New report paints bleak picture for regional tourism

SYDNEY – An industry body has warned 29,000 jobs in the tourism industry will go if unemployment reaches 10 per cent, as the global financial crisis pushes the Australian economy into recession.

The Tourism & Transport Forum (TTF) said the scale of the problem demands an immediate response from both Federal and State and Territory governments to minimise the potential impact across Australia.

A report prepared for TTF by former Treasury official and Access Economics founder Geoff Carmody, Australian Tourism: How Deep the Recession?, is forecasting that national unemployment will reach double-digits, and that the tourism industry will be disproportionately affected.

The Carmody report also predicts that the tourism industry will perform worse than official forecasts, with tourism spending to fall more than consumer spending on average.

TTF Managing Director Christopher Brown said the loss of 29,000 direct jobs “is a frightening but realistic prospect – not to mention the flow-on effects to related employment, which could greatly magnify the problem”

Brown said, “497,800 Australians are directly employed in tourism,” and about 227,000 of those jobs are in regional areas”.

“This means fewer people working at hotels and motels, in restaurants and cafes, for airlines and rental car companies.

“Hotels will be forced to shut off entire floors, while restaurants and cafes will have to reduce their trading hours, if not days.”

Brown said Carmody’s findings were consistent with the latest TTF-MasterCard Tourism Industry Sentiment Survey, which found 72 percent of tourism businesses have or will cut jobs as a result of the global financial crisis, up from 63 percent in January.

Brown said the Carmody report predicts that rural and remote areas dependent on tourism for economic activity and therefore are likely to be hardest hit by the global financial crisis.

“We have identified Central Australia, Tropical North Queensland and the New South Wales north coast as regions which will bear the brunt of the downturn.

“Despite low airfares and great accommodation and attraction offers, some tourism regions are seeing double digit declines in visitor numbers,” Brown added.