Li Na serves Australia a tourism Grand Slam

Thanks, great insight Bob. I had no idea the Oz Open was that close to leaving Melbourne. Australia can be the best of the best in so many areas, we just need to make that our aim (Li Na serves Australia a tourism Grand Slam, January 25).

Politicians love giving money to sport - because they love the photo ops, and getting the best seats (Li Na serves Australia a tourism Grand Slam, January 25).
I do not believe that any taxpayer money spent on sport in Australia has been worthwhile. The Grand Prix albatross in Melbourne should give the lie to the myth of a sports based economy.
Sport, tourism, recreational education - all these can and will be turned off quickly in a downturn. A smarter country like New Zealand doesn't try to base its future on these.

Interesting article however the parity in the pay cheques for men vs women should not have been based on "sexism" but a better analysis of what one contributes to the tournament vs the other (Li Na serves Australia a tourism Grand Slam, January 25). Clearly this year has proven that the men work far harder for their money and the men's game, at least from a technical perspective, is considerably more interesting than the women. The ridculous allowance of moaning and grunting by either sex should be stopped completely. As for the disgraceful non-sporting behaviour of Azarenka - she should have been DQ'd - end of story.

The success of the Australian Open shows great strategic thinking on the part of Tennis as well as the givernments who supported this investment. Melbourne truly is a sports mecca however, the benefits has not been confined to Victoria (Li Na serves Australia a tourism Grand Slam, January 25). The success of the Open has been leveraged further and the significant espertise has been used to create other succesful lead-in events such as the Brisbane International in early January.
Tennis is a world sport that now appeals equally to male and female markets of all ages, capabilities and socio-economic groups. The spin off beneifits of owning such a vakuable franchise as the Australian Open Grand Slam are immense.
The Australian Open is simply the best thing we have the pleasure of watching on TV all year in my opinion.

When 60 Million Chinese can watch a Man United Football Match, our perspective of how significant an event like the Aussie Open Final may be squewed by the smallness of our population. I think Robert may be on the money (Li Na serves Australia a tourism Grand Slam, January 25).
Paul, the New Zealanders picked the Rugby World Cup as an entre to the sports marketing world, however it was somewhat a flop.

You are telling us how much has been spent to make the international tennis stars more comfortable in Melbourne and that double the amount will be spent within the next few years, but you fail to mention the net return for taxpayers for hosting this event (Li Na serves Australia a tourism Grand Slam, January 25).
Nice of Tennis Australia chief Steve Wood to believe that this event is "cemented" until 2036 - a quarter decade is a long, long time. Does he really believe that China will retreat so easily?
Like Paul, I believe that the Australian government wastes far too much on sport, there are plenty more important issues facing the Australian community than sport. The number of Australians living below the poverty line comes to mind, so does the state of our hospital system, roads and infrastructure, etc, etc.

A small minority of people have a chip on their shoulder about sport (Li Na serves Australia a tourism Grand Slam, January 25). Most of my friends and colleages love the Australian Open and the Grand Prix and embrace them enthusiastically. I feel proud to be an Australian with the Sporting Capital of the World at our doorstep.One must also remember the huge Tourism boost both these events give to Melbourne and Australia....hard to gauge but it definitely puts "Down Under" on the world tourist list.

On the off chance that Paul Perry's comment above wasn't a brilliant bit of satire which I've completely missed, I suggest he look up how much the NZ government subsidesed the Hobbit movies......(Li Na serves Australia a tourism Grand Slam, January 25.)

Alan Mai, It's hard to imagine that people who are aware of international tennis, and international motor racing, are not aware of Australia as a tourism destination (Li Na serves Australia a tourism Grand Slam, January 25).
These events don't do anything for boosting tourism numbers overall.

Link to New York times article mentioned in article http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/16/sports/tennis/16iht-tennis16.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0 (Li Na serves Australia a tourism Grand Slam, January 25.)

I'm at least pleased to announce that as I don't live in Victoria I did not have to pay for this abomination (Li Na serves Australia a tourism Grand Slam, January 25).

Unfortunately most of the sport based subsidy comments are emotional (Li Na serves Australia a tourism Grand Slam, January 25). I have yet to see an economic analysis which shows projected future cash flows versus taxpayer investment to show that sporting events are a good investment. I do not mean to reduce the analysis to such events to be clinical only, but at least an economic analysis would enable a more informed decision to be made where there would be full disclosure of the projected financials which could be used to balance the prestige associated with hosting such events.

This venture clearly highlights the Australian character. Play, with nothing gained for all of that effort (Li Na serves Australia a tourism Grand Slam, January 25). Meanwhile factories are closing,and the workforce has no where to go except tv sets imported from china. The chinese obviously know the value of work and of actually making something. The australians prefer to spend their time watching people chase balls.One wonders whose economy is going to triumph.

Many of the comments to this article demonstrate that most Australians simply do not understand the tourism industry and its importance to the Australian economy (Li Na serves Australia a tourism Grand Slam, January 25).
From the ABS "In 2009–10, the contribution of tourism to Australia’s gross domestic product was estimated to be 2.6%, with tourism employing just over half a million people. In the same year, international visitors consumed almost $23 billion worth of goods and services produced by the Australian economy.". That's 3 times as many employed than by mining.
Just because you don't see it and read about it every day and their isn't an industry body or union pushing their barrow in the media, doesn't mean that your standard of living isn't benefited by its existence.

How can the Australian Open be transferred to another country? This idea is nonsensical. Can the US, French or British open be transferred to another country? Of course not. Do those countries also worry about this happening? (Li Na serves Australia a tourism Grand Slam, January 25.)
If another country wants to set up a tournament and pay players double what is available in Australia then so be it. The huge sums of money will attract the best players, and no doubt some day a Chinese city will do just that.
However, rebranding the Australian Open as some sort of Asian sporting event is a nonsense. It will always be what it has always been - the top tennis tournament in Australia. Top players will come here to compete if the money is high enough and the facilities are top class.
If there has been public money provided for this tournament then this should stop. It is a totally inappropriate use of such funds.
Prior to the 1980s Australia had very little international tourism and the economy did just fine. Tourism was promoted by the Hawke government because they were unable to deal with the inflexible industrial relations system. Tourism has drawn resources, labour and funds into a sector that adds little to our capacity for actually producing goods and being internationally. Rather, by attracting international tourists the inflow of money raises the value of the AUD and makes our manufacturing and rural/mining sectors less competitive and makes it harder for them to obtain workers, while de-skilling our workforce. The same negative impact also flows from the massive sale of our real estate and many businesses - the vast capital inflows simply distort our economy and make us uncompetitive.
Tourism is OK for third world countries to get a leg up and earn some foreign exchange. It, together with the financialisation of the economy are ultimately devastatingly negative for an industrial country - Spain and SE England are examples of that.

It is beyond my understanding how all of the frenzied activity taking place is of benefit in any financial sense. At the end of all and every event,there is nothing to show for it.If on the other hand all of the energy spent was to be used in road building,the growing of food,the replacing of damaged infrastructure,or any other activity which produces something tangible,then australia,or other countries would be very wealthy in deed (Li Na serves Australia a tourism Grand Slam, January 25).