The Minister for Tourism, Martin Ferguson AM MP, today launched the Discover Tourism careers program.
The National Tourism Alliance received $133,380 from the Australian Government's TQUAL Grants program toward the $170,105 project which will help promote careers in tourism. The project will help the National Tourism Alliance to develop a careers website, produce a CD ROM, and market and promote careers in tourism.
Addressing the National Tourism Alliance's post-budget forum at Parliament House in Canberra, Minister Ferguson said: "Discover Tourism is an innovative response to the challenge of recruiting and retaining staff. Tourism employs almost half a million Australians. It adds value by not only supporting family businesses and offering global employment opportunities; it provides jobs for many demographic and geographic groups including young people, regional communities, Indigenous Australians and mature workers."
Minister Ferguson said: "This project is an example of the support provided for tourism by the Government as the economy recovers. Last night's budget included $9.5 million in new funding for a national tourism accreditation framework and quality assurance to keep our Chinese market growing.
"More than 93 percent of tourism businesses are small. They will get a huge boost from the immediate writeoff of assets valued up to $5,000 and a head start on the reduction of the company tax rate to 28 per cent in 2012-13.
"The budget also offered more than $5.5 billion in indirect funding initiatives across Government in support of tourism transport, nature based tourism, business events, training and tourism attractions including $4.9 billion in new budget measures.
"Our strategy has worked. The support provided by Government through the GFC and the budget has assisted the industry to perform far better than expected. March saw an 8.1 per cent increase in international visitors and so far this year, arrivals from Australia's top 10 inbound markets are higher than this time last year.
"The focus for Government and industry remains on the long game and the implementation of the National Long Term Tourism Strategy. That is why at its meeting on 30 April, the Tourism Ministers Council agreed to 41 practical actions and a budget of $2.2 million for the next 12 months to implement the National Long Term Tourism Strategy.
"The Government remains committed to tourism marketing through retaining our support for Tourism Australia as they implement the $150 million There's Nothing Like Australia campaign."
In its first week, 5,000 campaign entries were uploaded to the nothinglikeaustralia.com website, more than 700 every day on average. The entries will be used to create a multimedia campaign including an interactive map and a video campaign for the internet.
Tourism is a $41 billion industry and employs almost half a million Australians. It is Australia's largest services export industry and contributes nearly 4 percent to GDP.