The Secretary General of the World Tourism Organization, Taleb Rifai, just recently briefed the Tourism Futures Conference in Brisbane about some of the upcoming challenges that Australia is going to have to face in the global tourism marketplace. This briefing actually went on to address world tourism trends and even put a particular focus on the role of Australia and New Zealand in the international community.

In the first time in 60 years, international arrivals were down by 4 percent globally in 2009. Financial receipts also declined by 6 percent. During the discussion, Rifai spoke about the challenges laid in the way of the recovery of the global tourism market. He also talked about the fact that the public sector has seen growth, but the private markets were taking longer to recover.

Also, taxes that have been introduced in many other countries to balance their budgets is having a significant impact on travel to Australia. People are finding that it is just cheaper to stay home and have a vacation within their own borders.

One example of a tax that has recently been introduced was the UK’s departure tax. This is costing some people between £180-200 for a family of two adults and two kids to travel to a mid-range destination. This is an amount that goes up the more people that travel and the further away the destination is.

Mr Rifai also said that jobs lost during the economic downturn would be replaced by 2012-2013 at the earliest. Widening poverty gaps would prove to be challenging for world tourism.