Australian tourism achieves another record-breaking year

Figures released on Monday by the Australian Bureau of Statistics, show that all of Australia’s top 15 key international markets  posted growth in 2016, with nine markets recording double digit increases.
For the first time in a calendar year, Australia welcomed 8.26 million international visitors in 2016, after posting an increase of 11 per cent on the previous year, to achieve another record year for tourism.
Read more.

SA to host World's 50 Best Restaurants Academy

The group of media and influencers who chair the voting panels for the prestigious World’s 50 Best Restaurants awards, known as The World’s 50 Best Restaurants Academy, will visit South Australia from 6 to 8 April 2017 for a two-day itinerary with the support of Tourism Australia and the South Australian Tourism Commission. Find out more.

Tourism strengthens super growth sector status

International and domestic visitors have contributed a record $116.7 billion to the Australian economy, creating new jobs and reconfirming tourism’s status as a super growth sector.
The State of Industry 2015-16 report, produced by Tourism Research Australia, echoes positive growth across all major Australian markets against their Tourism 2020 targets including: expenditure, visitation, aviation, accommodation and labour force. Read the full report. More research is available on Tourism Australia’s corporate website  including the latest visitor statistics and consumer research.

New partnership to promote wildlife in the wild encounters

Twelve of Australia's leading independently-owned wildlife tourism experiences have united to form the Australian Wildlife Collection, a new organisation showcasing immersive wildlife encounters across natural habitats. The Australian Wildlife Collection will complement the other signature experiences promoted internationally by Tourism Australia, such as Luxury Lodges of Australia, Great Golf Courses of Australia, Great Walks of Australia, Ultimate Winery Experiences Australia and Great Fishing Adventures of Australia.

UK launches digital campaign with Tourism & Events QLD

Tourism Australia in the UK has launched a Key Distribution Partner campaign with Flight Centre and Tourism and Events Queensland on a hub-site within MSN Travel. Running throughout February, the co-op campaign includes articles about Australia and Queensland and a range of Tourism Australia’s 360 videos. From the MSN hub, users are driven to the Australia landing page on the Flight Centre website, hosting special offers and additional content. Flight Centre are also supporting with Australia-themed displays in their UK stores during the campaign.

Australian coverage wows Indian television audience

Sun TV-India's most popular Tamil channel- recently aired 21 episodes of its top-rated soap opera Vani Rani, which was filmed in Australia during December 2016. The star presenter, Radhikaa Sarathkumar, and crew visited Melbourne, Phillip Island and Sovereign Hill to showcase Australia as a must-visit holiday destination. The broadcast was supplemented by social media promotions, achieveing close to 8 million views of the Australian episode on youtube. India is Australia’s eighth largest inbound market for visitor arrivals.

Phase two of joint Qantas Japan campaign kicks off

Tourism Australia has kicked off the next phase of a joint Qantas Airways campaign, offering special airfares to generate low-season travel, particularly to support the newly launched Tokyo/Melbourne flight, as well as Adelaide, Hobart and Perth. The campaign includes digital banner ads, Aquatic and Coastal video and QF film on Metro Vision, as well as eight films of Aquatic and Coastal video  and Qantas film at train jacks. The campaign will run until 19 March 2017. In 2016, 413,800 Japanese visited Australia, up 22.7 per cent.

Singaporean fashion campaign showcases Australia

One of Singapore’s Key Distribution Partners, online travel agency CheapTickets.sg, partnered with Zalora, Asia’s leading fashion website, to market Australia to the young and trendy. The month-long digital campaign kicked off with a video  of Singapore’s hottest digital influencers soaking in the sights of Melbourne and Tasmania. The video has been viewed over 85,000 times on YouTube since its launch. More information about the Singapore market  is available on our corporate website.

Handa on Sydney Harbour

With Sydney Harbour as the backdrop, Opera Australia’s Handa Opera  returns this year to present Carmen from 24 March -23 April. The pop up opera house is complete with a bar and restaurant for guests to soak up the stunning view of the city skyline.

Great Chef series, Tasmania

Between the months of March to August, a number of top international and Australian chefs will be participating in the ‘Great Chefs Series’  in Launceston and Hobart. Headlining the program in April is Alain Passard, Dominique Crenn and Christian Puglisi, who will work alongside culinary students from TasTAFE to present a ten course degustation for the public.

Queensbridge Hotel Tower set for Melbourne's Southbank

Crown Resorts Limited and Schiavello Group have received conditional planning approval to develop the Queensbridge Hotel Tower in Melbourne’s Southbank. The development will comprise a 388 room six-star hotel, 700 apartments and a publically accessible restaurant and lounge on the top floor.

Northern Territory's Tiwi Island Grand Final, 19 March 2017

The Tiwi Islands Annual Art Sale and Football Grand Final is an event where art, culture and football meld into a one-off adventure that can only be experienced on the Tiwi Islands one day in March each year. Join SeaLink for a great day on the Tiwis, follow the art trail, seating and lunch in the SeaLink pavilion, and see a great game of footy.

Destination Australia Conference 2017

Tourism Australia has opened registration for its Destination Australia Conference on Thursday 16 March 2017 in Sydney. The conference includes top speakers from leading organisations including Skift, Facebook, Google, Mastercard and more. Download the agenda and register at www.tourism.australia.com/DestAus17.

Indonesia Australia Business Week

Registrations are open for Indonesia Australia Business Week (IABW) 2017. The tourism stream in IABW 2017 includes two sub-sectors: tourism promotion and tourism destination development for tourism consultants, planners, operators, developers and investors. The IABW program will include opportunities to engage with Indonesian government officials, key industry players and customers over four days in the week commencing 6 March.

Industry briefings in Darwin and Melbourne

Tourism Australia will host free-of-charge industry briefings in Darwin on Friday 24 February, ahead of the national Qantas Australian Tourism Awards and Melbourne on Monday 6 March, alongside the Victorian Tourism Industry Council’s 2017 Forum. The briefings will involve senior executives from Tourism Australia providing an update on current and future activity and sharing research and insights from key international markets. Registrations are open now.

Hotel marketing trends 2017

Hotel marketing specialist Net Affinity has highlighted 17 predicted trends that will impact hotel marketing in 2017. The report includes less-expected trends on e-commerce and commercial opportunities via social media channels, as well as how voice search might impact SEO and the rise of video and live streaming of content. For more research and trends related to international and domestic tourism and travel, visit Tourism Australia’s Insight Files.

Tourism Tasmania is pleased to announce the appointment of Cathryn Carey as Executive Manager – International Markets.

Tourism NT encourages all local tourism operators to attend the Northern Territory Government’s upcoming Economic Summits.

Meetings & Events Australia have launched their 2017 National Conference program.

The Destination Canberra Conference is on 16-17 February in Canberra.