ATAP – More than an Accreditation Program, a Personal Trainer for Your Business

Tourism is one of the largest industries in Victoria, employing approximately 185,000 people and contributing over $15 billion to the State economy. It is increasingly important that Victoria strives for an industry that is innovative, profitable and sustainable.
 
The Victorian Government provides substantial support to the tourism industry, not only generating interest internationally by promoting the state’s major events and culinary credentials, but providing resources to the industry to ensure quality visitor experiences. The Australian Tourism Accreditation Program (ATAP) is a business development program founded on a set of nationally recognised industry standards that provides a model for better business practice. The program assists businesses in establishing effective business plans, customer service policies, risk management strategies and environmental standards that will enhance the prospect of reaching their desired goals and aid in providing a positive visitor experience.
 
As a business development program, ATAP not only sets standards against which businesses can benchmark, it also enables operators to set goals and to work towards the achievement of those goals. Furthermore, it provides the tools required to develop the plans, systems and processes to ensure that goals are realised. Diane Sloan, former owner of Bendigo Airport Services explains how being an accredited business assisted her in providing a quality tourism product:

“Being accredited is advantageous in all facets of business. Across all areas, standards are raised with an awareness of expectations that are set by the Accreditation body. Working through the sections of the accreditation process we were able to identify our weaknesses, work on what our standards were to be and have all staff working together so our standards were in unison and customer expectations were met.

I also found other business owners knew the work we’d put in to be accredited and held us in high esteem. As I thrived on pushing our business reputation to higher and higher levels, accreditation was certainly a plus factor when entering awards.”

For further information on ATAP visit – http://www.atap.net.au/

Ian Nicolson
Executive Officer
Australian Tourism Accreditation Program