While Australia’s tourism industry is in crisis, industry engagement is at an all time high. Over the past five months the Australian Tourism Export Council (ATEC) has built a series of communications platforms to support tourism community engagement and has put forth a compelling message to our Government on the value of Australia’s export tourism industry.From the weekly ‘Road to Recovery’ tutorial series which is delivering new skills to participants to fortnightly leadership discussions though the Build Back Better webinar program, ATEC has been offering broad support to every member of our industry.
“This year began with the shock devastation to our industry, communities and the environment caused by widespread bushfires and it’s been a rolling tragedy ever since,” ATEC Managing Director Peter Shelley said.
“What we have done is to put our effort into being a source of information, support and advocacy for our industry over this period and have doubled down on connecting and engaging with our members.
“From the beginning of January it was clear that our industry was looking for leadership and an advocacy voice and we’ve moved our work to fully focus on supporting our members though this difficult time.
“We understand that the next six months will be about survival for many tourism businesses and we will be offering a 50% discount on membership fees and flexible payment terms to support our members.”
ATEC has continued to deliver a range of learning and development programs and has a rolling out program of training and events over coming months including industry leadership webinars, road to recovery business development webinars, virtual B2B events to maintain trade engagement as well as a range of market development training programs including a focus on China resilience training as well as hosting visitors from India and Japan.
Recognising the critical need for sound operational business plans, ATEC has also developed ‘COVID READY’ which will provide participants with a tourism-specific COVID READY toolkit, online ‘how-to’ sector specific workshops to guide businesses through developing their ‘COVID READY Customer Experience Plan’ with recognition badging through the industry trade directory of COVID READY operators. Register here.
ATEC will also continue to facilitate industry-leading forums around the future shape of distribution, industry guidelines regarding forward rates, cancellation policies and payment terms plus working with all members to develop ‘runways’ back to the restart of international markets.
“We know the continued involvement of tourism export businesses, even during hibernation, is highly important to industry connectivity and communication as the months progress and it is our responsibility to continue to support our members who are experiencing the most challenging of times.
“Preserving engagement with the export supply chain is extremely important to the fabric of our industry and we are committed to supporting our member businesses to remain connected and involved with our programs and events.
“We’ve got a long road to recovery, but this is an immensely resilient industry full of wonderfully committed people and ATEC will be there every step of the way to support tourism businesses to not only survive but to become increasingly resilient and sustainable businesses into the future.”
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