The five-year partnership, between Tourism Australia, the Department of Resources, Energy and Tourism (DRET) and the Australian Trade Commission (Austrade), was formally announced at a launch event attended by the Minister for Tourism, the Hon Martin Ferguson AM MP at Melbourne’s Eureka Tower.

A number of new communication tools were unveiled including the Australian Tourism Investment Guide containing information regarding up to 80 investment-ready opportunities and proposed tourism projects, as well as a marketing video and the micro-site tourisminvestment.com.au.

The Guide, the first single-destination site dedicated to assisting tourism investment decision-making, is a major priority under Tourism 2020, Australian tourism’s strategy for sustained, long-term growth.

A list of investment-ready projects across Australia, such as Pumphouse Point, a wilderness lodge at Cradle Mountain, Tasmania, and The Landing, a waterfront precinct and accommodation development at Gosford, New South Wales, is now available at the Guide.

The inaugural Tourism Investment Monitor, released by Tourism Research Australia, has confirmed it is on track to accommodate anticipated demand with $42 billion available within the investment pipeline.

Tourism Australia managing director Andrew McEvoy welcomed the partnership and said, “We acknowledge that investment sourced both locally and internationally, is vital to growing the Australian tourism industry and achieving our industry’s goal of doubling overnight visitor expenditure to up to A$140 billion a year by 2020. This is the level of growth we need to bring new investment to life.”

“As part of a recently expanded remit for Tourism Australia, we’re broadening our focus to play a greater role to help facilitate tourism investment opportunities and more strongly align demand and supply side activities” Mr McEvoy said.

Austrade CEO, Peter Grey, said “As Australia’s trade, investment and education promotion agency, one of our key responsibilities is to attract foreign investment and our international network will utilise these communication tools to showcase the investment opportunities across Australia’s tourism industry.”

“We will continue to work closely with State and Territory governments to provide tangible leads that, in the long term, bring tourism infrastructure opportunities to fruition,” Grey said.

McEvoy is confident that this new ‘team Australia’ approach will send out a powerful message to both domestic and overseas-based investors that the country’s tourism is ready for investment.

“Combining our collective experience, skills and resources and speaking to the investment community with one, uniform voice is a significant step and one which I think will be warmly welcomed by investors here at home and overseas,” McEvoy said.

McEvoy noted that the investment attraction program will focus its attention upon the exciting opportunities emerging from the powerhouse economies of Asia such as China, Australia’s fastest growing and highest international spending market.

Tourism is Australia’s largest services export earner, and tourism consumption is now valued at $96 billion.

Aviation is one of the fastest-growing sectors of the world economy. Over the next 20 years more than 27,000 new aircraft will be delivered; the number of air travellers will double to 9 billion over the same period. However, airline companies are predicted to be among the biggest casualties of climate change as their output of greenhouse gas emissions grows quickly with the unprecedented demand for air travel.

The aviation sector will be significantly affected if it is forced to absorb further cost increases, including, most outstandingly, the carbon tax in Australia and a controversial tax on emissions for foreign carriers when flights take-off or land in Europe. The latest Euro-tax with the aim of environmental protection, is distance-based, ensuring that skies are definitely scarier for carriers making long-haul flights from Australia and New Zealand.

Qantas, Australia’s flagship carrier, has made it very clear that escalating costs pose a significant financial risk. In the short-to-medium term, the aviation sector is working hard to cut emissions by making incremental improvements to existing fleets, taking weight off aircraft to lower resistance in flight, buying more efficient aircraft and working with alternative jet fuels that produce lower carbon emissions. Qantas has 50 Boeing 787 Dreamliners on order, which it says will consume 20 percent less fuel than similarly sized planes, while its existing fleet of Airbus A380s, newsworthy for operational glitches, is also prized for its fuel efficiency.

Beyond climate change regulation, airlines also face exposure to major physical risks. Fierce storms have now moved to the top of airlines’ risk agendas in the face of continued natural catastrophes. Scientific evidence suggests not only is the severity of weather events such as tsunamis, flash floods and typhoons increasing, but also the frequency.

Changes in weather patterns – temperature, wind speed, direction and humidity – determine aircraft performance. Extreme weather events or even changed weather patterns can affect the jet stream (fast-flowing air currents) and cause severe disruption to flight schedules. Flying around a major weather event burns more fuel, so costs rise as aircraft change course to avoid more frequent extreme weather events. Beyond the expense of additional fuel, changing flight tracks poses a major financial risk for airlines due to related disruptions – chronic delays and cancellations, including the cost of accommodating stranded passengers. Transport chaos is predicted to become common.

“The risk could be massive; we just don’t know how massive,” says Justin Wastnage, national aviation manager of the Sydney-based Tourism & Transport Forum. “Airlines can’t do much about bad weather. But to some extent the problem can be dealt with by developing more efficient operational practices and better traffic management. That means better aircraft landing procedures and more flexible flight paths.”

Switching engines to idle

Historically, planes have flown pre-determined routes. They flew in a straight line between beacons or “way points” to ensure they were on track. Many of these routes have stayed the same despite technological advances. Following these routes often meant planes “fought” against the wind. Now, with more direct routes, more flexible flight paths and smaller separation limitations between aircraft in flight, pilots can use the weather system and take into account jet streams and prevailing winds. Commonly, airlines now hold aircraft on the ground prior to departure – rather than in the air – if delays are anticipated at the destination airport.

However, the big money saver is “the new landing”. Pilots used to rev the engines to make a stepped descent before dropping altitude and queuing for landing. Now, there’s a move for them to save millions of litres of fuel by shifting engines to idle when descending into airports, before gliding onto the runway on a straight path. The new landing is facilitated by navigation technology called Required Navigational Performance (RNP), which directs planes departing or entering the airspace around airports to fly on pre-programmed computer-plotted routes. Some features of the RNP system are already used at airports in Europe, Canada and Australia, and RNP trials are being held globally as companies seek to reduce fuel burn.