On International Travel

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on international travel ❖

randy mink

What’s Up Down Under? Australia has ambitious plans to ramp up its marketing efforts The Sydney Opera House, its roof evocative of a ship at full sail, is one of the world’s most recognizable buildings.

©Tourism Australia/Robert Wallace

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angaroos and koalas…Aboriginal art…Sydney harbor...the Great Barrier Reef…rugged Outback landscapes bathed in fiery red hues. These are the iconic images we associate with the Land Down Under. Most Americans venturing to this distant continent at the far reaches of the Pacific consider it a once-in-a-lifetime trip. And quite a distance it is—figure on a 15-hour flight for the 7,487-mile trip from Los Angeles to Sydney. Most tour packages are two or three weeks long and often include New Zealand. 14 June 2011

With lofty designs on garnering a larger piece of the international tourism pie, the Australian government has plans to increase foreign visitation to its shores in the next decade. “The focus is ambitious—to double overnight visitor expenditure from today’s $70 billion to between $115 billion and $140 billion by 2020,” said Andrew McEvoy, managing director of Tourism Australia. “The key markets where this growth will come from have been identified and this is where Tourism Australia will focus its marketing efforts going forward.

“While Australia did have a record year last year in terms of numbers, with 5.9 million visitors, we have seen our share of the global travel market decline over the past decade,” McEvoy said. Indeed, keeping Australia on travelers’ radar is a challenge when so many destinations are competing for a slice of the pie. Prime markets for Australia include the United States, which ranked fourth in tourism revenues generated last year (after China, the United Kingdom and New Zealand). A total of 472,126 Americans visited Australia during 2010, spending a total of $2.1 billion. LeisureGroupTravel.com


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