Tasmania is fast emerging as the place to experience.
Over the past year, more visitors have travelled to our state than ever before – 1.15 million – that’s more than double our population.
We are on the verge of welcoming one million domestic visitors a year for the first time and we’ve seen a massive 38 per cent increase in Chinese visitors since 2014.
These records have trained the spotlight on our state.
Lonely Planet ranked us in the top four “must see” destinations in the world and our tourism operators received unprecedented recognition at the 2014 Qantas Australian Tourism Awards.
This is a trend we are keen to continue so we can reach our target of attracting 1.5 million visitors to our state every year by 2020.
We want to put Tasmania at the top of even more travellers’ must-do lists, so we’re investing additional funding in marketing, we’ve launched our state’s first Events Strategy and now we’re refreshing the Tourism 21 (T21) agreement.
This agreement has underpinned the partnership between the Tasmanian Government and industry for the past two decades.
But now is a watershed time for our tourism and hospitality industries, with unprecedented growth and a changing market, and this agreement must also change to reflect our future.
We have to make sure T21 paves a new path to the next stages of success for the industry.
Through T21, the Tasmanian Government and industry will work together on four priorities: growing demand for travel to Tasmania; expanding air and sea access; investing in quality tourism infrastructure and building capability, capacity and community.
The new agreement will be updated every six months to account for the rapid growth and changes of the sector and to ensure market dynamics and data tracking remain relevant.
Together we will ensure that Tasmania’s visitor economy continues to grow, attracting more visitors and creating more jobs.
More Media Releases from Will Hodgman
More Media Releases from the Minister for Tourism, Hospitality and Events