Impediments to tourism investment: An Australian scoping study

This paper is a scoping study that aims to identify the impediments to tourism investment in Australia. It focuses on regional perspectives to present an understanding for tourism investment in metropolitan, regional and remote tourism destinations. Despite the Jackson Report (2009) outlining several supply-side inhibitors to tourism development in Australia, the key impediments for tourism investment are not well covered in the tourism literature and are rarely brought together in an integrated manner. To identify these investment impediments to tourism, a case study approach employing semi-structured interviews with tourism industry and government representatives in several metropolitan, regional and remote locations throughout Australia was conducted in early 2010. An overriding observation was that: 1) low profitability and 2) variable demand were frequently nominated as the most significant impediments to investment by the majority of the people interviewed. However, each location has its own unique circumstances and impediments, underpinned by the history of economic development of the region, local planning controls and regulations as well as issues particular to tourism such as location and natural and/or cultural attractions. A number of recommendations have been formulated based on the findings from the case studies which emphasise the identification, monitoring and publicising of approaches and solutions to impediments