Update from Tourism Australia's Managaing Director
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The last few weeks have been intense and challenging. The focus of our communications has primarily been dealing with the immediate crises, sharing status updates and the latest safety, public health and travel advice. As we look to recover and rebuild, it’s important that we look forward and continue to market Australia, both at home and overseas. I want to update you on some of the activities we are doing right now, or are planning, to ensure we keep Australia front of mind and continue to drive business to the thousands of tourism businesses out there that are doing it tough at the moment.
Domestic and Business Events campaigns
Our new domestic campaign, Holiday Here This Year, along with the bespoke business events iteration Event Here This Year, continues to be rolled out across the country with initial industry, media and consumer responses having been positive.
International campaign and international media hosting program
We are currently working on the details of our revised international approach, which will include a campaign and a comprehensive international media hosting program, and we will share more information about both shortly.
China recovery
Without knowing how long these measures are likely to remain in place, it’s impossible to predict the full tourism impact. But we will recover. Once the coronavirus spread is under control, Chinese travellers will return. We are already discussing how we actively support that recovery and remain committed to this critically important market. In the meantime, we need to remain patient, practical and pragmatic.
Recalibrating marketing activities
We will continue to review our planned activity over the coming weeks and months. You’ve already seen us ramp up domestic activities. In the short term, we will also recalibrate our global activities to make sure our marketing dollars are maximised fully to help the industry get through this challenging period.
Business as usual
We also shouldn’t ignore some of the important marketing activities that are still happening in market. Our North America team, for example have recently hit the road in the United States and Canada, as part of a bushfire recovery roadshow, to show American and Canadian travellers that Australia is still very much open for business. We also have the T20 Cricket World Cups to look forward to. Australia’s hosting of both the women’s and men’s tournaments presents a wonderful showcase opportunity in markets such as India, where we are encouraging the country’s cricket-mad fans to follow their teams as part of an unforgettable Australian holiday. With the women’s tournament starting in just a few weeks, let’s continue to build her-story by going for record attendance at a women’s sporting event and attend the T20 women’s final in Melbourne on 8 March - hope to see you there!
Australian Tourism Exchange (ATE)
We are also reviewing this year’s ATE program and will be letting delegates know of some important changes in the coming days, aimed at making our flagship trade event more affordable to tourism operators who we know are doing it tough at the moment.
Phillipa Harrison
