House of Assembly - Fifty-Second Parliament, Second Session (52-2)
2013-10-31 Daily Xml

Contents

AIRASIA X

Mr HAMILTON-SMITH (Waite) (14:29): Supplementary, sir: could the minister tell the house, in dollar terms, what the total coinvestment or assistance package is with AirAsia and, in particular, confirm projections on the net number of international tourists in total that will come to South Australia as a result of the deal?

The Hon. L.W.K. BIGNELL (Mawson—Minister for Tourism, Minister for Recreation and Sport) (14:29): I can't give you a figure on how much money is being spent in this coinvestment, because we are competing with other airports around Australia. Adelaide has the fastest growing international airport in Australia at the moment, but we are up against not just Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane, but also Cairns, Perth and Hobart. The airport wants to keep that as a confidential figure, and so do the airlines. We are also doing comarketing programs with airlines such as Singapore Airlines, Emirates and other airlines. It is something that happens all the time. There is no point having all these extra seats coming into Adelaide if we do not put bums on those seats.