Future Tourism Research

About CRCs

The Future Tourism CRC is a national consortium of universities and industry partners that are proposing the establishment of a national Cooperative Research Centre (CRC) to re-imagine a sustainable and regenerative tourism, hospitality and events future for Australia.

The CRC application process involves framing industry challenges and research programs over 7-10 years to address longer-term multi-sectoral issues. With the opening up of our borders, it is timely to review the future of Australia’s tourism, hospitality and events sector.

The CRC model allows for industry contributions to leverage university and commonwealth funding that is deployed directly on the research program and capability development for the sector. This includes the translation of research into policy and practice.

The challenge for tourism,

hospitality and events in Australia

There are significant gaps in tourism industry data, insights, and structures:

DEMAND - regional visitor activity, preferences & location
&
SUPPLY - business/operators, workforce, destinations, experiences and sustainability practices.

This inhibits decision making, strategy and prevents investment in key sectors...

and causes under-investment / over-investment in some sectors, locations, destinations and experiences.

The results?

Sectors, regions, destinations miss investment opportunity

We need to improve tourism data collection to enable industry planning for workforce development, future markets, climate sustainability and regenerative tourism.

Moreover, the Australian Government has set targets for carbon emission reduction and nature recovery by 2030. The question arises: How can we achieve the expected long-term growth in the industry AND help meet these environmental sustainability targets?

We need to improve tourism data collection to enable industry planning for workforce development, future markets, climate sustainability, and regenerative tourism.

Our research programs to reinvigorate
THE industries in Australia

The CRC will run five interconnected research programs aiming to reinvigorate THE sector for Australia that are resilient, innovative, sustainable, and capable.

The proposed research programs reflect the need for a national approach that delivers

at the destination level and understands:

the many challenges that affect both gateway cities and regional areas reliant on tourism;
the challenge in reducing the impacts of seasonality and disruptive events on the viability of tourism businesses; and
the importance of various sectors involved in visitor economy beyond leisure travel, including business travel, events and international student travel.

Proposed research programs

data futures

regenerative futures

competitive futures

The opportunity

For industry:

Voice issues and concerns;
Be part of a community of practice;
Be part of the solution to challenges affecting tourism, hospitality and events sector; and
Have access to knowledge and resources that help develop resilient and successful business.

For government:

Establish long-term partnerships that help drive regional development;
Tackle problems facing tourism, gateway cities and regional development collaboratively;
Have access to resources to develop and implement solutions that are world-leading.

For communities:

Participate in developing tourism that will contribute to community sustainability and well- being;
Participate in the future of tourism in your community;
Create learning and collaborative connections with other regional communities.

CRC Expected Outcomes

Regenerative sustainable tourism framewo

Regional tourism data is critical for the Queensland tourism industry’s understanding of its market, business profile and future investment opportunities. For too long we have had significant gaps in the tourism data available to regions and business. We see great value in the proposed collaboration of Localis with the Future Tourism CRC to develop further the tourism industry’s data insights

Mark Olsen - CEO of Tourism Tropical North Queensland (TTNQ)

Tiwi Designs Art Centre, Tiwi Islands