Tourism Australia to double its employment of Indigenous staff by end of next year as part of its new Reconciliation Action Plan

Key quotes

“As the national tourism agency, Tourism Australia is committed to playing a leading role in the ongoing reconciliation process between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians” Frances-Anne Keeler, Tourism Australia

“An important part of our country’s story-telling is sharing one of the world’s most ancient living cultures, and we will continue to engage with Indigenous peoples, staff and partners to increase our promotion of Indigenous experiences in our campaigns, programs and activities” Frances-Anne Keeler, Tourism Australia

Sydney, Australia, 2014-2-5 — /travelprnews.com/ — Tourism Australia has set itself an ambitious goal to double its employment of Indigenous staff by the end of next year as part of its new Reconciliation Action Plan (RAP), launched this week.

The employment target, together with a number of other longer-term strategies contained within the two-year plan, has resulted in Tourism Australia becoming the first Commonwealth Government agency to meet new RAP ‘stretch’ levels targets set by Reconciliation Australia.

Tourism Australia Acting Managing Director, Frances-Anne Keeler, said that setting the employment target – nearly double the Australian Government’s public sector commitment of 2.6 per cent – further strengthened the agency’s commitment to ‘closing the gap’.

“As the national tourism agency, Tourism Australia is committed to playing a leading role in the ongoing reconciliation process between Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australians.

“An important part of our country’s story-telling is sharing one of the world’s most ancient living cultures, and we will continue to engage with Indigenous peoples, staff and partners to increase our promotion of Indigenous experiences in our campaigns, programs and activities,” Ms Keeler said.

The employment target is one of a number of ‘stretch goals’ set out in Tourism Australia’s updated RAP. Other longer-term strategies with defined targets and goals, include:

• Increasing the number of Indigenous suppliers used by Tourism Australia;
• Increasing the promotion of Indigenous tourism experiences in all Tourism Australia campaigns;
• Continuing to engage with Indigenous tourism operators to promote high quality Indigenous tourism experiences through the Indigenous Tourism Champions program.

The renewed RAP covers the period 2014 to 2016 and builds upon Tourism Australia’s inaugural RAP launched in 2010, which included promoting Indigenous tourism through the successful Indigenous Tourism Champions Program – a partnership with Indigenous Business Australia that engages with high quality Indigenous tourism operators to promote their experiences internationally and provide mentoring experiences for business development.

Tourism Australia’s previous RAP also delivered a new image gallery of Indigenous tourism experiences, with 5,000 images downloaded by industry in the past 12 months, and when an Indigenous image album was shared on Facebook, it received over 750,000 ‘likes’ in the first 24 hours.

Tourism Australia’s Reconciliation Action Plan 2014-16 is available on Tourism Australia’s corporate website, www.tourism.australia.com.

Contacts for this article

Tourism Australia
Leo Seaton
Media Relations Manager
+61 2 9361 1363
Email Address

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