The traveller trumps the cow

Tourism has its advantages over dairying. Photo / Mark Mitchell

It's time for the tourist bus to overtake the dairy tanker.

Dairying has been bringing in about $13.7 billion annually (and dropping), while the tourism industry is at around $10.3 billion - and rising.

Our economy has had a good ride on the back of the cow, but as the happy days for dairy draw to an end, we need to get behind the tourism industry - it's time to hitch our wagon to the modern traveller.

And if you think the recent fall in milk prices is grim for farmers, wait until some bright spark figures out how to make milk in an overseas laboratory. (Sound far fetched? A New York-based company made a steak in a laboratory earlier this year. Less shipping cost, less environmental damage and less botulism.)

Tourism already employs more people than dairying (94,100 to 37,000) with more jobs coming every day. In the 12 months leading up to the end of June, holiday arrivals rose 10 per cent to a record 2.99 million.

Tourism has other advantages over dairying. The travel industry benefits when we take care of our environment, while the dairy industry is built upon polluting our waterways. Visitors come here to see pristine nature. And it helps our high-end exporters - a visitor who enjoys their stay here will look for our wines when they're back at home.

So it's time to change the way we see ourselves. Where once we were the Garden of the Empire - sending produce back to Blighty - and, later, China's factory farm, our status as a desirable destination is now our prime economic asset. It needs to be well managed.