The Liquor, Hospitality and Miscellaneous Union has cast doubt on the ability of the tourism industry to comply with a tourism industry accreditation system without drastic and immediate measures to fix its labour market failure. Troy Burton, LHMU assistant national secretary, said, “The LHMU welcomes the announcement by the minister for tourism, Martin Ferguson, that the establishment of a national tourism accreditation system will be considered at a meeting of federal and state tourism ministers in March.

“This is a valuable first step. We applaud the intention but the proposed system will run the risk of drawing attention to falling service standards in tourism caused by the collapse of the industry’s labour market.

“By many measures the tourism and hospitality industry offers the least attractive jobs in the country. It has the highest proportion of low wage jobs and injury rates that are second only and practically equivalent to the construction industry. Tourism has Australia’s highest levels of staff turnover and chronic skills and labour shortages.

“The industry cannot meet meaningful service standards for tourists without addressing pay rates, occupational health and safety, provision of quality jobs, a meaningful voice for it's workforce and a national, stakeholder-wide dialogue on fixing and promoting the industry to job seekers.

“It’s time the tourism industry took a long hard look at itself. It’s suffering from a very poor image among potential job seekers and the real problem is that this poor image is based on a poor reality."