This Friday we celebrate World Tourism Day, and with the theme of "Tourism and Peace", this highlights the opportunity within the tourism industry to invest in preserving cultural and natural heritage, and engage respectfully with the Traditional Custodians of this land. We are seeing Indigenous, accessible and sustainable tourism become more important to our sector and consumers, and this years' focus underscores the need to build the foundations in this space for long-term growth. For further information and access to digital resources, visit the UNWTO website.
This week the Tourism Australia team will be in Queensland for our Industry Briefing roadshow - on the Gold Coast today and in Brisbane / Meanjin tomorrow. The team will provide an update on how Australian tourism's recovery is progressing, share market specific insights, and also give some details on our work which is continuing to drive future demand for Australia's tourism experiences. The briefings, which are travelling across the country, also include networking opportunities. Details on how to register are below.
On the subject of Australian tourism's inbound recovery, a lot of progress has been made in the two years since the return of international travellers, at a time when competition for the tourism dollar is tougher than ever. Whilst total international visitor spend has recovered in real terms, we are not quite back to those 2019 levels of visitation just yet. This means that travellers are staying longer, dispersing to our regions and spending more - which is good news. However, the most recent ABS data on short-term overseas arrivals for July suggests that the rate of recovery could be slowing, with 83% recovery (compared to July 2019) down from the 89% recovery rate in June 2024.
This is consistent with what industry is telling us, and as we are all well aware when using nationally aggregated numbers, there are regions and sectors of the industry doing well, and many still doing it tough. We are still facing headwinds such as the cost of living and aviation costs, which are squeezing the disposable income of consumers, and this is an issue for tourism markets right around the world. At Tourism Australia, we are closely monitoring the situation and are ready to adapt our work as needed.
Also, our next Industry Webinar will take place on Friday 4 October at 11am AEST. Along with a regular update from me, I will also share some insights from recent work TA has done with Deloitte looking at the Future of Distribution. Additionally, we have some special guests lined-up so stay tuned with details on how to register coming soon.
Phillipa Harrison
