*Check against delivery*
It's a pleasure to officially launch a new attraction in the landscape of Chinese cultural experiences in Melbourne.
The gold rush of the 19th Century gave Victoria a unique place in the spread of Chinese culture.
By some accounts, Melbourne's Chinatown is the oldest area of continuous Chinese settlement in the western world.
Without a doubt, Melbourne's Chinatown has been a key player in every stage of Australia's contemporary multicultural society.
For a quarter of a century, this Museum has been adding to a rich seam of knowledge about Victoria’s Chinese heritage.
The Museum boasts the largest collection of Chinese Australian artefacts in the country.
And the exhibitions program welcomes visitors every day of the week.
Most of the Museum's visitors come with a tour group, so combining food with culture is the next logical step.
And that was the vision behind Melbourne Chinatown's Culture and Culinary Discovery Tour - Cultural Bites.
Visitors begin by experiencing one of the largest collections of Chinese Australian artefacts.
They can then appreciate Chinese architecture, some of which dates back to the gold rush that brought the first Chinese pioneers to Australia.
Thanks in part to this project, visitors can discover the regional cuisine, customs and stories that made this district famous.
People travel for all sorts of reasons, but memories of the food they consume along the way almost always crop up in conversations with friends back home.
That makes culinary tourism increasingly important throughout Australia.
In fact, this Museum joins many organisations giving visitors a local flavour in every sense of the word.
In Tropical North Queensland, for example, farmers are getting more involved in the tourism supply chain.
This means higher turnover for local agri-food businesses, and more authentic experiences for visitors.
Cultural Bites is the first collaborative tourism product developed for the Chinatown Precinct.
It also builds on the success of the Museum's tours for school groups, in which hundreds of children discover more about Chinese Australian history every week.
So the Australian Government was proud to contribute just over $9,000 to the Cultural Bites project, worth $23,000 altogether.
Funding from the TQUAL Grants program has helped with research, testing and consultation for the project.
As a result, the Museum has made the most of combining a heritage walk of Chinatown with a Chinese meal.
And visitors, in turn, will leave here with memories of the heritage and culture of Chinese Australians.
I congratulate the Museum of Chinese Australian History and everyone who played a part in this project.
TQUAL Grants
Cultural Bites is just one of many tourism projects we're supporting.
After all, exploration and discovery create fond memories among visitors that keep them coming back.
To date, we've allocated more than $8 million to projects right across Australia as part of the TQUAL Grants program.
In the coming days and weeks, we'll have more to say about TQUAL Grants funding.
The Australian Government has committed an additional $40 million to TQUAL Grants over four years.
Government funding is matching private investment dollar-for-dollar.
We'll be supporting more community-based tourism projects with grants of up to $100,000.
And there will also be support for larger, strategic projects that help to make the Australian tourism industry more competitive across the board.
Together, these projects strengthen the supply-side of our tourism industry, helping operators at a time when we’re seeing a growing appetite for travel across Asia.
Bigger picture
You don't need a fortune cookie to tell you the coming years will be an eventful time for the Museum.
Already, tourism plays a vital part in Melbourne's economy.
Just over 22 million visitors spent nearly $10 billion in the Melbourne region last financial year.
Like many of the 100,000 tourism-related businesses in the Melbourne region, the rapidly expanding tourism trade from China is high on your agenda.
The latest research is very encouraging:
China has just overtaken the UK to be Australia's most valuable tourism market by value.
The Chinese market is now worth $3 billion or around 13 per cent of Australia's total tourism exports.
More than 450,000 arrivals came from China last year, up by nearly a quarter on the previous year.
We expect nearly 900,000 visitors from China in 2020 - with an average growth rate over the coming decade of just over eight per cent.
The value of all those visitors to the Australian economy will nearly double.
To support this growth, the Australian Government committed a further $4.1 million to the Approved Destination Status scheme over four years.
This program ensures inbound tour operators continue providing a quality service to leisure tour groups from China, based on their compliance with the ADS Code of Business Standards and Ethics.
Ongoing improvements in the quality of services provided to Chinese tourists can boost the number of Chinese leisure tour visitors to Australia.
Today, I'm also pleased to announce details of an important event to showcase our strong bilateral tourism relationship with China.
A summit we've been planning will take place between the 7th and the 9th of June in Cairns.
The Australia-China Tourism Summit is part of a $30m initiative to market Australia to the China travel market.
We expect high-level industry and government attendance from both countries.
At the same time, the summit will showcase the Cairns region as a high-quality tourism destination - very timely given the worldwide news coverage of Cyclone Yasi.
Broader industry
More broadly, the Australian Government wants the most productive, innovative, diverse and high-quality tourism industry possible.
To that end, the National Long-Term Tourism Strategy is shining a light on every aspect of the industry, from investment and research to labour and skills.
An important plank of the Strategy is the Labour and Skills Development Working Group.
This group is finding new ways to attract and retain labour in tourism and hospitality.
This can happen through better workforce planning, innovative recruitment initiatives and new training and career opportunities.
Meanwhile, Access Economics is doing a national survey of tourism employers to identify current levels of tourism and hospitality employment across regions.
From the survey results, five 'hot spots' will be chosen to develop and implement regional workforce development strategies.
These aim to address the critical needs in skill shortages and labour force issues.
I urge the Museum, and all tourism-related businesses in Chinatown, to get involved in the survey when it's rolled out in the coming weeks - helping us to help you.
To take part, visit my Department's website - ret.gov.au
Conclusion
Ladies and gentlemen, a strong sense of community binds Melbourne's Chinatown.
You can see it in the cooperation between retailers, restaurateurs, community leaders and residents.
Chinese Australians have a great story to tell.
Cultural Bites is another step along the road in the marketing of Chinatown as a tourist destination.
And today I am pleased to launch Cultural Bites - Melbourne Chinatown’s Culture & Culinary Discovery Tour.