Essentials this week… | World's 50 Best | ATE17 | UK Waitrose campaign | Air NZ promotion | Korean cycling promotion | Qantas returns to Beijing | and more…

Some lucky readers of Waitrose magazine in the UK were treated to a special Australian food and wine evening at Australia House in London last week as part of an ongoing campaign to showcase the country’s culinary experiences to affluent long-haul travellers in the UK. Guests enjoyed wines from South Australia and Western Australia during the evening, which was hosted by wine expert Matthew Jukes. High-end grocery brand Waitrose also included 37 pages of Australian content in the October edition of its popular food magazine. The UK is Australia’s fourth largest visitor market by arrivals and third by spend. Find out more about the UK market.

Tourism Australia and Visit Victoria teamed up on special ‘Bike Riders’ famil in Melbourne this month, hosting a group of 10 cycling enthusiasts who are influential on Korean social media. The group experienced famous Victorian bike routes and ended the tour at the Around the Bay event. Cycling culture has grown significantly in Korea with strong interest in holidays involving cycling packages. Tourism Australia plans to continue to promote Australia as a great cycling destination in response to this new growing trend in Korea.

Last week Tourism Australia’s Board met in Hobart and afterward hosted an industry networking function at the Henry Jones Hotel. The evening was attended by a number of dignitaries including the Tasmanian Premier and Minster for Tourism the Hon. Will Hodgman. Tourism Australia’s Chair Tony South spoke at the function about the strong partnership between Tourism Australia and Tourism Tasmania and the importance of working together with industry to attract international visitors Down Under. View photos from the event.

Tourism Australia has partnered with Singapore Airlines in Germany promoting special airfares to their eight Australian gateways including newly launched services from Dusseldorf. The digital campaign includes ads specifically designed for awareness, inspiration and conversion. Consumers are directed either to a dedicated campaign page on Australia.com to inspire and inform them about the diversity of Australian experiences or to Singaporeair.com with special offers and destination content of Australia to drive conversion. The campaign started on 11 October and will run until 6 November.

Tourism Australia and Air New Zealand have launched a new campaign promoting North American flight options to the airline’s Australian gateways. The digital promotion, which runs to 11 November, features fares to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Cairns, Adelaide, Gold Coast and Perth for one low price from Los Angeles, San Francisco and Houston as well as Vancouver to all destinations except Perth. In celebration of Air New Zealand’s increased presence in Texas the offer includes a special $99 add-on fare for other Texan cities plus access to a one-day free Virtual Australia exhibit in Houston visited by 100 media and over 300 consumers and industry. Find out more.

Tourism Australia was joined by seven Australian tourism businesses and four Australian state tourism organisations at one of Italy’s most important travel trade show, TTG Incontri, last week. Italian media, tour operators and travel agents visiting the show, from 13-15 October in Rimini, were updated on Australia’s latest experiences and attractions as well as the Premier Aussie Specialist Program for the Australian market. The next TTG Incontri will take place on 12-14 October, 2017.

Tourism Australia will be heading into IMEX America – the country’s largest business events trade show – with a range of new content that will highlight why there’s nothing like Australia for business events. The content, produced under the Business Events Australia brand, includes the latest edition of Australia Innovates, a magazine featuring some of Australia’s brightest people who are excelling in a variety of fields. A new Business Events Australia destination film, highlighting Australia’s unique and inspiring experiences, will be also shown to international buyers for the first time at IMEX America during group destination presentations. IMEX America 2016 is being held in Las Vegas from 18 to 20 October.

Qantas announced it will launch daily flights between Sydney and Beijing from 25 January 2017 and extend its joint venture partnership with China Eastern to four new international routes: Sydney-Hangzhou, Sydney-Kunming, Sydney-X’ian (via Wuhan) and Brisbane-Shanghai. China Eastern will also codeshare on Qantas’ new Beijing service. The new Sydney-Beijing route represents a 19 per cent increase in Qantas’ total capacity into China and a 7 per cent increase in its total capacity into Asia. Tourism Australia Managing Director John O’Sullivan welcomed the decision by Qantas to increase its footprint in Australia’s fastest growing and most valuable tourism market. Find out more.

The Hon Steven Ciobo MP, Federal Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, and the Hon Will Hodgman MP, Tasmanian Premier and Minister for Tourism welcomed Australia’s Tourism Ministers to Hobart last Friday for the Tourism Ministers’ Meeting. The Tourism Ministers’ Meeting, held twice a year, is the key mechanism for engagement between the Australian Government and State and Territory governments on tourism issues. Tourism Ministers discussed a range of issues at the meeting including: the collaborative (sharing) economy; a Regional Tourism Infrastructure Investment Attraction Strategy; plans to capitalise on the stunning growth of the China market; and endorsed a list of protocols and principles for hosting major sporting events. Find out more.

Tourism Australia has recently conducted new international research that examines the ‘path to purchase’ behaviour of potential international association conference delegates and reveals the best channels and messages to use in order to convince them to travel to Australia for an association event. On Tuesday 25 October Monica Armesto, Business Events Marketing and Communications Manager for Tourism Australia, will explain key findings from the research in a free 30 minute webinar.

Tourism Australia will host free-of-charge industry briefings in Hobart on Friday 4 November, Adelaide on Thursday 10 November and in Sydney on Tuesday 15 November. 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.

Mastercard has released its seventh annual tracking study of international travel destinations, the 2016 Global Destination Cities Index. The report delves into the motivations and travel spend behaviour of visitors to the world’s top global cities. Sydney and Melbourne are in the Asia Pacific region’s top 10 destination cities for international visitor spend. Sydney also falls into the top 20 destination cities on an international overnight visitor expenditure basis. For more research and trends related to international and domestic tourism and travel, visit Tourism Australia’s Insight Files.