Indigenous Land Corporation gpo box 652 Adelaide sa 5001

Indigenous Employment and Training in 2013–14

The ILC’s tourism businesses at Ayers Rock Resort, Mossman Gorge Centre and Home Valley Station offer Indigenous traineeships in hospitality and tourism resulting in employment at one of the properties or with an employment partner. As at June 30, 2014, Voyages employed 337 Indigenous people including 104 trainees.

The Indigenous Training-to-Employment Programme is creating a highly skilled Indigenous workforce for the hospitality and tourism industry. The National Indigenous Training Academy, established at Yulara in 2011, takes regular intakes of trainees and training is provided by William Angliss Institute.

Training is enterprise-based and supported by both on and off-the-job support workers. Trainees completing the programme receive a Certificate II or Certificate III qualification. Thirty-four trainees graduated from the Academy in 2013–14.

The academy works closely with remote schools to provide a work experience and work exposure programmes for Indigenous school students interested in undertaking a traineeship at Ayers Rock Resort.

The Mossman Gorge Centre completed its second successful year of operation and 89% of the Centre’s staff are Indigenous. Home Valley Station had an Indigenous workforce of 13 at the end of 2013–14, including nine trainees. Linkages between Ayers Rock Resort, Mossman Gorge Centre and Home Valley Station continue to grow with traineeships structured around placements between Ayers Rock Resort and the two other properties to meet individual training requirements and property business requirements.

Looking forward

The tourism market in Australia, particularly in the inbound leisure segment, has shown signs of recovery during the second half of the 2013–14 year and this trend is expected to continue and strengthen during 2014–15.

Following the loss of airline seat capacity to Ayers Rock in 2012, it is pleasing to see the return of capacity in late 2013–14 with Jetstar’s introduction of a direct service from Melbourne four times a week together with an increase in the frequency of its Sydney service from four times a week to a daily service. Virgin Australia has also responded to increasing demand for the destination by scheduling larger planes which has contributed to the increase in capacity to the destination.

Voyages has completed design and planning for the upgrade of Emu Walk Apartments, ARR’s serviced apartment offering. Refurbishment work is scheduled to be completed in the summer of 2014–15 and will significantly improve the guest experience.

Mossman Gorge Centre has developed a new Dreamtime Walks tour departing from Port Douglas and a similar tour departing from Cairns is being developed. This will help increase visitation to the centre by providing access to visitors without independent transportation.

Significant upgrades of facilities at Home Valley Station were completed during the year, including power supply, water and sewage infrastructure. Sales and marketing initiatives have seen an increase in occupancy during the 2014 season.

Joint marketing campaigns with the airlines, along with Voyages own sales and marketing initiatives, is expected to support growth in both domestic and international business and absorb the additional capacity. This is expected to see a significant increase in occupancy at Ayers Rock Resort in 2014–15.