Tourism Australia

Today we heard from Rachel Crowley from Tourism Australia.  I found what she spoke about to be especially interesting.  She focuses of researching things like how many people visit Australia, where they come from, how they get there, and what they are interested in doing and seeing while in Australia.  Tourism is Australia’s largest industry.  It produces $92 billion in spending and $33 billion in GDP.  As a large industry, tourism also provides half a million jobs (Tourism Industry Potential). 

Trying to make Australia and its attractions known to the world is one of Rachel’s main goals.  Foreign tourists often don’t realize all that Australia has to offer, but their place in the industry is huge.  Because the dollar is strong, there are great opportunities for interstate Australians to travel the country without overpaying.  Also, Australian residents have been interested in travelling to other countries because it is now cheaper for them.  International tourists are becoming a more predominant factor for the tourism industry.  International tourism expenditures is estimated to increase from 38% in 2009 to 45% in 2010, which means the domestic and international tourists are becoming close to equal (Tourism Industry Potential).  In the past ten years tourism has steadily increased as far as overnight tourism expenditure goes.  The trend is for it to keep increasing steadily, but it had the potential to increase even more rapidly.  Australia attracts most of its tourists from Europe and Asia, with the exception of the United States.  China, the UK, and the USA make up the three largest importers of tourism.   

Recently the strength of the Australian dollar has increased.  Price levels stay constant, but the demand for the export of tourism increases as the demand curve shifts to the right.  Quantity demanded is also increased as the equilibrium is shifted to the right.  The strength of the dollar determines the affordability of tourism.  A strong Australian dollar increases domestic tourism, but decreases international tourism.