It has been three months since your last update. What recent changes are impacting life in North America now?  

Over the last three months we have continued to see a broad but cautious path back for the country to some semblance of normalcy as vaccination rates continue to grow. However recently, the Delta variant has had some impact on recovery. In early August, the USA achieved an important milestone of 70 per cent of the population having received at least one dose of vaccine. The growing optimism has seen the Centre of Disease Control and State Government continue to relax social distancing restrictions, mask wearing guidance and capacity restrictions in public spaces. This has allowed the Tourism Australia team in Los Angeles to return the office for the first time since March last year.

Since early summer, the USA has seen a growth in case numbers driven by the Delta variant which is now the dominant strain across the country. Seven-day case averages are now sitting at approximately 95,000 cases per day. This is a fivefold increase over last month. Fifty per cent of new cases are coming from states with the lowest vaccination rate with 94 per cent of new cases occurring in the unvaccinated. This trend has created further urgency at the federal level to increase vaccination and bring back some mask mandates. The Government has introduced a new incentive program to encourage vaccination. Local governments are also introducing further measures, with New York City leading the way by introducing a requirement to provide proof of vaccination before entering bars, clubs and restaurants. These policies are growing in other local government areas.

In Canada, it is a similar and strong picture of optimism. The Canadian vaccination program has now led to 82 per cent of Canadians over the age of 12 have now had their first vaccine with 71 per cent of the population ages 12 and over now fully vaccinated. Provincial restrictions are continuing to ease, and whilst case numbers are on the rise due to the Delta variant, these have been relatively well contained to this point.

What is the general sentiment within the North American tourism industry?

There is a huge amount of optimism in the industry. Distribution partners are reinstating staffing numbers and pent-up demand from consumers continues to be realised as destinations open to vaccinated Americans. This is a little tempered by the fact that the USA is still effectively closed for non-essential travel from non-US citizens. However, restriction free travel across the USA is helping buoy the domestic tourism industry. In Canada, the Government has continued its pathway of opening up the Canadian economy for tourism again. On 9 August, the Canadian border was opened again to fully vaccinated Americans, and in early September, the Canadian border will open more broadly to fully vaccinated travellers from other countries.

From a business to business perspective, we have seen the return of in-person events over the past couple of months. Our team has been excited to get back in front of travel planners, bookers, and advisors to encourage them to continue promoting Australia to their clients. Business Events planners are looking for programs in 2023 and beyond with preliminary planning/destination selection for these groups taking place now.

I am writing from Virtuoso Travel Week in Las Vegas which is the first major in-person travel conference since March 2020. Whilst the footprint of the conference is small, there are still over 1600 people attending and it has been fantastic to be face to face with our partners. The feedback has been that they are beginning to turn the corner and seeing passion and pent-up demand from their clients for Australia. 

On 23 July, Australia’s Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment the Hon Dan Tehan MP, visited Los Angeles. As part of the visit an industry round table was held with key specialist wholesale and retail partners as well as Qantas, Inbound Tour Operators Southern World and Virtuoso. The Minister listened to sentiment from the North American market and heard the challenges specific partners face with the ongoing border closures. Many of our partners have been upskilling and looking to other destinations to service their customers and keep their businesses going. However, despite their challenges, all remain extremely passionate and committed to Australia and are very much ready for when they can actively sell Australia again. 

What are Tourism Australia’s plans for the year ahead?

We are busy finalising our partnership plans with our three core consortia partners – Virtuoso, Signature and the Travel Leaders group. The partnerships will see our distribution teams continue a program of active education focused on the core pillars of our tourism offering and leveraging the Aussie Specialist Program as a key platform to help advisors stay engaged. Our plans will involve a mix of digital marketing through their business to business platforms and training through both virtual and in person opportunities.

The Business Events team are excited to be returning to IMEX in November this year and will continue to leverage our partnership with The Society for Incentive Travel Excellence and key industry platforms to continue to drive awareness of Australia as a business events destination.

And finally, the consumer marketing and public relations teams have launched our ‘Always On’ content marketing program. This will initially leverage our recent content series created with Lonely Planet, and  target our key audiences through Facebook, YouTube, Instagram and Pinterest. We will also be launching Snapchat in the coming weeks. The public relations team continued to keep an active program of engagement with key journalists and influencers to ensure a healthy pipeline of stories in market for Australia. This month we continue to inspire American audiences through Australian cuisine with a feature on an episode of Food & Wine's Chefs at Home. Celebrity Chef Dan Churchill shared a healthy twist on his home country's iconic Aussie meat pie, while highlighting Australia’s fresh ingredients and wine. We are beginning to look at plans for our involvement with G’Day USA and South by Southwest in early 2022.

And finally, please share your top three reasons why you believe the Australian industry should stay in touch with the North American market this year?

We need to keep Australia top of mind. Consumers and advisors have other choices of destinations to book and sell and we want to make sure that we stay engaged to hit the ground running borders open.

A trend we are seeing for consumers is that ‘Bucket Lists’ are becoming ‘To-Do lists’. We want and need Australia to be on that do to list.

North American travellers are staying longer and spending more. We have an opportunity to grow spend and capture a larger share of spend when we welcome them back to Australia. Keeping connected with our partners and with consumers will ensure we are well positioned when they can confidently book Australia again.