Originally Posted by turtlemichael
Number_6, what evidence do you have that this has cost Australia billions?
http://www.tourismvictoria.com.au/st...ion2_index.htm
Lots of other reports like that. I was being very conservative at saying billions, it is actually tens of billions. Of course there are many factors that play into that.
First a few facts: tourism is AUD 50 billion per year industry, and 10% of Australia's export earnings (also >5% of GDP, but the export earnings are more important considering Australia's trade situation). In this context, 1 billion per year is 2% of the total.
You'll have to do your own research for economic impact of US tourism and factors throttling it as I don't know what is confidential and what is public domain. Plus I don't really have a particular interest in this topic; however I am quite certain that the number is over 10 billion in a 10 year period, and most of that is directly attributable to QF being successful at keeping out competition and preventing marketing arrangements to promote tourism. For example there is a huge market for discounted J seats for cruise pax, and QF has simply discouraged this market.
In any case, this is pretty off topic for this thread (which is supposed to be about Virgin), so please start a new thread if you want to continue this topic.