3.1 Leadership Roles

Vision: Victoria's tourism industry structure provides cohesive, coordinated and efficient leadership.

Leadership Roles

A key success factor in Victoria's competitiveness since 1992 has been the cooperative partnership between Tourism Victoria as the government's lead tourism agency and the industry. The strength of this partnership should not be underestimated as a competitive force for continued growth.

Role of Tourism Victoria

Tourism Victoria has a pivotal role to market Victoria as a tourist destination cooperatively with the industry and to facilitate industry development.

Tourism Victoria has four goals:

Marketing Goal

Increase visitor numbers, length of stay and visitor expenditure by positioning Victoria as a distinct and competitive tourist destination.

Development Goal

Improve Victoria's tourism assets, products and services by identifying investment opportunities and facilitating development projects and programs.

Leadership Goal

Take a leadership role in the tourism industry and encourage professional standards and the development of cooperative arrangements, which maximise industry effectiveness.

Management Goal

Maximise the effective use of resources by conducting the business of Tourism Victoria in accordance with professional commercial management principles.

In maintaining an organisation capable of fulfilling the demands and expectations of government and industry, Tourism Victoria operates in three distinct areas:

The Tourism Industry

Effectively marketing the attractiveness of the State as a tourist destination co-operatively with industry partners.

The Travel Industry

Harnessing the power of the private sector wholesale, retail travel and transport industries for the benefit of Victorian tourism and the community.

The Public Sector Industry

As a government agency, Tourism Victoria has a range of obligations to the Minister for Tourism, the Government and Parliament.

In undertaking its role, Tourism Victoria's operations reflect:

• A need to resource in a manner that allows it to operate at an appropriate level in the above sectors;
  
• An emphasis on policy and strategy implementation rather than direct service provision; and
  
• The ability to intervene in the market where weaknesses are identified. Examples of this are undertaking an image (Jigsaw) campaign for the State or having an international presence by establishing and maintaining international offices.

Role of the Tourism and Travel Industry

The tourism industry provides the products and services that generate the economic and social returns for Victorians.

To complement individual business marketing, cooperative destination and product marketing initiatives are implemented with Tourism Victoria, industry organisations and the travel industry.

The travel industry provides distribution services to market Victoria's products and services internationally, nationally and to intrastate markets.

The degree of cohesiveness, cooperation and partnerships, both between and within the tourism and travel industries, is a critical success factor for sustainable growth.

Unlike major competitors, Victoria does not operate a government-owned wholesale or retail distribution system in competition with the private sector travel industry. This policy contributes to the positive cooperative partnership between Tourism Victoria and the industry.

STRATEGIES

• Maintain and build partnerships and strategic alliances between Tourism Victoria and the tourism and travel industries.

• Maintain the Tourism Victoria policy of not operating direct wholesale and retail travel operations.