Long-term policies to open Canberra up to global markets are reshaping our city for the better.

We now have daily services connecting our city to both Singapore and Doha, provided by two airlines that are the very best in the world.

The new daily Qatar Airways service, along with daily connections to Singapore, has added around 170,000 seats coming into Canberra each year.

It is very pleasing to see that a long-term campaign by my government, together with Canberra Airport and tourism industry partners, has delivered a further boost to international aviation capacity.

We are seeing that flow through into investment in the tourism and hospitality sector, which now employs more than 16,000 Canberrans.

In 2017 we achieved an all-time record level of both domestic and international visitors to our city and, with the commencement of daily services Canberra-Doha, we will add significantly to our tourism numbers in the years ahead.

These new services come on top of the endorsement from Lonely Planet of Canberra as one of the top three cities that people should visit in 2018.

This increased global connectivity assists our city in attracting new investment from a variety of different sources, as well as new visitors and new people coming to Canberra.

It is a very exciting time for aviation and tourism in Canberra.