TOURISM was proclaimed a winner at the NSW budget on Tuesday, with a new raft of funding measures announced, but the industry fears cutbacks will undercut the benefits.
The budget included a $100m investment in the Regional Tourism Investment Fund, which will be distributed across the State, and the Regional Visitor Economy Fund, which matched dollar for dollar co-investment from tourism businesses to the tune of about $7m a year across the next two years.
However, the federal budget proposed to terminate spending on marketing domestic tourism, which spurred Regional Tourism Network chairman David Sheldon to write to members, imploring them to "hound" their political representatives to overturn the cut before it is passed through parliament.
He wrote the Coalition promoted tourism "as one of the nation's five super sectors", but on the other hand it had "walked away".
"There was much talk, support and great fanfare from both the feds and the State with bipartisan agreement from all sides of government regarding the ambitious targets of doubling the over- night expenditure by 2020, now six years out, who moved the goalposts?" Mr Sheldon said.
Tourism is a major driver of regional NSW's economy.
In 2013, more than 50 million visitors to the State's regions spent more than $13 billion.
Tourism in regional NSW is overwhelmingly patronised by domestic tourists, with more than 90 per cent of total expenditure coming from local wallets.
Agriculture, by comparison, generated $15m for the State economy.
Tourism and Transport forum executive director Adele Labine-Romain also raised alarm over the Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) cancellation of its annual Survey of Tourist Accommodation.
"Australia has an ambitious goal to double overnight expenditure by 2020 and the availability of regular, reliable data is needed to underpin investment and planning to aid the industry," she said.
"Small area data provides essential information about tourism performance in regional areas and helps inform public and private planning."
A spokesman for Tourism Min- ister Andrew Stoner said the Accommodation Supply Plan was in place to collect data on the industry.
But the plan might not provide the comprehensive coverage the ABS did - rather it would focus on selected case studies.
The plan "will include Greater Sydney and the Blue Mountains, as well as a number of regional case studies," the spokesman person said.
Domestic travel is the major market for regional NSW, capturing 70pc of the overnight travel in 2013 with 18 million visitors.
International tourists, toward whom the federal budget proposes to target its spending, comprised 20pc of the overnight stays in regional NSW, with 590,000 visits.
Mr Sheldon also raised concerns over changes to the way the government's industry agency, Destination NSW, delivered funding to businesses through the Regional Visitor Economy Fund.
Previously, business proposals for project funding were assessed purely on merit and rewarded by government spending matched dollar for dollar.
Now businesses require a minimum $50,000 investment.
Mr Stoner's office said Destination NSW found smaller projects "experienced challenges in delivering tangible, measurable results for the government's investment".
Mike Foley
Senior journalist for The Land.
Senior journalist for The Land.
