republished from Tasmania’s The Mercury – Hannah Martin July 13, 2012

TASMANIA’S tourism industry is wrong to peg its hopes on Chinese travellers and our wilderness appeal, says a leading futurist.

Business forecaster Morris Miselowski has cautioned tourism officials against putting “all their eggs in one basket”.

Mr Miselowski will be the guest speaker at an industry conference in Launceston next week, organised by the Tourism Industry Council of Tasmania.

Early this year Tourism Minister Scott Bacon and the state’s peak marketing body, Tourism Tasmania, predicted China’s growing middle class would give a much-needed boost to the ailing sector.

However, Mr Miselowski said this was a concern.

“I am never comfortable when we sit here and wait for one group to be the panacea of all of our ills,” he said.

“It just can’t be. We have to market for them and do work to entice them, but we also have to work in other markets as well.”

Mr Miselowski said catering heavily for a leading audience had backfired on other destinations in the past.

“The Japanese market was a huge boost for the Gold Coast, but a lot of people did not foresee that they would come and then eventually move on to another experience,” he said.

“Let’s not put all of our eggs in one basket.”

Mr Miselowski was equally concerned about the industry’s focus on promoting its wilderness attributes.

“My concern is that I’m not seeing great growth out of it. It’s becoming the same product repackaged,” he said.

“At some point it is going to become stale.”