Perspectives – Jon Hutchison

Having said that the primary growth is going to be out of Asia, and that China and India have yet to show their real face in tourism, we have to be conscious of the fact that we need a good cultural balance in tourism; we will not abandon our traditional markets in Europe and America. We also recognise the fact that visitors from these countries are good high yielding passengers.

Achieving a balance will be difficult. “There are a number of factors emerging that we need to watch very carefully. The fact that we have to focus on direct air services to realise their potential is a view that is often expressed. Jon Hutchison sees that markets such as India would be fortified by direct services beyond the two per week that access Perth. Until direct dedicated services from one country to another are established, you don’t get the momentum behind building tourism. South America is another example where we have seen a number of countries having good appeal to Australians but the air services are so convoluted, and as a consequence so expensive, that we won’t spend money there until we see a commitment from a carrier to establish a direct service.”

“The number of services that are using London as a hub is not strengthening our position in Europe. The Asian carriers have better options than Qantas out of continental Europe and Qantas’ identification has slipped as some of the Asian carriers become ‘airlines to Australia’.”

Continental Europe is a huge source of business, and to make Australia more attractive we have to have services travelling east rather than passengers backtracking to London. There are a lot of options to Australia.

Last year export earnings from tourism increased 16% to $12.3 billion and provided more than 500,000 jobs for Australians. While tourism is growing at an average 9% per annum, and we attracted a record 3.5 million overseas visitors last year, clearly we cannot be complacent about the infrastructure and air services required to meet the continuing demand.