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low-angle photo of Hotel lighted signage on top of brown building during nighttimeMore than 25 of Sydney’s top accommodation hotel general managers and senior staff gathered at the Radisson Blu Sydney today for a special industry briefing from the City of Sydney and the Cruise Lines International Association (CLIA).

The event was jointly hosted by Tourism Accommodation Australia and the Accommodation Association – yet another sign the merger between the nation’s two peak accommodation bodies is rapidly approaching.

The high-level group heard from City of Sydney CEO Monica Barone who shared the council’s vision for the city based on the theme of ‘Green, global, connected.”

CLIA Australasia Managing Director Joel Katz said the future was looking bright for the cruise industry with consumer sentiment already at pre-COVID levels.

The perennial debate about another cruise terminal for Sydney was also raised in a qanda session, along with the success of new cruise berthing arrangements on the far South Coast at Eden.

TAA CEO Michael Johnson said the luncheon was “a great opportunity for our general managers and senior hotel staff to learn important information from two key decision-makers from both the City of Sydney and the re-emerging cruise industry.”

Accommodation Association CEO Richard Munro welcomed the collaboration between AA and TAA, but pointed out that labour shortages continued to bite hard – “Whilst we get all this demand in we just can’t reach our targets… because we just don’t have the labour.”

Both CEOs said they were working with the new Federal Government to try and further address the shortage, especially on the back of the recent labour agreement pushed by TAA and the Australian Hotels Association.