Tourism Not Working For Australia

An international tourism boss has told Australia to ditch the ?island mentality? and work hard to get tourists to visit Australia.

Taleb Rifai, secretary-general of the World Tourism Organisation said that: ?Australia has lived for a long time ? happy with its isolation,? he said. ?That?s not going to work anymore.?

Mr Rifai was speaking at a recent international conference titled ?Tourism Futures? on what was going wrong with the travel and tourist industry in Australia and what steps the tourist industry could take to aid recovery. Holiday accommodation and costs are down by 6% as the industry struggles to attract international visitors.

Airlines and Australian travel agencies also had to reduce prices and offer heavy discounts to lure tourists in. The recent global financial crisis is blamed for some of the reduction in visitor numbers but Mr Rifai also said that the attitude that visitors will come flocking of their own accord was also to blame.

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