Although the Tourism 2020 strategy was soundly based, Tourism WA is not clear if its goal of doubling visitor spend to $12 billion by 2020 will be met. One set of projections suggest that there could be shortfalls of at least $800 million of the planned $6 billion increase.

A range of initiatives have been delivered, but performance across the strategy has not been consistent enough for it to deliver all the planned increases in visitor numbers. Tourism WA needs to pick up on underperformance quickly and effectively re-prioritise initiatives. Information needs to be used more effectively to identify and deliver initiatives that have the greatest impact. Better engagement and collaboration with partners could have helped deliver strategy outcomes earlier.

There is still time to achieve the strategy goal but this will be challenging given some areas that have not been delivered on, and the recent economic downturn. In the short term, Tourism WA will need to deliver priority initiatives and to make sure it is using funding for greatest impact. In the longer term, and looking to the next strategy, Tourism WA needs to learn from implementation of this strategy and consider the business model that is best suited to delivering agile and appropriate responses in a challenging commercial market.