The Sydney TEP includes a number of strategies to address the labour supply and skills development issues in the tourism sector.

“Sydney welcomes 30 million visitors every year, generating $14.2 billion in economic activity and employing 158,000 people in our tourism industry,” Mr Stoner said.

“Tourism in NSW continues to grow, with visitor numbers from priority markets recording strong growth in the past twelve months. This includes India, which grew 22.8 per cent, Hong Kong which grew 13.4 per cent, and China –now our largest source of inbound tourists –which grew 12.4 per cent.

“To meet the labour needs of our growing tourism sector NSW will need an estimated 16,800 additional people working in the industry in the near future,” he said.

Federal Minister for Trade and Investment, with responsibility for Tourism, Andrew Robb said tourism was one of Australia’s key economic strengths.

“The jobs of over 929,000 Australians are linked to tourism and for every dollar spent on tourism, it generates an additional 90 cents across our economy. That is more than what is generated from mining and resources, education and retail,” he said.

“Australia is uniquely positioned to capitalise on the demand from the emerging middle classes of Asia seeking food, wine and natural landscape tourism experiences and it is vitally important that we not only develop the skills of our current workforce but attract new entrants to tourism and hospitality to meet this growing demand.”

The Sydney TEP was developed over a 12 month period in collaboration with more than 300 tourism and hospitality stakeholders across 16 local government areas as part of Tourism 2020 -a partnership between the Australian and State and Territory Governments to increase Australia’s share of overnight tourism spend to between $115 billion and $140 billion by 2020.

Further information about Tourism Employment Plans and other Tourism 2020 labour and skills initiatives is at tourism2020.gov.au

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