News.

06/04/11

Industry calls for visa changes to boost tourist travel

As China becomes the number one source of international tourist arrivals for the first time, Australia’s Tourism and Transport Forum (TTF) has called for a changes to the ‘highly bureaucratic, cumbersome and expensive tourism visa application processes’ that are currently in place. Sounds eminently sensible – anything we can do to improve visitation from a variety of markets could help to offset anticipated declines from Japan and New Zealand, two of our top 5 international markets.

04/04/11

Legislation can’t achieve best practice consultation?

Neil Savery, CEO of the ACT Planning and Land Agency, was today quoted in the Canberra Times as saying ‘it would be very difficult to mandate by legislation or practice what community consultation should comprise’.  We agree with Neil that you can’t have a ‘one size fits all’ model of community engagement, but this year we’ll be exploring how to move beyond the various ‘best practice models’ that exist around Australia to a national framework for community engagement.