STAFFING ISSUES DEMAND INDUSTRY ATTENTION

TOURISM is an extraordinarily diverse collection of businesses and interests, from small owner-operators to multinational corporations. Because of this, it is important that tourism finds common ground and a cohesive way to advocate its issues to government. We need to make sure we can demonstrate to policy makers the significance and value of tourism to Australia – and not just to the economy, but to society, culture and the natural environment as well. The National Tourism Alliance was created by the industry itself in 2001. The goal was to provide a forum where tourism, travel and hospitality associations can come together to advocate at a national level for policies that support tourism: either by reducing the cost of doing business, cutting red tape, or making it easier for more international visitors to come to Australia. At the moment, any tourism and hospitality business owner or HR manager will say that attracting and keeping the right employees in the industry is a challenge. We now know – from research done in the Australian Tourism Labour Force Report – that a perceived lack of career development ranked as the most significant contributor to employee turnover in the industry. Even though tourism and hospitality employ about one million Australians, it is forecast to have up to 56,000 vacancies next year, with the most shortages expected in the hospitality area. As a not for profit industry association, the NTA has embarked on a project to address this issue. We have established a long term, industry-led career promotion campaign to address the ‘perception’ issue that gets in the way of attracting and retaining staff in tourism and hospitality. To date, the industry (with an initial startup grant from the federal government) has invested over $600,000 in a suite of websites which are aimed at attracting employees to the industry by providing information on career paths and jobs to help keep people in the industry. ‘Discover Your Career’ was launched last year. The site, which promotes people and their great career stories, links to the mass of information on the other ‘Discover’ websites, as well as live job vacancies on Discover Jobs. It also fills the gap in knowledge about career pathways for tourism and hospitality, and helps address what might be negative perceptions by showing real people’s long term and successful careers in this vibrant and growing industry. The industry itself is now totally funding this campaign, and we are working with media partners on an annual campaign aimed at attracting and retaining the best possible people in tourism and hospitality.

www.discoveryourcareer.com.au www.tourismalliance.org

VIRGIN Australia ceo John Borghetti has singled out over-capacity, the impact of the carbon tax and ongoing economic uncertainty as the key challenges for the Australian aviation sector as it looks to make its biggest loss in history this year. Making his annual address at the Virgin Australia AGM, Borghetti dubbed 2014 operating conditions as “extremely challenging” as consumer sentiment continued to slide and overcapacity hindered profitability. “It has certainly been a tough period for aviation in Australia,” he said, adding that the industry had experienced a “fundamental shift” in recent years. Borghetti’s comments come as Virgin this year posted an underlying loss of $211.7 million and offloaded a 35% stake in its Velocity frequent flyer program to even out its balance sheet. But Borghetti was quick to turn the focus to future opportunities for the airline by outlining the company’s strategic targets leading up to 2017. Targeting six key areas, the airline will focus on capitalising business opportunities, driving yield enhancement, rolling out a $1 billion cost reduction plan, and building its balance sheet. The airline also expects its new Business First suites will further its grasp in the lucrative corporate market. Borghetti was confident that 2015 would prove to be a more fruitful year, led by improvements from Tigerair Australia in which VA purchased the remaining 40% stake from Singapore Airlines for $1 back in October. Regardless of the outcome, Virgin certainly stands to benefit from priceless global exposure from the enhanced tie up with Tourism Australia, but for now, Borghetti maintains that the “continued uncertain economic environment and subdued consumer sentiment” makes it impossible to predict the company’s bottom line for the year ahead.