Shadow Minister Media Releases
NSW Labor Government Cuts Tourism Budget When Industry In Trouble ( 05/06/2008)
The NSW Government’s Budget Papers reveal an expected further downturn in NSW visitor nights of 1 million this coming year. This represents a drop of 6 million visitor nights since 2005-6, Shadow Minister for Tourism, Don Page MP, said today.
“However, this year the NSW Labor Government has cut NSW promotion expenditure from $46.1million to $43.7million.
“The Budget Papers also show Sydneys market share of international visitor nights is forecast to be down from 31.5% in 2006-7 to 29.3% in 2008-9.
“The NSW Government also expects ‘Sydneys city brand ranking’ to slip from number 1 to somewhere in the top 5.
“In an environment where the tourism industry is really struggling, we would expect extra money to be committed by the NSW Government to promote NSW as a tourist destination – not a cut!”
“The NSW Government has been asleep at the wheel in promoting NSW as a tourist destination since the Olympics. The NSW tourism industry and economy is paying a huge price for this neglect,” Mr Page said.
“While the NSW Government has been asleep, other State Governments around the nation have significantly lifted their states promotion expenditure.
“It is a disgrace that with tourism in such difficult circumstances, the NSW Labor Government has further cut their tourism budget this year,” he said.
“This means the NSW Labor Government has cut its promotion expenditure by over 12% in real terms in the past 8 years.
“It is also a disgrace that the NSW Government refuses to make public the O’Neil Report into the NSW Tourism Industry, which contains recommendations on the way forward even though they received the report at the end of last year,” Mr Page said.
