Regional New South Wales’ lack of infrastructure and mobile connectivity is costing it billions in Chinese tourist dollars, according to a report released by the Tourism Industry Division of the NSW Business Chamber.
The report, Getting Out There: Encouraging Chinese Tourism highlights the challenges faced by regional businesses in attracting those visitors and offers recommendations which can be adopted by Governments to capitalise on the Chinese tourism market.
“This report emanated from two roundtable discussions with tourism businesses, specialist marketing agencies operating in China, regional airports, and regional sporting clubs with links to China and academic institutions with Chinese students. One of the roundtables was held in Newcastle and featured local businesses.
“There is no doubting the growth and potential of Chinese tourism,” Hunter Business Chamber CEO Bob Hawes said.
“Last year 1.4 million visitors to Australia were from mainland China . That’s projected to soar to more than 3.3 million Chinese tourists by 2026.
“The report shows that in 2017 Chinese tourists spent a whopping $3.2 billion dollars, but most of that money was spent in Sydney.
“This correlates with Destination NSW figures which show Chinese tourists love Sydney whereas only 2.1% visit the Hunter Region.
“Chinese tourism is the top market for NSW with double digit annual growth but we ’re not seeing this in the Hunter,” Bob said.
In order to address the massive imbalance and turn it into an opportunity the Report recommends:
Expediting the roll-out of high speed broadband, improving mobile coverage and increasing public WiFi across regional NSW;
Targeting investment in new public infrastructure to improve access to regional tourism destinations;
Target marketing to the Chinese students in Australia and their visiting friends and relatives; and
Providing greater support to business in un derstanding challenges, requirements and potential for success from the Chinese Tourism market.
“If the Hunter Region and its iconic locations are to generate benefit, we will need to work closely with Destination NSW who have an enormous focus on the Chinese market.
“We can’t do this alone and the approach needs to be mul ti-faceted; it’s not just a matter of producing a nice brochure when it comes to enticing the Chinese market,” Bob said.