Tourism Australia shifts marketing focus
Tourism Australia is launching a marketing push next year highlighting its food and wine experiences.
It will focus on iconic dining experiences as part of its ongoing umbrella campaign ‘There’s nothing like Australia’.
Recent consumer research in 15 key international markets, including the UK, found that good food and wine was the third most important factor when it comes to selecting a destination.
The research, by BDA Marketing, also found that only 26% of people who had not been to Australia associated it with good food and wine.
But among those who had been to country already, this figure rose to 60%, putting Australia second only to France and above Italy, in third place.
For visitors from the UK, China, USA, France, India, Indonesia, Malaysia and South Korea, Australia is ranked as the number one destination for food and wine.
"For us these were important insights," said Denise von Wald, Tourism Australia’s new regional general manager UK/ Northern Europe.
She said Tourism Australia was now putting together a range of ‘experiences’ to showcase its food and wine, which tour operators could then add to their programmes.
"Our trade partners can put these iconic experiences in their itineraries, whether it’s eating fresh shucked oysters off the coast of Tasmania or dining under the stars in the outback."
She said after three tough years, Australia is starting to see the UK market come back, with numbers rising 3% in the 12 months to August 2013.
"Economic pressure has come off the UK, the pound is appreciating against the dollar, and we had a couple of big sporting events to kick start visitor numbers," said von Wald.
International arrivals, meanwhile, grew 5.6% to 6.3 million in the same period.
Bev
Editor in chief Bev Fearis has been a travel journalist for 25 years. She started her career at Travel Weekly, where she became deputy news editor, before joining Business Traveller as deputy editor and launching the magazine’s website. She has also written travel features, news and expert comment for the Guardian, Observer, Times, Telegraph, Boundless and other consumer titles and was named one of the top 50 UK travel journalists by the Press Gazette.
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