It was a busy agenda for the final board meeting of AFTA’s financial year, with the ongoing evolution of the peak industry body including the update of the Constitution and the focus on ongoing advocacy to ensure the Travel Sector’s success.

The Board noted the strong improvement in AFTA’s financial position with continued renewals and new businesses and the overwhelming positive feedback in relation to the constitutional change particularly the objectives and new voting structures. This important project will be completed over the next month with a full vote of the members to occur as part of this year’s AGM.

The AGM will be held on 21 June in Sydney.

AFTA has made a number of important submissions and representations recently including to the ACCC, AusTrade and Aviation White Paper, Parliamentary Review of Tourism and the upcoming Federal Budget.

The success of the ATAS Complaint Management system was also discussed. From 1 December 2022 to 28 February 2023, a total of 227 complaints were lodged, 64% of which were in relation to refunds. The majority of complaints were referred back to the Business as the complainant had failed to raise their issue formally.

AFTA CEO Dean Long also briefed the Board on the next steps and key insights from the Women in Travel Summit in Sydney on March 13 which will form the basis of AFTA’s Inaugural white paper on what Travel does well and areas for improvement.

The recent appointment of the 7 NTIA Custodians was also discussed along with the ongoing preparations for NTIA in Melbourne on 18 November.