Concepts of tourism yield and their measurement

The report develops tools for measuring and enhancing the yield from tourism at the business, regional and national level. It clarifies the different concepts of tourism yield. Different stakeholders (operators, governments, community, researchers etc.) mean different things by ‘yield’ and this presents a barrier to communication and policy discussion. Each of these concepts is defined and their relevance to firms and destination managers assessed. The report develops operational measures of yield at the level of the firm and regional, state and national destination management levels. It also develops ways to measure the yield from different types of tourists. With the increasing sophistication of tourism data sets, such as the Tourism Satellite Account (TSA) and Computable General Equilibrium (CGE) models, it is now feasible to develop new and more useful measures of tourism yield. Some measures, such as sustainable yield, resist easy estimation and the difficulties in operationalising such a concept are discussed. The report also discusses and analyses the policy implications of the study. The results can help to develop strategies to achieve highest sustainable yield. Achieving long term sustainable and profitable tourism products would secure a competitive advantage for Australia as a desirable tourist destination with benefits to all tourism stakeholders. The results can improve the capacity for management decision making by tourism stakeholders to promote ‘high yield’ sustainable tourism that enhances competitiveness in the tourism industry