Australian Institute of Company Directors – Geoff Dixon Speech

On behalf of our Australian member PEPR, we are pleased to share some information from Geoff Dixon, the current chairman of Tourism Australia, on Australia`s economy and inbound tourism. 

Thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. I am here to share some insights both as chairman of Tourism Australia and Chairman of Events Queensland.  

While my focus will be on Australian tourism, I will also touch on the role of events for the national economy, in particular for Queensland.

The organisers have said you might also like to hear some thoughts from my time at Qantas….to what extent I can share these with you we can explore through the question and answer that will follow. 

The title of this address is “dispelling the myths of Australian tourism” – the myths that suggest the industry is in decline, that our product is second rate and devoid of new investment and that the high Australian dollar is the major impediment to growth. 

But I will also be talking about Australia’s changing visitor profile and on marketing and sales for this vitally important industry.

Firstly, to the myths and to the biggest one that Australian tourism is an “industry in decline”. 

Well, this is just not true.  A common theme of late, all too quickly taken up by many commentators, is that tourism is in a continuing and slow contraction. This is just plain wrong! 

Tourism continues as our largest services export industry topping 9% of all exports.  It generates $94 billion to the Australian economy, adding $34 billion to GDP. 

In combined direct and indirect terms it is 5.6 per cent of national GDP, employing almost one million Australians. And it is growing! 

For the full story, please click on the link below:

http://www.media.australia.com/en-au/mediareleases/default_7595.aspx