On June 20 last year, Tourism Australia staff tuned in to an all-hands Zoom meeting to learn more about impending job cuts impacting the agency’s marketing team. Chief marketing officer Susan Coghill and two of her team members used a generic background when they joined the video call. Then, according to sources with knowledge of the meeting, managing director Phillipa Harrison let slip that “Susan is in Cannes”.
“They tried to hide [that she was in France], and all the staff still complain about it — and finding out like that! To make it worse, she hid it from her team and they found out over Zoom,” one source said.
Another said: “[Harrison] didn’t read the room at all. There were quite a few upset people.”
According to media reports from the time and interviews with multiple current and former Tourism Australia employees, the agency made 20 roles redundant, amounting to about 10% of its workforce. Some of the savings came from the decision not to fill vacant positions and the axing of contractors, one source said. It’s understood a large part of the lost roles were from Coghill’s own team.
But in a curious move, Tourism Australia this month refused to confirm how many jobs were cut.
“We have provided our response to this matter and have nothing further to add,” a spokesperson told Crikey following a direct question about how many roles were made redundant.
According to insiders who spoke to Crikey, the fact the redundancies were announced while the executive whose department was most affected by the cuts was on an undisclosed work trip in the French Riviera underscored what some saw as a culture of excess and misplaced priorities at the tourism agency.
“There was definitely an underlying feeling of excess … The executives had a choice of cutting their budget or cutting staff and Susan chose to cut staff,” one source said.
Coghill, who the sources described as a frequent international flyer and attendee at junkets and events, was in Cannes to attend the 2023 Lions Awards for creative communication. Tourism Australia had entered the award contest but didn’t win any trophies.
She brought with her the agency’s executive general manager of strategy and research and another member of the marketing team. Tourism Australia refused to answer Crikey’s questions about whether the trio flew there in business class, and how much their flights, accommodations and other expenses cost the taxpayer.
“Tourism Australia is a marketing organisation and features at major marketing events around the world. Our chief marketing officer attends these events from time to time to represent the organisation and the best of Australian tourism,” the agency spokesperson said.
“As an organisation selling Australia on the international stage, events like this are an important part of keeping Australian tourism front of mind for global audiences.”
At the time of the Cannes festivities, Tourism Australia was in the midst of finalising a redundancy process that had begun weeks earlier as a result of funding cuts in the May federal budget. According to budget papers, the agency’s funding was cut from $208 million to $184 million, a substantial decrease. Tourism Australia told The Australian in June 2023 that the 2023-24 budget had been confirmed at $169.1 million.
Employees were first made aware there would be a restructure in an all-staff meeting on May 30. At the June 20 meeting, sources said there was some specific information revealed about people who had left the agency and wouldn’t be returning due to the restructure. More details continued to be revealed to employees in the month that followed.
“The communications process around it wasn’t amazing, and then we find out three senior staff including Susan went to Cannes — it didn’t go down well,” one person said.
A Tourism Australia spokesperson told Crikey the restructure was partly due to changing priorities at the agency, as the easing of pandemic-era restrictions meant Tourism Australia was once again focusing on attracting international visitors rather than promoting domestic tourism.
“As we emerged from the pandemic, Tourism Australia returned to promoting Australia to international travellers around the world, and has been successful in doing so,” the spokesperson said.
“As a result, structural changes were made to Tourism Australia’s Sydney operations to best resource the business in key markets and grow demand for visitation to Australia.
“The redundancies were communicated to staff impacted in an appropriate way and were announced to the broader organisation by the managing director at an all-staff meeting.”
