Australia launches major tourism drive in China
The latest phase of Tourism Australia’s global marketing campaign, ‘There’s nothing like Australia’, has been launched in China.
New broadcast, print and online advertising materials were unveiled in Shanghai this week by Australia’s Minister of Tourism Martin Ferguson, and Tourism Australia’s Chairman Geoff Dixon and Managing Director Andrew McEvoy.
Tourism Australia will spend approximately AU$180 million (US$174 million) over the next three years rolling out the campaign in its key international markets, as well as in Australia. In addition to a new broadcast ad and print ads the campaign features a strong digital and social media focus, including a new, interactive tablet app and hub on its website, australia.com.
McEvoy said the Chinese campaign would highlight some of Australia’s best-known tourism attractions and products, including the Bungle Bungles, Sydney Harbour, Uluru, the Great Barrier Reef, Freycinet in Tasmania and South Australia’s Kangaroo Island.
“When we first launched ‘There’s nothing like Australia’ in May 2010, it was built to last and designed to be flexible. Now is the right time to evolve the campaign to remain competitive and long lasting in a fast-changing global tourism environment,” McEvoy said.
“This new campaign creative – particularly the locations and how they have been shot – clearly demonstrate Australia’s distinctive and high quality tourism products and experiences that are amongst the world’s finest,” he added.
In terms of the Chinese market, McEvoy said the decision to bring the campaign to China was supported by recent research showing that Australia tops the travel preferences of Chinese urban elite – the campaign’s target audience.
“The primary purpose of this and indeed all our global marketing is to drive international visitation and China now represents both our fastest growing and most valuable international inbound tourism market,” he said, adding that China presented an opportunity to deliver around 900,000 annual visitors worth up to AU$9 billion a year for Australia by 2020.
The campaign will start in China, the UK and USA and also run in Australia, with AU$5 million being spent on a domestic marketing push.