WELCOME: FROM TICT

At the time of writing, we’re approaching the two-week countdown to the 2022 Tasmanian Tourism Conference. While we’ve spruiked it (albeit with only anecdotal evidence and a healthy dose of confidence in our program of events) as the Tasmanian tourism industry’s biggest annual event for many years, the response to this year’s Conference has been quite unprecedented.

And, yes, there’s the matter of a certain Australian of the Year – cough, Dylan Alcott, cough – providing an enticing drawcard, but we’re quietly hopeful that the theme of Positive Impact might have dangled a secondary carrot in front of the hundreds of tourism professionals who have registered for this year’s event.

Whether you’re joining us in Launceston for the two-day Conference program or not, there’s plenty in these pages to cover off on how the Tasmanian tourism industry can have – and is having – a positive impact.

In this issue, TICT CEO Luke Martin steps through the evolution of the Tourism 21 agenda since the mid-90s, all the way through to its next iteration, which will set a vision for Tassie’s evolution as a tourism destination through the 2020s that takes seriously our responsibility – and competitive advantage – to make a positive contribution to the Tasmanian community, environment and way of life. This vision includes being a global leader in carbon-consciousness, supporting more young people into viable careers within the visitor economy, and mitigating the impact of tourism on our natural environments.

We also take a deep dive into the growing agritourism sector, and discover that it’s far from the buzz word of a few years ago. Opening The Gate, a state-wide product and business development program, has done exactly what its moniker suggests, with a number of new agritourism products enhancing Tassie’s visitor value proposition by opening their own gates to tourists to connect with produce, people and place. With agricultural champions all over our beautiful island, agritourism represents a compelling frontier for our tourism industry, while sowing back into the vision of a clean, green Tasmania.

In a similar vein, the wine tourism sector has a bunch (see what we did there) of good news stories, with the recently-released Bottling Wine Tourism plan celebrating growth in visitor spend and cellar door visit numbers. While total state visitor numbers are still making their way back towards pre-Covid levels, it’s encouraging that wine at least hasn’t gone out of style, and tourists seem to have the right idea about where to get the best drops (spoiler: it’s Tassie). Check out the rest of the stats, as well as the ambitious strategy to establish Tasmania as the premier wine destination in Australia, further on in this issue. You can also read about four first-time home-grown National Tourism Awards winners, the exciting future of business events, and this year’s Top Tourism Town, selfdubbed simply “Launnie”. Thanks for reading and for what you’re doing to have your own Positive Impact.