Increasing domestic market share will be at the top of the agenda at the Australian Regional Tourism Convention, which kicks off today in Port Stephens.
Australia Regional Tourism, network chairman, David Sheldon, told ABC news domestic travel needed to be promoted by all levels of Government, if expected to reach its tourism 2020 goal.
"If Australia wants to reach its goal of doubling the overnight expenditure by 2020 I think regional Australia and domestic travel is the key to that," Sheldon said.
"Encouraging more people to discover what's in their backyard.
"If we look at Australia we have the world in our own coastline, we just don't sell it well at home."
Sheldon blamed Australia’s airline industry for hampering growth in regional tourism, referring to the cost of domestic travel as “not inexpensive”.
"It's a very contentious issue considering when you look around the vastness of our nation and some of our airports and some of the planes that can actually land at different airports around Australia, in regional Australia I should say, and the cost,” Sheldon told the ABC.
"The cost to travel around regional Australia by air is not inexpensive."
The four-day Convention is expected to draw hundreds of tourism industry officials to Port Stephens, adding a $150,000 boost to the local economy.
