TOURISM WA will be restructured with significant staff reductions and regional and international office closures following a recent strategic analysis.
TOURISM WA will be restructured with significant staff reductions and regional and international office closures following a recent strategic analysis.
Announced by the state government as part of last week’s state budget, and described by Tourism Council WA president Paul King as the biggest change to tourism in Western Australia in 30 years, the structure has been welcomed by industry despite some suggestions the transformation was long overdue.
Tourism WA chairman Kate Lamont said the new business model would free up more than $31 million in funding over the next four years to directly invest into marketing the state, an increase of 35 per cent on current levels.
Under the new model, to operate from July, Tourism WA staff will reduce from 159 to 74 over the next two years across the four key areas of the agency including marketing (down from 54 to 26 full-time employees) and infrastructure and investment (formerly industry development, from 47 staff down to 14).
Senior positions, including chief executive, will be advertised while other roles will be open to permanent employees through expressions of interest.
Regional offices in Albany, Bunbury, Carnarvon, Geraldton, Broome, Kalgoorlie and Karratha (12 staff) and the Sydney office will close by December.
It is hoped regional services will be taken on by other agencies including regional development commissions, the Small Business Development Corporation and the Department of Regional Development and Lands.
And Tourism WA will contract local marketing companies in the UK, Germany, Japan and China (which currently house Tourism WA offices and staff) to take over existing services.
The government has allocated up to $12.4 million over the next three years to implement the transition to the new model.
“To increase visitor numbers, Tourism WA will be refocused on its three core functions – marketing the state, developing, attracting and promoting major events, and developing significant tourism infrastructure and projects,” Ms Lamont said.
“We will be ceasing non-core activities which do not target these priority areas.
“We want to create a more flexible organisation that is better able to respond to opportunities in a dynamic industry.”
As reported previously by WA Business News, Tourism WA’s board hoped to double the tourism industry’s $7.3 billion a year contribution to the state’s economy by 2020.
“It is an ambitious target we are confident can be achieved by making some fundamental changes to the business model and focus of Tourism WA,” Ms Lamont said.
Ms Lamont highlighted the efforts of Tourism Minister Liz Constable in driving the restructure message to her cabinet colleagues and successfully retaining 100 per cent of recurrent salary savings from the restructure to be invested into marketing.
However opposition tourism spokesperson Ljiljanna Ravlich said the job losses were another blow for an already struggling industry.
“Tourism WA staff not only have to worry about how they will pay for huge increases in electricity and water, they now have to fight to keep their current jobs or take a redundancy,” she said.
Perth Convention Bureau chairman and former tourism minister, Ian Laurance, described the restructure as a bold move and the most significant change for the tourism industry in nearly three decades.
And Tourism Council WA chief executive Graham Moss welcomed the restructure but raised concerns over the significant reduction in event tourism funding in the forward estimates from 2012-13.
