22 April 2013

Australian Tourism marks successful year

A spokesperson for the Department of Immigration and Citizenship (DIAC) has said the department is limited as to how it can detect abuse of the 457 visa scheme.

Australia visa

Tourism in Australia is up 4% in the past year despite a poor global economy.

Tourism in Australia has always been an exotic destination with hot weather, world class beaches and iconic skylines yet its remoteness has often hindered the country from becoming one of the top tourism destinations in the world.

However, despite a still struggling global economy, tourism in Australia has managed to grow as an industry thanks to some clever marketing and making the most of its audience.

Australia is the most popular tourism page on Facebook, with over four million likes and an ever growing community thanks to its incredibly popular photo competition. It is these aspects of marketing the country's tourism industry which Mr McEvoy says has resulted in a positive year.

"The challenge is how to extract a better yield from those visitors and give them something really unique," said Mr McEvoy.

"A 4% rise in the current global economic climate is a credible performance. Even the US, where we have been struggling over the last couple of years [to source visitors from], arrivals were up 4.2% last year."

Mr McEvoy said current performance levels were extremely encouraging but Tourism Australia could not afford to rest on its laurels.

"Hotels in all the major capital cities in Australia have the highest occupancy in the [Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development] region. We will need more capacity just to keep pace with our growth areas.

"Tourism [to Australia] out of China, Indonesia, India, Malaysia and Singapore is growing exponentially.

"We are selling a holiday and a good time. That is not a hard sell."


The Australian Visa Bureau is an independent migration consultancy specialising in helping people lodge applications with the Australian Embassy.

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