Monday 6 June 2011

Tourism heads have double vision

: The Australia-China summit will be moderated by editor, commentator and leading media voice for Asia Pacific travel, Ms Yeoh Siew Hoon from Singapore. Photo by freesun.be.

By Kerry Larsen

While Tourism Tropical North Queensland makes plans to double visitor numbers from Japan to the Cairns region by 2015 - as reported in The Newsport article 'Ambitious plan to capture Japan' (Tuesday 31 May) , one of the world's fastest growing tourism markets, China, will be the focus of the inaugural Australia-China Summit to be held in Cairns this week.

Federal Minister for Tourism, Martin Ferguson AM MP will welcome around 200 senior representatives from the China National Tourism Administration, China Southern Airlines, Air China and Qantas to the summit to be held at various locations around Cairns from Tuesday to Thursday.

"Australia's $34 billion tourism industry is quickly gearing up for the rapidly growing China market," Minister Ferguson said. "Last year we had over 450,000 Chinese visitors which was a 24 per cent increase on the previous year."

Minister Ferguson said more than 100 Queensland tourism operators will be sponsored to attend the Summit as part of the joint Australian and Queensland Government's $12 million Queensland Tourism Industry Support Package, designed to assist the state's recovery after the recent natural disasters.

"Tourism Australia has a comprehensive understanding of the growing China travel market," he said.

Their China Strategic Plan, part of the $30 million Australian Government initiative to market Australia to China announced in June last year, will be released at the Summit outlining marketing opportunities in China for export ready tourism businesses.

"By hosting the inaugural Summit in Cairns, we are showcasing one of Australia's most important regional tourism destinations where tourism is worth $2.8 billion to the local economy.

"Given the historic dependence by Tropical North Queensland on the Japanese market, it makes sense to highlight the changes needed by industry here and across Australia to make the most of the growing China market."

Delegates will be treated to a gala dinner on the Cairns waterfront on Tuesday night, followed by conferencing at Cairns Convention centre on Wednesday, with visits to Green Island and Rainforestation Nature Park in Kuranda on Thursday.

The summit will be moderated by editor, commentator and leading media voice for Asia Pacific travel, Ms Yeoh Siew Hoon from Singapore.

Journalist's comment: In light of this year's Japanese earthquake, tsunami and unfolding nuclear disaster, it seems plausible the tourism bodies now divert their efforts elsewhere. And China's tourism market is exploding.

After decades of living under Communist idealism, Chinese people are being awakened to a new pastime - travel.

Within China, the tourism industry is huge, with week-long national holidays seeing millions of inbound tourists patriotically travelling within their own country to sites of historical and cultural importance.

It is only within the past five years or so that it has become "acceptable" for Chinese people to look outside their own country for their holidays. And with the Chinese economy reportedly growing at a rate of knots compared to the rest of the suffering world market, the Chinese are now able to afford overseas sojourns.

Take a stroll around the street of Cairns - whether it be on the Esplanade, at Cairns Central Shopping Centre or at select Chinese restaurants in the CBD - and you will note a growing number of Chinese tour groups diligently following their Chinese tour guide (who is usually spotted holding the ubiquitous tour flag).

It's wonderful to see, not only from a tourism point of view, but also from a human rights angle.

Surely, the Chinese market must now be our focus as the Japanese are left alone to recover from such a horrendous series of events. Let's now hope we can attract these tour groups up the hill to the Douglas region and we can all step up and cater for these tourists. Even if that means our restaurants and cafes offering menus in Chinese or Mandarin translators in hotels.

Asia has catered for their Western travellers for quite some years now. Perhaps we can return the favour and increase local revenue at the same time.

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