The Federal Government’s ‘No Leave, No Life’ tourism campaign has failed monumentally and is “no good”, according to Shadow Tourism Minister Steven Ciobo.
The campaign, designed to encourage Australians to holiday at home to support domestic tourism, has not had the desired effect, with National Visitor Survey data for the June 09 quarter revealing domestic visitor nights slumped by eight percent in the year ending June 30 2009 on the previous year, while overall tourism spending fell 5.6 percent in the same period.
Visitor numbers in Queensland – Australia’s most popular tourist destination – in the 12 months to June fell six percent on the previous year.
Commenting on the figures Ciobo said: “These figures are of great concern and are evidence the ‘No Leave,No Life’ campaign hatched on Tourism Minister Martin Ferguson’s watch has failed the industry.”
However, Rowan Barker, from the Transport and Tourism Forum, said it was always expected that people would take shorter holidays during the economic downturn.
“You’re talking about competing with destinations like Fiji, or Vanuatu, or Bali, or something like that, and the packages available for those sorts of destinations are extraordinary,” he said.
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