WA: National tourism strategy launched to encourage investment

AAP General News (Australia)
12-15-2009
WA: National tourism strategy launched to encourage investment

By Aleisha Preedy

PERTH, Dec 15 AAP - A new national strategy has been launched to lift the profile of
tourism across Australia and encourage investment and innovation in the industry.

Federal Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson launched the national long-term tourism strategy
in Perth on Tuesday.

He also announced more than $8 million in grants for innovative tourism businesses
that were encouraging development.

Mr Ferguson said the strategy was designed to unite the industry and work towards common
goals and encourage investment from the private sector.

He said Australia's business leaders needed to recognise the $40 billion tourism industry
as significant.

"This is about better positioning the tourism industry in Australia economically,"

Mr Ferguson said.

"Tourism's economic importance is far greater than most people in Australia actually appreciate.

"It generates more than 10 per cent of total Australian exports as reflected in 2007/08."

Mr Ferguson said the strategy was also designed to improve training and work opportunities
in the industry, which directly employs nearly half a million Australians.

In Western Australia, where another mining boom is set to increase the number of people
flocking to the state, Mr Ferguson said the time was for ripe for investors to snap up
opportunities.

The biggest challenge WA faced in expanding its tourism industry was the upgrade of
Perth's international and domestic airports and building new accommodation facilities,
he said.

Perth's three- and four-star hotel facilities were mostly built between 1965 and 1980,
and they needed to be "refreshed", Mr Ferguson said.

WA's Tourism Minister Liz Constable said it was a priority to encourage hotel and hospitality
investment.

AAP ap/ah/jl

KEYWORD: TOURISM FERGUSON

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