Territory tourism’s battle to address 70-30 passenger imbalance

The Northern Territory is competing for tourists against the rest of the world - and the struggle is real.

Levelling the Northern Territory’s travel market remains a crucial priority for airport operator Airport Development Group.

ADG chief executive Tony Edmondstone outlined the challenges at the recent launch of Airnorth’s Alice Springs-Cairns route.

ADG operates Darwin, Alice Springs and Tennant Creek airports and is in the market for Uluru airport, which is being sold.

And to value add the multimillion-dollar investments ADG has made in the Territory’s airports, as well as recoup the purchase costs, the Territory’s tourism market needs a reset.

“If you think about the Territory we’re 70 per cent (of flights) going away and coming back and 30 per cent is full of tourists coming in,” Mr Edmonstone said.

Tony Edmondstone

“We have to collectively rebalance that to 50-50. To do that we need better product, we need more open product we need to enhance what there is for people to do.

“When that happens, we’ll fill up the seats and when you fill up the seats the prices will come down.”

Although he didn’t say it, a lack of infrastructure spending in what were once the Territory’s two key tourism spots - Kakadu and Uluru national parks - has dwindled in recent years.

In addition, analysts have observed a trend away from adventure tourism over recent years, in favour of city break urban tourism that also requires product to attract people to it.

Mr Edmondstone said distance and product were also factors in attracting arrivals.

“Our competing markets are Fiji, Hawaii, Noumea and Bali,” he said, responding to a question about the quality of the NT’s tourism product.

“That’s who we’re competing against and we need to fight tooth and nail to get them here.

Air North chief executive Daniel Bowden. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

“We have just got to continue to invest in product. What we’re seeing today is announcements around connectivity and connectivities are fantastic. But we also need to invest in product.”

The attraction challenge is made harder in the Top End by the four-and-a-half hour travel time.

“The difficulties with the top with a four-and-a-half hour sector is we might have storms today and there may be delays and there’s a risk the aircraft comes out of the network,” he said.

“That’s an aircraft that’s probably going to run between Sydney and Melbourne later on today. So it’s hard to attract the airlines to come. When they do though we need to fill up the seats.”

Launching the Alice Springs-Cairns route, Airnorth chief executive Daniel Bowden and Tourism Central Australia’s Danial Rochford joined the dots on the importance of that February 3 announcement.

“It’s an essential service between Alice Springs and Cairns, and joins the rock through to the reef,” Daniel Bowden said.

Tourism Central Australia chief executive Danial Rochford. Picture: Pema Tamang Pakhrin

“We feel we’ll be supporting a great tourism boost to the region and also tapping into a another workforce and strengthening the red centre with mining really kicking on down that way.”

By way of example, he said Airnorth’s Perth-Alice Springs route had moved about 12,000 passengers over 12-months and had delivered direct benefits to Tennant Creek.

“The route’s been better than expected,” he said.

“We’ve run at about 65 per cent load factor, which for a starting route in the Northern Territory is quite strong.

“We’ve seen over 12,000 passengers use that service already and that’s also helped build the centre-run by default, so we’ve seen a 180 per cent increase in the number of passengers flying from Alice Springs to Tennant Creek.

“It’s helped facilitate mining activity in the region as they draw on that technical expertise out of Western Australia.”

Mr Rochford highlighted the Alice Springs-Cairn’s route’s international potential.

“This service connects us to the world through this international gateway of Cairns,” he said.

“One stop to Alice Springs and Central Australia through Asian ports from Japan and the like. “This is going to be a huge boost for our regional economy.”

The Alice Springs-Cairns route opens on April 14 and will be serviced by Embraer 190s.

Originally published as Territory tourism’s battle to address 70-30 passenger imbalance