TOURISM

Mr BIGNELL (Mawson) (14:38): My question is to the Minister for Tourism. How is the state government continuing to develop the tourism industry in South Australia?

The Hon. J.D. LOMAX-SMITH (Adelaide—Minister for Education and Children's Services, Minister for Tourism, Minister for the City of Adelaide) (14:38): I thank the member for Mawson for his question. He has a really keen interest in tourism, but who would not when their electorate covers one of the prime areas for both interstate and international tourism in South Australia? The state government and the SA Tourism Commission are committed to working in partnership with the tourism industry to lift our annual visitor expenditure from $3.7 billion in 2002 to $6.3 billion in 2014.

Last Friday, I announced the largest ever sum of money spent on a winter marketing campaign—$2.1 million—which will run in Queensland, New South Wales and Victoria over the next three months. The campaign represents one of the SATC's largest investments in boosting domestic tourism activity during our winter period. It will position South Australia as an attractive holiday destination firmly in the minds of consumers in our largest domestic tourism market. The marketing initiative has been developed following extensive market research to determine just what is hot, interesting and exciting in those markets, and we are gearing our advertising towards our key domestic consumer preferences and their motivators.

With the Tour Down Under featuring as the first ever Pro Tour event outside Europe, this major event and our whole major event season has been absolutely stellar, with each of the events breaking records for attendance both from domestic and overseas markets.

Mr Bignell: The Libs hate it, though.

The Hon. J.D. LOMAX-SMITH: I know. Those opposite have never supported the upgrade of the Tour Down Under and have been very negative about the Pro Tour status, which is clearly detrimental to the tourism industry where one normally would expect bipartisan support. In fact, I have always been very keen to recognise that the previous government started the Tour Down Under and their good work by minister Hall has been continued under our patronage and guidance to reach the stage that the Pro Tour has now.

In addition, yesterday I launched our annual tourism awards at the Adelaide Zoo—an appropriate location, because our zoos (both Adelaide and Monarto) have half a million visitors a year. That is a great success in terms of visitation and, of course, everyone expects there will be 'pandamonium' at the end of next year when people come from around the country and overseas to visit our pandas.

The state tourism awards, which will be held on 22 November at the Convention Centre, celebrate and honour excellence in our operators and provide leadership and benchmarking for other members of the industry. These awards are, in fact, a great opportunity for the state government to show appreciation to the industry and support those businesses which strive for excellence. They provide a brilliant catalyst for creative tourism initiatives and allow tourism operators to benchmark their own activities and use that well-tried small business motto: if you can't measure it, you can't manage it. Even if they are not winners, they benefit from the opportunity to examine their business operations.

This year, Qantas has taken up a concept that the South Australian Tourism Commission identified as a key market leader in 2005 when we initiated a state-specific sustainable tourism award. This year Qantas has taken up this initiative and will sponsor a national Excellence in Sustainable Tourism award, with $2,000 in prize winnings going to the South Australian winner in this category. I hope that winner might go on to the national awards in February. Winning a state or national tourism award of course gives an operator an opportunity to market their business, both here and around the world, and consumers stand to benefit from this improved activity.

The awards are an important part of the SATC's overall strategy to improve the tourism industry, and we ask all those members who have tourism operations in their electorates to encourage their key and innovative businesses to take up the challenge, because you have got to be in it to win it, and it is a great opportunity for South Australian operators.