The RBA’s decision to maintain a low and stable cash rate is good news for the Australian tourism industry, the Tourism & Transport Forum Australia (TTF) CEO Margy Osmond said today.

“Today’s cash rate decision directly supports domestic tourism by continuing to provide Australians’ with a large amount of discretionary spending power,” Ms Osmond said.

“With historically low interest rates on your mortgage or debt repayments, there’s greater opportunity to take a holiday.

“The Reserve Bank is giving Aussies confidence to spend more by continuing to demonstrate that it will do whatever it can to promote economic growth in Australia.

“The low cash rate can also put downward pressure on the Aussie dollar, making it more attractive for visitors to come to Australia.

“A sustained lower Aussie dollar can be great news for export industries such as tourism,” she said.

Ms Osmond said the release of other key economic data – the international trade and retail spend estimates for June – confirmed the importance of tourism to the wider national economy.

“Last financial year Australians sold $4.7 billion more tourism services to international visitors than we spent travelling internationally,” Ms Osmond said.

“Today’s retail figures also show that spending is growing at around five per cent, which is lower than the long-term average, but was still worth $286 billion to the economy.

“A significant component of this spending was driven by tourists, who make up around one-tenth of total retail purchases.

“This further confirms the importance of the tourism industry to the Australian economy,” she said.