FAQs

1. There are a number of tourism bodies that do research, consult and provide similar support – how will the CRC not duplicate with these? What will be unique about the CRC from others like Tourism Research Australia?

 

The TRA and similar entities generally provide macroeconomic data, industry-level snapshots, board recommendations and general trackers. 

 

The CRC is different in four main ways.:

• First, the research is driven by industry demand and challenges therefore it provides empirical and specific data research, and/or recommendations to address specific high-value industry challenges and questions. 

• Second, the program of research in CRC may also consists of high-level snapshots, however they are generally specific to an industry, a category, and sometimes a brand. 

• Third, the research programs in the CRC may involve and be supported by a range of stakeholders to generate novel R&D as well as innovations. For instance, a project can be supported by a technology partner (e.g., CISCO or a start-up) who are co-creating a product or solution with the industry for the specific industry challenge or question. 

• Fourth, the CRC is a consortium of leading researchers, industry experts, and industry partners across the nation that are recognised to be subject matter experts on the specific research questions or problems.

• The CRC team have consulted with Tourism Australia regarding our research program and how it will add significant value above and beyond the current offerings.

 

The CRC has at its disposal a multi-disciplinary team of researchers from across the partner universities, with expertise across economics, engineering, finance, future of work, geography, management, marketing, psychology, regional development, spatial sciences, sustainability as well as tourism, hospitality and events. No current tourism body has this level of expertise. 

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2. The tiers of funding to become a CRC member may be too high for us even at tier 3 of $10k to $20k, so how can we participate? 

 

To leverage Commonwealth funding as part of the CRC program, our bid needs to match the funds requested from the Australian Government – the Australian Government will pay 50% of the research program’s costs. The university partners will contribute significant funds and in-kind support over the lifetime of the CRC but unfortunately these funds are not included in the Commonwealth’s calculation of matched funding. 

 

We recognise that smaller businesses have limited resources to support research and yet still need to benefit from the outcomes. The CRC has ways of bringing in smaller organisations in consortia, which may be at the destination level or the sector level. These consortia would nominate a representative to engage with the CRC, thus reducing both the financial and time burden for smaller businesses. 

 

Becoming a CRC member allows the member to access the research findings, innovation, and most importantly, research capability across the whole CRC instead of a single research project. The distribution of the funding and capability is determined by nominated board members of the CRC, however the CRC is designed to address business challenges and problems shared by a majority of CRC members. 

 

 

3. What do we as a business get back from this that we don’t get from existing agencies and independent consultants?

 

Question 2 outlines what the CRC offers in addition to the existing tourism research infrastructure. Tourism businesses may well want to employ a consultant to work on a probles unique to their organisation as the CRC will not conduct any projects focused on just one business’s needs. 

 

The CRC will commission a range of mid and long-term projects that will underpin sustainable development for all tourism, hospitality and events businesses in Australia. CRC partners’ contributions will combine to facilitate this research and by joining the CRC, tourism businesses will have access to all of this research and be able to shape the research program to meet their needs. 

 

4. What are some examples of solutions to problems you can provide from your research? 

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• Granular visitor tracker by combining wireless analytics, telecommunication data, financial transaction data, and visitor data