Export tourism businesses across Australia are calling on both parties to include an expansion of the Export Marketing Development Grant (EMDG) program in their election tourism policies as the industry begins to rebuild its international markets.
The EMDG scheme has been highly effective in supporting Australian export tourism businesses in building their international markets with many businesses catapulting their success off the back of these grants.
ATEC Managing Director Peter Shelley said “EMDG has been instrumental in the success of many hundreds of tourism products as they move into the export market, supporting both small and large businesses to find new growth opportunities in international markets.”
“Given the program has limited eligibility, and many tourism businesses have already exhausted their allocation, we believe these businesses which have already shown their international capacity need special consideration to support them in rebuilding their markets.
“A short-term refocus of the EMDG program would provide great benefit to our industry and really help Australia to re-engage markets following the devastation caused by the covid border closures.
“As we move to rebuild our industry, tourism businesses will need to invest heavily into international marketing and right now they are on the back foot, but with EMDG support we can get back to market faster, working to re-instate our $45bn export tourism market.”
ATEC is calling on adjusting EMDG qualifications to:
- Temporarily relax the current EMDG rules to support tourism recovery for a minimum of two years
- Support merit-based applications enabling businesses which have previously exhausted their allocation to re-apply in order to access market restart support.
- Exempt tourism businesses from any caps rules/eligibility and open to businesses of all sizes
- Provide additional funds ring-fenced for tourism businesses
