Brand Australia needs rebuild, says Sydney Airport CEO Geoff Culbert

Sydney Airport CEO Geoff Culbert has called for a rebuild of ‘brand Australia’ to address a dramatic imbalance in outbound and inbound travellers.

Sydney Airport CEO Geoff Culbert has called for a rebuild of “brand Australia” to address a dramatic imbalance in outbound and inbound travellers.

Speaking at the airport’s second jobs fair on Wednesday, Mr Culbert said the difference between short term international arrivals and those heading out of Australia was as much as 60 per cent.

He said that could be attributed to several factors including a perception Australia remained closed.

“Australia is still a bucket list destination for people around the world but it’s a long flight and people tend to want to visit here when they’ve got the ability to do so without any concerns around Covid-19,” Mr Culbert said.

“I think what we’re seeing at the moment is people overseas are preferring short haul destinations.”

In addition, Mr Culbert said Australia’s hard border policy over the past two years had “not been helpful” towards re-attracting overseas visitors with many unaware the country was open.

“It will take time to change that perception. We also have to work on our visa processing times because we need to make sure it’s as easy as possible for people to get visas to come down and visit Australia,” he said.

“We’ve got work to do to rebuild brand Australia and to make it as easy as possible for people to get down here. but I know that is a focus of the government, it’s a focus of Tourism Australia and it’s also a focus of Destination NSW.”

Bureau of Statistics data showed 325,680 people arrived from overseas for a short term visit in July. In contrast twice as many Australians left for a holiday or trip abroad in the month, at 662,480.

Australian Tourism Export Council managing director Peter Shelley said it was definitely a case of “too many out and not enough in”.

“Australian tourism now faces the tough reality that while we love to trot the globe, that enthusiasm is not being equalled by inbound visitor numbers,” Mr Shelley said.

“We need to ensure energy is focused on rebuilding Australia’s decimated $45bn tourism export sector in order to attract high-spending international visitors.”

A new campaign to sell Australia to key markets around the world was expected to be unveiled by Tourism Australia before the end of the year.

Mr Culbert said Sydney Airport was well on track to handle more traffic with Wednesday’s jobs fair aiming to fill vacancies across all areas of the gateway.

He said the frustration experienced by many passengers faced with huge queues and long waits at the airport was not something they wanted to continue.

“I think the travelling public has expectations and those expectations are completely reasonable and the industry as a whole wants to get back to where we were pre-Covid,” said Mr Culbert said.

“Passengers as a whole have been really good, really patient and we’ve gotten better in the way we manage queues.”

Sydney Airport was also borrowing some ideas from Gatwick Airport in London with the two gateways now owned by the same consortium, led by Global Infrastructure Partners.

Jobseekers queue at Qantas stall during Sydney Airport jobs fair on Wednesday. Picture: Supplied

Mr Culbert said that had led to valuable information-sharing about such airport issues as security.

“Gatwick have done a lot of work on that historically and we’ve spent a lot of time on that over the last six months understanding their key lessons,” he said.

“It’s relying on technology but it also relies on daily operational excellence in the way you configure your security lanes, the way you configure security queues to make sure you're getting maximum throughput without compromising safety.”

New security equipment at Sydney Airport was also aimed at increasing the rate at which passengers were screened and cleared to travel.

The CT hand luggage scanners recently installed in T3 meant passengers no longer had to remove laptops and aerosols from bags, making the process a little faster.

Originally published as Brand Australia needs rebuild, says Sydney Airport CEO Geoff Culbert