Australian Tourism Industry and the Australian Economy |
The Tourism industry is an intersection of several industries. These are:
The Australian tourism industry has been quoted to be “everybody’s business” (Australian Capital Tourism Corporation) and is very difficult to define because it is a “discrete industry” unlike, for instance, the healthcare industry or the automobile industry (Lafferty and Fossen, 2004). International tourism impacts economic welfare of the host country through its direct influence on the “economic structure and the distribution of income” (Adams and Parmenter, 1995). Researchers (Davidson and Spearritt, 2000) define tourism as the business which has come about due to the “convergence of people of recognized routes and resorts”. Tourism is believed to augment “welfare in the host country” since it positively influences among other things the “prices of non-traded goods and services which tourists consume” and the taxes which can be levied on tourists, directly and indirectly, by the government (Adams and Parmenter, 1995). International tourism in Australia has “grown rapidly in recent years” (Adams and Parmenter, 1995). The Australian Bureau of Statistics states that the several industries which are related to the tourism industry include “clubs, pubs, taverns and bars, road transportation, rail transportation, food and manufacture, beverage manufacture, fuel retailing, casinos, gambling clubs libraries, museums, entertainment services, education and dwellings and accommodation” (Tourism Satellite Account New South Wales, 2007). Importance of the tourism industry to the Australian economy can be gauged from the increasing interest and attention it is receiving from the political and governmental domain and has been “raised to cabinet level” (Del Rosso, 1992). |