New data dashboard: Tracking tourism growth

Today, the Albanese Labor Government has launched a new data dashboard that measures the progress of Australia’s tourism industry across a range of economic, environmental, social and institutional indicators.

Our Government has always understood the value of tourism to our regions and communities across Australia, and the new LIVE Framework (Longitudinal Indicators for the Visitor Economy) will enable us to quantify this contribution for the first time.

The Framework is an interactive, user-friendly tool which gives businesses, organisations and governments access to timely and accurate information, enabling them to make earlier and better-informed commercial and program decisions.

While we’ve long measured tourism benefits in visitor numbers, spend and employment, the Framework goes beyond purely economic metrics to understand Australia’s visitor economy, giving researchers, industry, experts, and governments the ability to more accurately track and measure the overall health, contribution and sustainable growth of our tourism and travel sector, and make better decisions.

There are 21 indicators in the initial release of the Framework, providing insights on a vast array of topics such as international flight capacity into Australia, perceptions of Australia as an accessible travel destination, and tourism related greenhouse gas emissions in comparison to other countries.

The need for better and broader indicators is a key action outlined in the THRIVE 2030 national strategy for the tourism and travel industry.

I encourage everyone involved within the tourism industry to test out the new LIVE Framework dashboard and start utilising the insights available.

You can view the LIVE Framework on the Tourism Research Australia website.