Awareness of Australia is at an all time high
Tourism Australia managing director Scott Morrison announced to 1,700 sellers and 600 buyers from 40 countries at ATE 2006 in Adelaide, that the organisation has continued to set ambitious new yield targets for the tourism industry.
Speaking at the launch of Australian Tourism Exchange, the largest international travel trade show in the southern hemisphere, Morrison said: “We have been through ads and campaigns featuring Paul Hogan – themes like, ‘the land of wonder, the land down under’, ‘Australia make it happen for you’, ‘let your self go discover the other side of yourself’ and now we are in what is arguable the best campaign ever which is driving fabulous early results, ‘Where the bloody hell are you’.”
He added: “Awareness of Australia is at an all time high and we have to take advantage of that to maximise high value, high yielding business to Australia.”
“We must also have a focus on how much this A$17 billion tourism industry creates for the economy.
“It is not just about how well we are doing but the reality is how well we are doing against our competitors.”
Morrison added that while we have lost market share from Japan, that business is high volume, low yield business going to China and Korea and the focus now has to be yield.
“Our dream is when yield is growing faster than volume,” he said.
Morrison also commented that dispersal is the other major factor for Australia, when the tourist office prioritisises its markets, that is the percentage of nights spent outside major cities.
Morrison announced there has been a 30% increase in visits to www.australia.com around the world and a massive 70% increase in visits to Tourism Australia websites in totality, including the www.sowherethebloodyhellareyou.com website.
Around 700,000 people in 200 countries have downloaded and played the ad and this is estimated to translate into more than 3 million online viewers.
Morrison said: “All of this activity has generated a huge global buzz about Australia as a destination and building additional momentum around the campaign”.
Report from ATE 2006 by John Alwyn-Jones
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