17 September, 2016
Australia’s tourism industry is one of the largest in the world. Tourism is Australia’s largest services export and it contributes approximately A$35 billion to the country’s Gross Domestic Product. The Australian tourism industry spans across a range of sectors including luxury resorts, casinos, nature retreats, theme parks, short-term accommodation, travel agents, transport companies, retail, and education providers. This publication provides an overview of the business, legal and policy issues relating to foreign investment in tourism assets as well as particular legal issues associated with investments into the hospitality industry (see chapter 2) and the gaming industry (see chapter 3).
Overview of the tourism investment market
INVESTMENT MARKET
Australia’s proximity to expanding Asian markets has enabled it to capitalise on the increasing demand for unique tourism destinations from consumers in the Asia- Paci c region.
In the past five years, offshore investment into the Australian tourism industry has been on a steady increase. During 2013, Asian investors’ interests in Australian tourism assets grew rapidly as evidenced by the completion of a number of large hotel transactions involving Asian investors.
Strong investment conditions comprising of stable and consistent consumer demand, a stable economy, a transparent legal system and a secure political environment have made and will continue to make Australian tourism assets appealing investment options for offshore investors.
GOVERNMENT POLICY
NATIONAL STRATEGY – TOURISM 2020
The Australian Government’s publication Tourism 2020 sets out its national strategy to enhance the growth and competitiveness of the tourism industry. The policy aims to accelerate the growth of tourism and tourism investment in Australia by focusing on the following six strategic areas:
- growing demand from Asia;
- building competitive digital capability; encouraging investment and implementing a regulatory reform agenda;
- ensuring the tourism transport environment supports growth;
- increasing supply of labour, skills and Indigenous participation; and
- building industry resilience, productivity and quality.
As part of the Tourism 2020 initiative, some of the more speci c commitments the Australian Government is working towards include:
- reducing barriers to investment in the tourism industry;
- improving levels of investment facilitation by State and Territory governments;
- facilitating the increase of international and domestic airline seats on a sustainable basis; and
- increasing the supply of labour in the tourism industry.
GOVERNMENT INCENTIVE POLICIES
Since Tourism 2020 was published, the Australian Government has allocated $40 million over four years to an incentive policy for the promotion of sustainable growth in the Australian tourism industry. In particular there are three types of project funding available under the incentive policy:
- Strategic Tourism Investment Grants – to fund a small number of larger projects to support Indigenous tourism, economic development and tourism employment.
- Tourism Quality Projects – to fund smaller scale projects to support collaborative community tourism industry development projects, particularly those which stimulate private sector investment.
- Tourism Industry Regional Development Fund (TIRF) Grants – targets projects with community bene ts, which also stimulate private sector investment in regional areas and encourage investors to stay for longer periods.
To read the complete guide, please click here.
For further information, please contact:
Paul Jenkins, Partner, Ashurst
paul.jenkins@ashurst.com
