More than 10 million tourists a year are expected to visit Australia by 2025, bringing opportunity for businesses but also a new world of risk, according to Aon.

Sport, Leisure and Entertainment Centre of Excellence Leader Robert Piunti says international leisure arrivals surged 8% last year to 6.9 million people and expenditure increased 18% to an unprecedented $36.3 billion.

Mr Piunti says the low Australian dollar is not the sole driver.

Visitors to wineries, festivals and fairs, monuments, heritage buildings and organised sporting events all grew while “shopping to take home” was worth $2.6 billion, up 33% on 2014.

In contrast, backpacker arrivals remained stable and business visitors declined.

About 44% of the 10.6 million international tourists projected to arrive annually by 2025 are expected to be wealthy middle-class Chinese people.

“Should China’s average wealth per capita rise to the same level as that of South Korea, the value of the China visitor market could potentially be even more significant,” Mr Piunti said.

He has identified seven key risks amid the rise in tourism.

• If funding for a new project or business expansion is contingent on future revenue, companies must diligently identify and quantify their revenue stream risks.
• Businesses should also revisit their continuity risk and disaster-recovery plans to make sure they are still “relevant and robust”.
• A business interruption and maximum foreseeable loss scenario study will ensure insurance programs capture the correct exposures and set appropriate limits.
• The tourist boom will increase the chances of disruptive risks such as terrorism, cyber attack and market space disruption, so businesses need to predict these exposures.
• If investing in “build it and they will come” scenarios, companies should insure against the impacts of a delayed start-up.
• Increased public liability risks come with more visitors, which is further compounded if tourists have a high net worth.
• And businesses must be sure their staff are adequately trained. A Deloitte study revealed 120,000 additional workers will be needed by 2020 to meet visitor demand by 2020.