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Tourism Needs Federal Help This Budget


Tourism Needs Federal Help This Budget

Author: NRMA Motoring & ServicesDate: 08 April 2009

NRMA Motoring & Services is urging the Australian Government to allocate much-needed funds in this year's budget to support the nation's tourism industry.

In its Federal Budget submission, NRMA called on the Federal Government to inject funds encouraging Australians to holiday domestically and promote the nation's tourism credentials to overseas travelers.

Australia's tourism industry hires about five per cent of the nation's workforce and accounts for about 3.7 per cent of GDP, with three quarters of this from domestic tourism.

There were no additional funds in the 2008 Federal Budget for Australia's tourism industry.

NRMA is a major tourism and travel provider in Australia with more than $275 million invested over the last four years in businesses including Thrifty car rentals, Travelodge Hotels and NRMA Holiday Parks.

NRMA President Wendy Machin said the tourism industry would be strengthened by a funding boost from the Australian Government.

"A healthy tourism industry is critical to Australia's efforts to fight off the global economic crisis," Ms Machin said.

"Car hire companies like Thrifty are experiencing falls in demand across many airport outlets and concerns about the economy have left people more apprehensive about travelling.

"This will hurt regional towns that rely on the tourist dollar, but jobs can be saved in Australia if we do more to promote domestic and international inbound tourism and the thousands of small businesses that create jobs within the industry.

"The industry needs the Government's help in this difficult time - tourism is too important an industry to be left alone during the current economic crisis," Ms Machin said.

Ms Machin said a new marketing campaign from the Australian Government to encourage more domestic tourism would go a long way to strengthening regional tourism.

"Jobs will be saved if the Government uses this year's budget to provide a boost."

NRMA's Federal Budget submission is available - Click here

Contact: Peter Khoury 0439 133 115

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