In your last update, you shared insights into your plans to support recovery from the North American market. Please update us on how this is tracking. 

To say we have been busy since the new year would be an understatement! As I shared in my last update, we had developed plans and activities to support borders opening. Since opening, we have launched partnerships with Air Canada in Canada, Expedia in the United States and Canada, and working with Travelzoo we launched a nationwide campaign to drive awareness and lead generation through Australia.com to a number of our key distribution partners including Goway, Downunder Answers and Swain Destination. Since then, we entered a second wave of direct co-op marketing activity with many of these partners, driving conversion through activity running now through until August. We are also about to launch our final piece of partnership activity with Qantas and American Airlines.

All this partnership marketing is in addition to our broader brand activity where we launched our Don’t Go Small, Go Australia campaign in the United States and Canada across variety of platforms and media partnerships including CNN Traveler, Conde Nast, You Tube, Trip Advisor, Apple News to name a few.

And lastly Tourism Australia, in partnership with our state and territory tourism organisations in market, completed a North America-wide trade and media roadshow where our purpose was to re-connect with our trade and media partners, spread the word that Australia is open for business and update on the latest product developments across the country. Across 11 cities we met with around 1,000 travel advisors and 150 journalists and influencers.

How is consumer sentiment towards travel? Are there any booking trends emerging, relevant to Australia?

Sentiment continues to be strong generally for long haul travel at present. Latest research from MMGY shows that 81 per cent of Americans are placing more importance on taking vacation days in the next 12 months and that 73 per cent of all United States leisure travellers are interested in travelling internationally in the next 12 months, with Australia up four percentage points.

These trends are consistent with reported demand through our distribution partners. Many of our specialist wholesale and retail partners are reporting double digit growth, some are even back to pre-pandemic trading levels with others projecting being back at pre-pandemic levels by the end of the year.

Customers continue to be spending more with average transaction value up 20 to 25 per cent on 2019 levels. The removal of pre-travel testing for entry to Australia along with the lifting of the cruise ban have also been further accelerants to the demand and opportunity in North America.

How did the North American trade and media respond to the announcement of Australia’s borders re-opening in February?

There was an overwhelming response around our border news. The coverage was broad and extensive with significant coverage across trade, broadcast, national news titles and travel titles – it really was everywhere. And with very few exceptions the news was extremely positive in tone.

82 North American delegates recently attended the Australian Tourism Exchange (ATE) Live for the first time in three years.  What was the sentiment / highlights among the buyers? What are they most excited about sharing with their clients upon their return to the US?

I don’t have enough words to say how amazing it was to be back at ATE this year, in person. It was incredible to see many of our buyers re-uniting with sellers for the first time in over two years – to see how the Australian industry showed up at ATE to welcome our buyers was fantastic.

Our buyers truly loved their experience and I think the biggest take away was both how existing products have adapted and have new offerings, but also the breadth and depth of new product experiences that have been launched during the last two years. For example, I took the opportunity to do the new Burrawa Bridge Climb Experience. We have many seasoned partners who were impressed by what is on offer now compared to 2019.

During ATE, Tourism Australia’s Managing Director, Phillipa Harrison, talked about growing pains as we have emerged from international borders being closed and I think it was beneficial for our collective buyers and partners to share their experiences of this. It meant they departed ATE22 and Australia with a shared sense of purpose and optimism around the future of our industry.

What in-market events are you planning this year?

One of Tourism Australia’s main focus areas this year is to drive advocacy including reconnecting our industry. Events will be an important pillar for us. Throughout the next year will plan to leverage many of our partner events with the objective of recruiting into our Aussie Specialist Program, continuing to engage with our travel advisor networks to build confidence in selling Australia again, and continuing to raise the profile for destination Australia. These events will include Virtuoso Travel Week, ILTM North America, Future Leaders in Travel and Cruiseworld.

In addition, we are most excited to be hosting Australia Marketplace North America – Tourism Australia's first Marketplace event in our global series this year and the first in-person Marketplace since 2019. Seller applications have just closed, and we are busy working on our buyer recruitment. We have adapted the program this year based on buyer feedback, and we have also included a dedicated luxury day as well for the first time – Marketplace Luxe.