Australia realises the potential in procuring future investment in tourism.

To create better products, services and experiences the Australian Government has been working to remove investment barriers for the tourism industry at both a state and national level.

The Government realised the potential to remove investment barriers through a more effective national collaboration and establishing investment facilitation services.

The advancement of tourism creates jobs and contributes over $34 billion to Australia’s GDP, it was revealed in the 2012 Tourism Investment and Regulatory Reform Report Card.

Work undertaken through Tourism Australia’s 2020 strategy will help provide an additional 40,000 accommodation rooms in capital cities and better quality rooms in regional areas.

Creating a regulatory environment which was more supportive of tourism developments in high natural amenity areas and providing more effective incentives to stimulate the supply of new accommodation helped to improve the tourism investment environment.

Streamlining the planning development and approvals process and increasing the supply of labour to the tourism industry has been a key focus over the past 12 months for Tourism Ministers.

The 2012 Reform Report Card also revealed that Australia is actively marketing tourism investment opportunities to global and domestic investors.

In order to remain competitive - not just in terms of attracting visitors, but also attracting investment into the tourism industry to meet the needs and expectations of these visitors – this type of research must continue.

Tourism Ministers plan to publish an update to the Regulatory Reform Report Card in October 2013.