NSW Government is actually planning for all tourism indicators and measurements for tourism to go backwards.

“The NSW Government is not just aiming low but is aiming to go backwards in tourism,” Mr Brown said.

“The Budget paper result indicators for tourism blatantly highlight that domestic visitor nights are forecast to decrease to 81 million (from 87 million), market share of international visitor nights will drop by 29.3 percent and Sydney’s city brand ranking in the Anholt GMI city brands index will drop from one to the top five in 2008/09,” Mr Brown said.

“TTF has been working with the Premier and the NSW Government to ensure the recommendations for the O’Neill Review into Tourism are adequately funded. The industry remains hopeful that this will be the case but the jury is still out.

“The State Plan sets a target for the tourism industry to achieve 10 million additional bed nights by 2016, to generate an additional 20,000 jobs and $1.8 billion in tourism expenditure.

“But a lack of funding, lack of incentives for investors and lack of vision are dooming the tourism component of the State Plan to certain and very public failure.

“NSW is losing its share of visitors to other states that place a greater emphasis on tourism funding and policy initiatives that attract tourism investment.

“NSW’s share of international visitors dropped by 4.5 percent between 2000 and 2007, while Victoria’s share jumped by over 3 percent.  The Victorian Government allocated $79.1 million to tourism in its recent budget, nearly double that allocated to tourism by the NSW Government.

“To add insult to injury, Melbourne last year overtook Sydney to become Australia’s most lucrative tourism destination, with domestic overnight visitors spending $4.53 billion in Melbourne in 2007 – compared to expenditure of $4.49 billion in Sydney.

“NSW tourism is going backwards and lack of funding and policy initiatives to grow the sector in tthe Budget suggest the downward slide is likely to continue.”

Mr Brown said the tourism industry was still waiting for the release of the findings of the O’Neill Review into Tourism.

“The NSW Government has delivered on its commitment to boosting NSW’s major events capability, with $85 million for the NSW Major Events Corporation over three years. But the tourism industry is still waiting for the two most important components of the O’Neill Review”.

“The tourism industry has been waiting for the release of the findings of John O’Neill’s Review into Tourism for 16 months and a Government response to the Review into Convention and Exhibition Space since the beginning of this year, but the lack of funding for tourism in the Budget doesn’t augur well for the recommendations.

“TTF has long been advocating that the centrepoint of John O’Neill’s recommendations should be a comprehensive, 10-year strategy for tourism in NSW to provide a vision and direction for the long-term future of the industry and lay the bed for a profitable future.

“But without funding to support John O’Neill’s recommendations, we are at a loss to see how much of an impact the review will have on the industry.

“Partnership between the NSW Government and the private sector is vital to enable strategic investment in destination development and marketing.

“The lack of public funding for tourism in recent years has eroded this partnership and reduced the attraction for private investment.

“Sydney has hosted the Olympic Games, the Rugby World Cup and APEC in recent years, yet our tourism industry has gone backwards on any economic or employment measure.

“As the Victorian success demonstrates, events are the icing on the cake to boost tourism numbers, but if the cake itself is in tatters then no number of big events will turn this around.

“NSW is in desperate need of a long-term tourism strategy, that’s integrated into the NSW Government’s broader policies and plans and is supported by a well resourced Tourism NSW.”

A report by The Mole