Tourism Australia Managing Director Andrew McEvoy told delegates at this year’s Australian Tourism Exchange (ATE) that the money would be used to ‘raise the bar’ in terms of quality, helping to counteract the high Australian dollar and increasing international competition.
Mr McEvoy said that the industry’s strong recent performance owed much to a targeted shift towards growth markets, a strategy of partnering with leading international airlines and tourism organisations, best practice use of digital and social media and a greater focus on promoting ‘best of Australia’ experiences.
“The high dollar is not new, and is something our industry has had to adapt to, rather than hide behind. The reality is that we’re coming off the back of three years of solid growth. Last year was a record for international visitors, up nearly 5% to 6.1 million, with the country showing little sign of losing its global appeal,” Mr McEvoy said.
“The challenge is to make sure we deliver great value and accentuate those unique and distinctive experiences that help set Australia apart from our rivals,” he said, acknowledging that ATE provided the perfect platform to showcase the best of Australian tourism.
Mr McEvoy said Australia’s quality food and wine experiences presented great opportunities and would play a more central role in Tourism Australia’s future international marketing activities. Recent research showed that highlighting the country’s best food and wine tourism experiences increased consumer motivation to travel to Australia by 30 per cent.
He also highlighted Tourism Australia’s growing ‘Best of Australia’ program as a recent example of Australian tourism packaging up and promoting some of its highest quality offerings.
Wine will become the latest tourism experience to be included under the ‘Best of Australia’ banner – joining Great Golf Courses of Australia and Great Walks of Australia – when Ultimate Winery Experiences of Australia is unveiled at ATE13 later this week.
“Tourism Australia is backing this and other best of Australia initiatives because they so ably demonstrate why there’s nothing like Australia – in this case by showcasing our wonderful wine experiences and the great tourism opportunities that lie beyond them,” Mr McEvoy said.
He said the partnership approach, in this case a consortium of high-end, award winning wineries offering unique wine experiences, was another key factor behind Australian tourism’s recent resurgence and would be another strong theme of this year’s ATE.
“Together with our industry partners, we will spend close to A$150m this year putting Australia in front of our target consumer. I think Australian tourism has got much better at working together and speaking with a singular voice when it comes to selling Australia overseas.
“We’re seeing better coordination and increased cooperation in the approach we use when taking our message to market, shoulder to shoulder alongside our airline, airport, distribution and state and territory tourism partners,” he said.
He cited Tourism Australia’s current ‘Best Jobs in the World’ competition as a great example of the ‘team Australia’ approach.
“The success of our latest youth campaign owes much to the joined up approach being taken with the State and Territories and the great jobs they presented to represent some of the best of Australia,” Mr McEvoy said.
He also praised the industry for its enthusiastic backing of the campaign. “More than 60 operators have linked to the competition, helping to spread the message about holidaying and working in Australia, and extending the reach of the campaign much further than we’d be able to do working on our own,” he said.
The Australian Tourism Exchange (ATE) is Tourism Australia’s premier tourism trade event to present the diversity of Australia’s tourism businesses to the international travel trade. More than 2,200 delegates including almost 550 international distribution companies from 39 countries will meet leading Australian tourism operators.
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