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House of Assembly - Fifty-Fifth Parliament, First Session (55-1)
2022-10-18 Daily Xml
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Regional Tourism

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay—Minister for Tourism, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (15:20): Today, I rise to inform the house about the work I have been undertaking with regional stakeholders in the tourism sector. South Australia has 11 tourism regions, each with their own identity, offerings and seasons. There is always somewhere beautiful to be in South Australia.

Prior to the pandemic, our visitor economy was worth $8.1 billion at its height. That was in December 2019. Of that $8.1 billion, 40 per cent came from our regions. Through the pandemic, our visitor economy dropped to as low as $4.4 billion; however, as I have said before, I am pleased to report that we are now growing back and are at $6.2 billion as at July this year.

One of the key things we are seeing is a fundamental change in where that visitor economy is coming from. Regional tourism is now contributing the lion's share, with our 11 tourism regions now responsible for 60 per cent of our visitor expenditure.

I would like to thank all those people I have had the opportunity to meet not just in my time as minister but also in my four years in opposition. I spent time going out to the regions and meeting the operators—importantly, communicating with the operators, particularly during some of the most stressful and uncertain times. I have been delighted to continue that connection as minister, and since taking office have visited nine of our 11 regions. In those same six months my office arranged round tables with tourism operators in six regional centres, with another two next week and the rest to follow in coming months.

We are pleased to see that the South Australian Tourism Commission has developed a regional visitor strategy, which started in 2021, with the ambition to grow the regions' visitor expenditure by $4 billion by 2025. We know that this emphasis on the regions has been welcomed by those who invest their own money, their own commitment, into supporting tourism in the regions.

The round tables are an opportunity to hear about the different experience of every region, and I was pleased when, only a few months ago, I could talk to members about many of those regions extending their 2025 target. That has been the case for many of our regions, but there has been some patchiness; I have always acknowledged that it was not universal and that some regions were still struggling and feeling the sting of the pandemic.

Of exceptional note, however, is Eyre Peninsula, which exceeded its 2025 target by $91 million. I was there just recently and was pleased to launch their visitor brochure, their travellers' guide. The member for Flinders was there as well, and there was a great momentum felt on Eyre Peninsula. I spent the night in Port Lincoln and had the opportunity to go to Coffin Bay as well, and there was a real positivity around the next stage of tourism, particularly as internationals start to come back.

We have some incredibly high-quality operators on Eyre Peninsula who have worked hard and brought what they have to offer very much to that high-end market—particularly the US market, which is quite strong—and we are looking forward to that coming back stronger and stronger.

It is, of course, important to remind ourselves that there are some challenges here because the uncertainty has brought about people using up any savings they did have to maintain their business. JobKeeper was very welcome when it came but there remained incredible uncertainty. There is also now the challenge of skill shortages which have been raised, and that is why in the recent budget we had additional money to support the Tourism Industry Council to encourage more people either back into the industry who left during COVID or to enter the industry.

At each of these round tables have been the regional tourism managers, obviously the Tourism Commission, and of course the Tourism Industry Council of South Australia. Often at these tables we have had representatives of the RDA offices and local governments as part of these conversations.

We do have some opportunities, though, because we have often seen Australians spending more money overseas than we have coming in. Before COVID, we had $44 billion Australia-wide coming in. We are the fourth largest export for Australia, and I want to make sure we continue to be so, so I will focus on that, particularly in our regions that are doing the heavy lifting at the moment.

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