Date: July 21 2012
ON THE glistening waters of the Great Barrier Reef, dive boat operators are grappling with some lesser-known challenges created by the China boom.
Quicksilver Group, a big local owner of boats, says the number of Chinese customers has surged from virtually zero to 15 per cent of its clientele in the past five years or so.
There's just one problem. Dive instructors who are fluent in Mandarin and English are hard to find in north Queensland, or other parts of Australia for that matter.
So, managing director Tony Baker has had to recruit these specialised staff from overseas. ''We've seen the Chinese market grow from almost nothing to our single largest inbound market,'' he says. ''The only area I've had problems or difficulties with was in respect of bilingual dive instructors.''
In capital cities, things are also changing in response to the influx of Chinese tourists, worth nearly $4 billion a year to the economy.
Alongside bacon and eggs, the breakfast buffet at many Accor hotels now includes congee, a watery rice porridge. Guests can also order Szechuan pepper beef from their rooms while browsing through Chinese TV stations or magazines.
These changes may seem trivial. But they reflect sweeping changes in the industry, as it adapts to serving our biggest growth market.
Since 2000, the number of Chinese visiting here has soared by 376 per cent, with their total spending up a staggering 770 per cent, Deloitte says. Almost 600,000 Chinese now holiday in Australia every year, and tourism authorities hope this will reach a million by the end of the decade.
But Australian Tourism Export Council chief executive Felicia Mariani says the change has been so rapid that it's caught many in the industry ''on the hop''.
''Normally we have time to sort of adjust to these type of shifts and we learn to build our products and accommodate new markets,'' she says. ''This shift has happened so rapidly that the industry just isn't prepared … for what this new market is going to be looking for.''
It's a good problem to have. The wave of tourists from China and other Asian nations, such as Malaysia, has given local operators a lifeline, just as the high dollar and recession in Europe and North America choked off traditional markets.
But to make the most of the China boom, tourism firms are under pressure to change. For instance, one of the big challenges is that Chinese visitors have tended to be more reluctant to venture outside capital cities. About 90 per cent of Chinese visitor nights in New South Wales are in Sydney, while 98 per cent in Victoria are in Melbourne.
With domestic tourism also flat, this has helped create a ''double whammy'' blow for regional hot spots such as tropical north Queensland - where international visitor numbers are down 30 per cent in the past decade.
''At the moment the growth in international visitors is increasingly oriented towards capital cities,'' says a director of economics at Deloitte, Justin Smirl. ''And at the same time, over the last decade, virtually all of the leisure growth has been outbound.''
So what can businesses do to encourage the new wave of foreign tourists to explore the regions outside the big cities?
Tourism Australia managing director Andrew McEvoy says the natural environment, outside the cities, is one of the top attractions for Chinese visitors.
But regional operators will need to work harder at promoting themselves and making Chinese guests feel welcome, which involves learning about their food, language and culture. ''The more you feel like a local, the more likely you are to enjoy the experience,'' he says.
More controversially, parts of the industry argue that the China tourist boom also requires more major hotel developments. James Packer's push for a second casino in Sydney is billed as a way to attract wealthy Chinese guests.
Bob East, chief executive of Mantra Group, the second-largest hotel owner in the country, says there is a looming shortfall of hotel rooms to accommodate the coming surge of inbound tourists.
Poor returns are preventing hotel investment now, he says, but he adds the country will need more hotels if tourism numbers reach their target of doubling by 2020.
Paradoxically, East says the best way to help regional tourism operators could be by improving the offering in cities.
If the industry can make inbound tourists feel more at home in cities, he argues they will inevitably take trips to the great outdoors. But it will require more than serving congee, with an overhaul of what the hotel, retail and entertainment industries offer tourists.
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