Tourists slugged by Budget: ATEC

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May 13, 2008

The tradition of Governments of both political colours treating travellers as cash-cows has continued with the Rudd Government’s first Budget, according to the organisation representing the $24 billion tourism export sector.

Australian Tourism Export Council (ATEC) Managing Director Matthew Hingerty was commenting on the Rudd Government’s first Federal Budget, which saw travellers slugged $670 million over four years.

Mr Hingerty said in particular that the decision to raise the departure tax by $9 (from $38 to $47) could not have come at a worse time for the Australian inbound tourism industry, and unfortunately reflected the traditional attitude of both sides of politics of ‘milking’ tourism.

Other measures included lifting visa processing fees to raise $180 million over four years.

“At a time when the tourism industry is struggling to cope with a high Australian dollar and rising business costs such as fuel, food and labour, this has made our job of opening up new export markets for Australia much harder,” Mr Hingerty said.

“Tourism already pulls its weight when it comes to contributing to the country’s tax base, and our thanks is to continually cop more hits,” Mr Hingerty said.

“Unfortunately both sides of politics seem to think that because foreign tourists don’t vote they’re an easy target. We saw that with the application of GST to tourism exports as opposed to the GST-exempt mining and farming sectors, the massive over-collect of the Ansett Ticket Levy and various other GST rulings”.

Mr Hingerty said the funding shortfall in the Export Market Development Grant Scheme, which small tourism exporters can use to innovate into new markets, was another body blow at a time when tourist arrivals to Australia are growing at only 2%, compared to world growth of 6%. Forward projections for 2008 are even worse, Mr Hingerty said.

“On the positive side, the industry is grateful that the Government, and in particular Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson, had delivered on his promise to honour the ongoing funding of Tourism Australia under the Tourism White Paper,” Mr Hingerty said.

Mr Hingerty also welcomed the Building Australia Fund, which would have some ancillary benefits for tourism.

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Contact: Nick Buchan              
National Media and Communications Manager
Ph: 02 8262 5501
Email: nick.buchan@atec.net.au