The Australian tourism industry is heading to register its first decline after 2003 as a result of global economic slowdown that slashed down consumers’ discretionary expenses.
The Tourism and Transport Forum stated that 2008 is turning out to be a miserable year for the Australian tourism industry as economic downturn has led the international airlines to witness their most awful global traffic results since the SARS outbreak in 2003, as per the news published by theaustralian.
The quarterly survey of the Tourism and Transport Forum revealed that the 64% tourism businesses, increasing from 56% in Q3 2008, were of the opinion that the overall industry performance would get even worse than the normal in Q4 2008. Less than 20% of them stated that they were in a relatively better position than usual for this particular time of the year. Also, 70% operators believed that tourist arrivals from the US and Japan would get reduced in 2008 while Britain’s tourist postings were expected to go down by 68%.
The rising pessimism among the local operators is considered to be the main factor for the slowdown of Australian tourism sector. However, declining prices of oil and weakening of the Australian currency are favorable for the tourist arrivals, but the economic instability and uncertainty remains to the overriding factors. In other words, problems arising from the global economic recession have outshined the benefits of declining prices of oil and low dollar.
Moreover, the ongoing financial crunch is creating an atmosphere of uncertainty among the consumers and as a result, they are cutting down their discretionary spending. Consequently, there will be less expenditure on travel and tourism.
According to a Research Analyst at RNCOS, “Global economic meltdown is taking the tourism industry of Australia downward. However, it is too early to reach any conclusion, but the indications are definitely not looking optimistic. And in this scenario, majority of Australians are expected to opt for the domestic travel, rather than going overseas.”
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