New South Wales Minister for Tourism, Ben Franklin, has expressed his confidence in growing international travellers and the state becoming the premier destination of the Asia Pacific.

Franklin was a guest speaker at Tourism Accommodation Australia’s (TAA) annual Chairman’s Drinks – held at the Hyatt Regency in Sydney on Wednesday evening – which was attended by key figures in the accommodation industry including members of TAA and the Accommodation Association (AA).

He spoke about the state’s domestic and international tourism performance in 2022 and his hopes for the year ahead.

“Data from Tourism Research Australia for the year ending September 2022 shows international visitation to New South Wales has rebounded exponentially, with almost 950,000 visitors generating AU$3.6 billion in visitor expenditure,” he said.

“New South Wales is also the top choice for domestic travellers. The state received more than 32 million overnight travellers domestically in the year ending September 2022, who spent $24.3 billion in assets.

“These statistics provide just a small snippet of our positive recovery and today, New South Wales leads the nation for international visitor arrivals, absolute growth and market share.”

In Sydney, major events have played an important role in driving visitation to the city in the last 12 months. The Summer in Sydney program – which featured a diverse range of events including Open for Lunch, Elevate and Noelle Sydney – were well attended, with the latter drawing 145,000 people over a two-week period.

The Minister expects even better results in 2023 with the strong program of events in the pipeline.

“The Sydney Festival has just finished; we’ve had packed houses everywhere across the state, across Sydney,” he said.

“In just over two weeks we’ll be welcoming back the largest number of visitors to Sydney since the 2000 Olympics by hosting Sydney WorldPride. This is the first time the event will be hosted in the southern hemisphere in its 23-year history and will host over half a million people from both internationally and across the nation

“Vivid returns in May; we’ve got the FIFA Women’s World Cup in July; South by Southwest in October 2023, which marks the first time it will be held outside of Austin, Texas in its 30-year history. We know how important these events are not just to showcase our beautiful state, but to increase visitation and provide needed expenditure into the accommodation sector.”

TAA New South Wales Chair, Richard Doyle, also spoke to the rise of international travellers, the return of cruising, as well as the increase in large events and conferences, all of which are helping boost occupancy levels in the state.

“We’re also seeing, finally, a resurgence in conferences and events,” Doyle said.

“There were 31 large events in Sydney in the last three months of 2022 and there are more than 40 locked in for this year. Let’s hope we really have a bumper year. Half of these events will have more than 1,000 delegates and seven will have more than 2,000 – that really makes a difference to the city.”

The upcoming merger of TAA and AA to form Accommodation Australia was also a hot topic of the evening. The results of a secret ballot of AA members on the proposed amalgamation will be revealed later this month.

“2023 is going to be the year when our industry finally combines in one association, and we’re all really looking forward to that event,” Doyle said.

“We are all going to be marching with one voice. There’s nothing better than us all being united and working together. And I’m looking forward to that.”

Both associations have been united on tackling numerous issues that are impacting the industry in the wake of the pandemic.

International workers returning

TAA CEO and AA Interim CEO, Michael Johnson, discussed some key items on the agenda including a recent submission to government on rate parity issues.

“We want to ensure there’s a level playing field, not just for our larger groups, but also for the small, independent hotels; and it’s something quite near and dear to our members,” he said.

Migration is another key focus for the associations in a bid to fill the many job vacancies throughout the industry.

“I can’t tell you how pleasing it was to get notifications from [the Department of] Home Affairs this week: 118,000 Working Holiday Makers in the country today,” Johnson said.

“And that is fantastic because this time last year we were in the 20s and 30s. We’re back up to about 80% of what it was pre pandemic.

“Also, there are 462,400 international students in the country now. So, we’re getting some reprieve on that labour crisis front, which is fantastic.”

Accommodation Association President Leanne Harwood said that while government support and investment in training has been a major win, there is still ‘a long way to go’ to fix the workforce issues.

“This year will bring its own set of challenges no doubt. We know there is a still tens of thousands of vacancies in our industry,” she said.

“We need to continue to work with governments across the country to help ease that pressure. We know how challenging it is.”