Can tourism 'save' other regional businesses?

When a tourism enterprise earns money, it may 'share' its good fortune with other regional businesses by spending a part of those earnings. The more that is spent in other local businesses, the greater the regional economic impact of the tourism expenditure. Those interested in tourism as a potential means of improving the economic circumstances of an entire region, may therefore find it useful to have information about expenditure patterns of different types of tourism enterprises. The research reported on here is part of a larger in-progress project investigating tourism in regional Australia. The entire project aims to: (a) examine the supply chains of different types of tourism enterprises; (b) look at the strength of economic links between tourism enterprises and other regional businesses; and (c) identify supply-chain problems that may exist. This paper reports on the earlier stages of the project describing, comparing and contrasting tourist and tourist enterprise characteristics in each region; presenting preliminary results from a tourism enterprise survey and discussing the way in which those results can be used by those interested in promoting the economic development of regional Australia