Tourism

While visitors are in Australia, they are covered by Australia's consumer protection laws, which require all businesses to treat consumers fairly.
These obligations include specific requirements and compliance initiatives targeted to tourism, notably:

• the Tourist Consumer Protection Working Group targets tourism industry compliance with obligations under Australia's laws to treat visitors fairly.
• the China Approved Destination Status (ADS) scheme is a bilateral arrangement between the Chinese and Australian Governments, under which approved inbound tour operators can provide leisure group travel for Chinese tourists.

There are also obligations in relation to general business compliance requirements.

Compliance information for the tourism industry in Australia

The Australian Government publication A fair go for tourists: Compliance information for the tourism industry in Australia [PDF, 185KB] provides information on:

• fair trading requirements and other obligations whichtourism businesses must meet under Australian laws and regulations
• contact information forrelevant governmentagencies in Australia. Use these contacts if you have queries oncompliance obligations, or if you wish to pass on information about suspected breaches.

Accreditation

The Australian Government is leading the development of a National Tourism Accreditation Framework that will help to ensure a quality customer experience for tourists and consumer choice of quality accredited tourism operators.

To contact the Department for more information about tourism compliance obligations via e-mail, please refer to the Contact Us  page for further assistance.