Hooroo to Uluru

The inbound tourism industry has been told international and Australian operators have to be weaned off selling a climb of Uluru as an attraction to visitors.

The managing director of the Australian Tourism Export Council. Matt Hingerty, told Australia's largest tourism conference in Hobart on Friday the move towards closing the Uluru climb will continue to be slow, but the day will come when people will no longer be allowed to scale the rock.

"I don't want to say this in an accusatory way, and there's a lot of audiences we're talking about here, but Australians in general feel a collective ownership about Uluru and while they might not be planning to visit tomorrow or next year, they will want to visit and some of them will want to have the experience of climbing the rock," he said.

"It's the same with international tourists - research shows part of the reason people are sold on coming to Uluru in the first place is the opportunity to climb, particularly among the Japanese market."

Mr Hingerty said once they arrive, however, the vast majority understand that the traditional owners prefer people not to climb the monolith. Many others back out when they see how difficult and dangerous the ascent can be.

"At the moment we're in that half-way era where we need to wean the industry off the climb because from a tour operator's point of view it's a poor product," he said.

"It's closed at short notice, it's closed more often than not, it is dangerous, we have an ageing customer base, and when you are selling structured itineraries into the future you can't rely on the rock climb to be open.

"And most of the tour operators are over it, although the small tourism businesses in the area who rely on people coming to the rock are a little less sanguine about it closing."