Job outlook for Australian Tourism Industry has stabilized

Tourism businesses might be more gloomy about the future, but fewer of them plan to lay off staff, according to a new survey.

The latest quarterly Tourism Industry Sentiment Survey showed the majority of respondents did not expect a sustained recovery in the industry until the second half of next year.

In the previous survey just three months ago, tourism businesses expected a recovery in the first quarter of 2010. However, results showed the job outlook for staff had stabilised.

Fewer businesses in the latest survey indicated they would cut staff, down from 56 per cent to 32 per cent. And while almost 60 per cent said they would make job cuts at some point during the economic downturn, the figure was down from 72 per cent in the previous quarter.

The survey, conducted jointly by Tourism and Transport Forum (TTF) and MasterCard, also showed small increases in confidence across domestic, international and total tourism.

The best-performing sectors were backpacker/youth, budget travel and drive tourism.

The worst performers were the business and major events sectors and luxury travel.

TTF managing director Christopher Brown said the results painted a mixed picture.

“Combined, these results indicate that operators believe we may have hit the bottom, although conditions are not expected to improve in a hurry,” Mr Brown said. “This indicates that many employers took decisive action in the early stages of the global economic slowdown to ensure their business remained viable.”

Mr Brown called on the Federal Government to provide a one-off $40 million injection, to be matched by industry, to help the industry retain workers.

He proposed the $80 million be used to promote Australia in those markets that had responded to recent campaigns