AAP

The Australian tourism and hospitality sector has weathered the recent global economic storm and come out the other side in growth mode, a new report shows.
The industry was benefitting from high hotel occupancy rates and emerging Chinese and Indian tourist markets, according to the Hospitality Report 2015 published by business advisory and research firm Deloitte.
"Occupancies had been at a record high in 2007 when the financial crisis hit," said Rutger Smits, national head of tourism, hospitality and leisure at Deliotte.
"We had a fairly modest setback and right now we're back at a situation where most of the key cities are running absolute record occupancy levels,"

According to Mr Smits, Australian tourism had been through a slump but already was "back in growth mode".
China and India were the new, key hospitality markets and by 2015 were projected to see absolute growth greater than the UK, France or Japan.
Chinese tour groups, in particular, are making up some of the visitor numbers lost due to a decline in Japanese tourists to Australia.

"Initially they used to be Chinese bus tourists, shepherded around, (but) they will increasingly become more independent travellers with more money to spend," said Mr Smits.
But Mr Smits also noted the Australian dollar wasn't very "favourable" to local operators at the moment.
The high dollar was encouraging domestic tourists to go overseas because it was cheaper, while international tourists were viewing Australia as an expensive destination.
He also added that the family holiday was under pressure from rising interest rates, rising mortgages and energy prices.

Source: The Age

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The article is based on a report in which findings state that the tourism and hospitality sector has rebounded from the global financial crisis particularly well, with hotel occupancies at an all time high since the financial crisis hit in 2007. The rise in Australia dollar was partly to blame as many tourists from overseas now saw Australia as a classy expensive tourist destination. This source of tourism was largely from china.
It is wonderful that the report shows the tourism and hospitality sector is back in full swing creating revenue again. The economic prosperity is vital to tourism and hospitality as it is a luxury for most people.