TA to meet 2020 targets
Tourism Australia is on track to reach the bottom end of its 2020 growth targets, its managing director has said.
Speaking at the opening of Australian Tourism Exchange in Sydney, Andrew McEvoy said current projections show overnight stays will generate between $115 billion and $120 billion by 2020.
That is an improvement on the trend three years ago, when the 2020 vision was drawn up.
“When we wrote the plan three years we aimed to see value grow to between $115b and $140b which would be a doubling,” McEvoy said. “At the time the trend was towards $97b so the good news is, after three strong years, we are on track to get to the bottom end of that and there will be further opportunities for growth.”
McEvoy described the China targets – of being worth between $7.4b and $9b – as “conservative figures”.
Given the growth trajectory, China could deliver more than one million arrivals and generate in excess of $10b, he said.
McEvoy said the necessary growth in international and domestic capacity was on track to deliver on the targets.
Meanwhile, there remained a general shift from west to east in terms of arrivals but he again stressed that traditional markets remained critical, particularly for regional Australia.
Western markets tend to go deeper into the regions than tourists from the east “although that is changing rapidly”.
McEvoy also highlighted a future focus on food and wine after research showed only 23% of people who have not been to Australia regarded it as one of the top five reasons to visit.
“Food and wine is not perceived as highly as we think it could be,” he said.
But he revealed that those who have been to Australia rate it behind only France and Italy in terms of its culinary offering.
“We think that is a big opportunity,” he said.
Meanwhile, McEvoy said a key aim was to stand Australia apart from competing countries in what is a highly competitive and cluttered market.
“The challenge is to make sure we deliver great value and accentuate those unique and distinctive experiences that help set Australia apart from our rivals,” he said.
“We need to demonstrate a difference as powerfully as we possibly can."
McEvoy played down ongoing concerns that the high Australian dollar was impacting arrivals, arguing that “austerity has got quite boring for the Europeans and they want to come down under again”.
“The dollar is the dollar, there is nothing we can do about it and we are seeing a rebound from the UK and Europe,” he said. “We have to demonstrate value. We took the deliberate view three years ago that we needed to represent a more sophisticated Australia, an Australia that represents that higher value, because we are higher cost.”
He said Tourism Australia will invest $150 million this year to directly market Australia to an international audience and counteract the high dollar.
“The high dollar is not new, and is something our industry has had to adapt to, rather than hide behind," McEvoy said. "Last year was a record for international visitors, up nearly 5% to 6.1 million, with the country showing little sign of losing its global appeal."
Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au
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