Business peak body urges $60 departure fee be used to fund tourism

A $60 fee slapped on anyone leaving Australia, including citizens and permanent residents, could be used to help fund the country’s booming tourism industry, a peak body has claimed, as it urges for a major rethink of the sector.

The Australian Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Tuesday called for a longer-term strategic vision for Australia’s tourism industry, with visitor expenditure tipped to exceed the government's $230bn target well before 2030.

As part of its From THRIVE 2030 to the Next National Strategy, ACCI is urging for an investigation into whether the existing Passenger Movement Charge could be used in part or in full to create a dedicated tourism funding stream.

The fee, which was increased as part of the 2026-27 budget from $50 to $60, is levied on all passengers departing Australia by sea or by air, including citizens, permanent residents, foreign tourists and foreign students.

Under the proposal, that revenue could be reinvested into tourism infrastructure in regions where demand outstrips capacity, as well as in conservation, workforce programs, reducing tourism pressure, and border and biosecurity.

ACCI Australian Chamber tourism executive chair John Hart the fee was always meant to be “self-fulfilling”, ensuring the experience visitors had in Australia was one that would make them want to come back, raising revenue.

However, an additional $90m the increase is expected to make in the first six months from January 1 would be “more than enough” for improvements at the border and “to make sure the money’s coming in into the future”.

“If we spend the Passenger Movement Charge collection, or even the increase … on things like regional tourism and developing regional product, on developing the workforce, on business, a business event strategy, all of those things help to bolster tourism success into the future,” Mr Hart said.

“If we’re going to continue to get the sort of revenue growth that we have had through the Passenger Movement Charge collection … we need to make sure we’re an attractive destination, we’re providing the types of services that our visitors expect, so that they return and spend more money in Australia.”In its report, ACCI found visitor expenditure had reached $214bn in 2024 – including long-stay international students – putting the country well in-front of its target of $230bn in spend by 2030 with “additional interventions”.

As a result, ACCI said that target should be ramped up to between $280-$300bn by 2035 – an amount it was projected to be at in 2026 prior to the Covid pandemic.

“Tourism rebounded from the Covid pandemic faster and stronger than expected, which presents an opportunity to create a more ambitious national tourism strategy that supports the next phase of growth,” Mr Hart said.

Critical to that increase was an investment in regional development and in the sector’s workforce, Mr Hart said.

“Regional development and whatever we need to do to get our visitors dispersing into the regions, making sure that the connecting infrastructure exists, making sure the road infrastructure is right, making sure that there is tourist infrastructure in those regions – If we get back to those pre-Covid growth numbers without going that, the experience in the regions isn’t going to be up to scratch,” he said.

“We’ve had a very difficult time rebuilding our workforce, and we promote ourselves necessarily as a high-end destination … but they have expectations in terms of

quality of service that we’re not going to be able to deliver unless we very carefully focus on getting more people into the workforce with higher levels of skill.”

In total, ACCI made seven recommendations for the sector.

Those include a “multi-dimensional objective framework” for the tourism sector, which would include an extension of strategic timelines to as late 2045, as well targets around visitor spend, employment, and competitiveness.

Other proposals included the development of a national tourism workforce strategy for 2026-35, for reform of the national governance architecture, and establishment of a regional delivery architecture to drive visits.