A massive shout out to the Board of Australian Regional Tourism and the City of Ballarat for providing the platform for our industry to reconnect after three years.

The 3.5-day program (including the one-day agritourism conference) was jam-packed with great presenters, insightful conversations, and plenty of networking full of robust discussions and laughter.

Common themes across the sessions were community, sustainability, compliance, capability building, and good old collaboration (!)

Photo of Rebecca White from Tourism eSchool by Giovanna Lever from Sparrowly Group

Following are key take outs from Tilma Group’s managing director Linda Tillman, who attended the convention on behalf of the team.

We’ve also written two other articles on the Convention:

Key take outs from the Australian Agritourism Convention

The significance of events for regional destinations

Skills and workforce shortages

John Hart, Australian Chamber of Commerce & Industry

The Australian tourism and hospitality workforce currently needs 167,000 staff!

Unfortunately, there is no silver bullet to the problem that our industry faces today with workforce and skill shortages.

Solutions

All of these need to be in play in order to make progress on workforce shortages. 

Productivity - What can we do to make our workplaces more productive (this is what events need to do with their volunteers!). How can you do more with fewer people (use the support of technology, systemise, etc)
Labour - Getting more people in the industry - look at all possible sources of labour!
Skills - We need to upskill people

Short term measures

The Australian Chamber of Commerce & Industry has put these solutions forward for funding in the next Federal budget:

Skills and training - funding for traineeships and apprenticeships
Migration - shortening the nine-month visa processing delay to bring a skilled migrants into Australia

Additionally, our industry has a very young workforce - we should be targeting older workers to join our workforce.

Building tourism communities

Marcus Falconer, CEO, Australia’s Golden Outback

Marcus shared about challenges and opportunities of a regional tourism organisation with 51 local government areas in a region six times bigger than the United Kingdom. “Tourism communities are like a trifle – there are so many layers!”

Community and collaboration were hot themes in this session. Marcus’ experience working with communities across Australia’s Golden Outback in Western Australia started a great discussion around engaging community, fatigue in communities, and the opportunity for private and public partnerships to drive outcomes.

How do you harness your passionate community to drive tourism growth?

A new world of travel: how Airbnb is changing how we live and travel

Michael Crosby, Head of Public Policy, Airbnb Australia & New Zealand with Catherine Freemantle, Airbnb Host in Dean, Victoria

The world has changed, and in 2022 people are traveling differently than they ever have before. Because of remote work, people are spreading out to thousands of towns and cities. In today’s world, people are demonstrating increased flexibility about where and when they travel, and regional communities are the economic beneficiaries.

Trends with Airbnb accommodation bookings

People want more flexibility e.g. split stays
There are more conscious travellers who want sustainable accommodation and experiences
Slow tourism - visitors want to relax, unwind, cook, chill out
People are keen to spend money locally - they want to buy local produce, eat local cuisine, and connect with locals - they want to support the destination’s community and give back
The rise of the digital nomad – COVID showed us we can work remotely. Digital nomads who work from a holiday location are often high value visitors who stay longer (3-4+ weeks)
Challenges in the wider economy are resulting in more people becoming Airbnb hosts, because they see hosting as a way to stay in their own home while meeting rising costs of living

Destinations can partner with Airbnb in ways such as these.

Events can partner with Airbnb – for example, hosts can join the platform to rent out a room during major events in their destination.

How a Council can make a difference

Kate Shilling, Executive Officer, Ultimate Winery Experiences Australia

Lead with your strengths – Create criteria around what defines a leading experience in your destination, then determine who the leading experiences of your destination are and use them to lead your destination marketing (these experiences are the hook to attract visitors). Councils can follow the lead of Tourism Australia’s Signature Experiences of Australia program and pick their destination’s best experiences; and encourage those leaders to mentor and inspire other operators.
Know your numbers – Continually capture and share your region’s data and insights it reveals
Layer in and leverage other unique elements – Collaborate and connect with others to add value to existing experiences
Communicate!

Kate used the Canola Trail as a case study of how Councils can collaborate to make a difference. The Canola Trail is a destination marketing tactic that Tilma Group instigated and developed for clients Coolamon and Junee Shire Councils. The trail is industry-driven with support from three Councils.

What’s important to travellers

Travel trends are changing:

Marketing isn't enough - why capability building matters in delivering a stronger visitor economy

Giovanna Lever and Naomi Farrelly, Sparrowly Group

Destination marketing is the thing everyone wants to invest time and money into, right?!

But destination marketers rely on businesses to deliver on the destination’s brand promise. If this is not done effectively, then marketing is not effective.

Often tourism operators jump to marketing because it is sexy without getting the back of house in order, setting up strong and robust business systems and processes. This creates unsustainable tourism businesses.

Often operators do not ask for help - they are not sure who to ask, who to trust, or what to ask.

Tourism business owners tend to need help with:

A guiding hand to work out what’s important to them and what will move their business forward
Help to navigate the tourism ecosystem - from Tourism Australia at the top to businesses serving travellers

Unless destination managers know that their supply side is solid, they need to be careful what they promote!

Little things that every regional destination manager could do to help tourism operators:

Be commercially minded
Be an influencer - empower the local industry
Create heroes - lead with the destination’s strengths and use data to determine heroes
Be the bridge - connect industry within the tourism ecosystem and be consistent in communicating

Understanding your domestic customer

Tom Leslie, Quantum Market Research

What’s next for travel?

There’s a trend of spending on experiences - people would rather spend money on activities like travel than on possessions (this was the case pre-COVID and will not likely go away in short term)

Because of COVID people are more focused on health, quality of life, relationships with family, and emotional/mental health
The type of experience people are looking for is one that brings them mental wellbeing - over a third of middle age and older people would prefer to take it easy while younger people are seeking adventure and thrills
More Australians are looking to save than splurge, although 13% are looking to spend more – males, those aged 30-49, urban residents, full-time workers, and families.

You can subscribe to Quantum Market Research’s monthly report, Australia Now

Building a regenerative and sustainable tourism economy in the face of climate change impacts

Nick Baker (Reflections Holiday Parks), Sharon Raguse (East Gippsland Shire Council) and Penny Rafferty (Tourism Australia)

Tourism Australia has undertaken a research project on Responsible Travel to help them understand how to best communicate and educate.

Findings:

Tourism is regarded by Australian communities as a positive thing
Waste and marine pollution are critical concerns.
Off-the-beaten-track travellers are not necessarily behaving the way locals would like them to e.g. driving on private property, waste disposal, damage to nature.
There is concern about how Tourism Australia talks about Indigenous cultures

Insights from East Gippsland included:

The intensity and frequency of natural disasters is of great concern
Communities have polarised opinions on climate change
It can be an overwhelming thing to face as a small business or farmer
Destination managers need to support businesses to empower and educate visitors on what sustainable behaviours they can do

Following are some great points that had those of us in the room thinking...

Human behaviour does not change because of fear; it will change because of hope.
A resilient tourism economy is intrinsically linked to collaboration across regions (not just tourism businesses - all businesses, community/residents, and government)
Make decisions based on your future visitors, not the visitors of the past! Demand is high enough at the moment for industry to make this choice to stop thinking about current visitors and to be bold enough to focus on future visitors
Greenwashing is at least an indication that a business knows being sustainable is important to consumers. We need to educate these operators on how they can effectively measure impact.
Show your visitors how you are making a positive difference. For example, display how many kWh your solar panels created in the past week, and how many greenhouse gas emissions that saved compared with coal or gas-fired electricity.

Next STEPS

Read our two other articles on the Convention: