Tourism and Transport Forum (TTF) Chief Executive, Margy Osmond, says the results of a recent TTF survey conducted with Nielsen show that 75% of Australians believe that the time, cost and difficulty of gaining a visitor visa to Australia affects our country’s competitiveness in some international markets.
In Australia, the average length of time to process a visitor visa is seventeen days or more, while in France, the average is two days and in Japan, the average is seven days.
“Unless we can begin to expedite these processes we will lose critical visitor market share,” Ms Osmond says.
“People expect a timely turnaround in terms of holiday and working holiday visa applications and Australia is lagging behind key competitors, and the ramifications will inevitably come back to haunt us.”
57% of Australian also believe more money is needed to promote Australia overseas to ensure we can maintain and grow our share of international visitors.
Tourism and Transport Forum’s (TTF) annual conference, Outlook 2019, kicks off today, at the Hilton Sydney, with the theme – Rethink, Evolve, Adapt – covering:
– Undercover tourism: turning history into high-end heritage tourism.
– Get lost: the rise of experience tourism
– Opening up the regions
– Solo travel: two’s a crowd – travel solo, travel your way
– The economic power of arts and culture.
– Media and its influence on travel decisions.
