Wednesday, 29 May 2024

Tourism funding

Sam GROTH (Nepean) (19:08): (685) My adjournment tonight is for the Minister for Tourism, Sport and Major Events, and the action I seek is for him to either publicly or privately – he can make the choice – lobby the Treasurer to reverse the funding cuts for the tourism sector in the last budget. On the Mornington Peninsula the tourism sector is a huge part of what we do. So many businesses and visitors come there for that reason. We know in Rosebud more than two-thirds and in Sorrento three-quarters of the businesses relate to that sector, whether it is accommodation, cafes or retail. We also know from the latest survey from the Mornington Peninsula shire on the tourism sector more than 43 ‍per cent of the businesses surveyed said they have had a decrease in the expenditure within their businesses.

The Mornington Peninsula, like many other regions, rely so much on the destination marketing funding from both Visit Victoria and their regional tourism boards to make sure that their regions are promoted both interstate and internationally. The budget cuts saw almost 61 per cent – more than $280 million – ripped out of that part of the budget during the Treasurer’s delivery only a couple of weeks ago. It is going to be detrimental to that whole sector.

This government has not met any of its targets in the tourism space over the last couple of years. Expenditure from international travellers is down. International visitors are down. We know that more than 20 per cent of those international visitors are not coming back to this state, and we are recovering slower than every other state or territory in this country in the tourism sector other than the Northern Territory. We know that international tourism spending in Victoria is only at 73 per cent of its prepandemic level compared to that of New South Wales at 96 per cent and Queensland at 94 per cent. We also saw in the recent Western Australian budget more than $73 million put into destination marketing for that state as well as an increase in their major events fund. And Queensland in a couple of weeks time is going to start the biggest tourism campaign it has ever launched to try to attract those international visitors to Queensland.

All of these things are making Victoria a less desirable or less marketed destination compared to the rest of Australia. We need the government to pull its finger out, invest in the tourism sector properly, invest in those small businesses, those small operators who are prepared to put their balls on the line and have a real go, and back them in.