TA boss keen to "punch through" top end 2020 targets

TA boss keen to "punch through" top end 2020 targets
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Tourism Australia will look to work with partners outside of the industry as its new managing director looks to accelerate growth and “punch through” its 2020 targets.

John O’Sullivan said he will not settle for the current rate of progress which puts the industry on course to hit the bottom end of its goals.

He called on the industry to aspire to reach, and even beat, the top end target of generating overnight expenditure of $140 billion by the end of the decade.

“You often say in sport that you play for a win, not a draw, and that’s what I’m trying to do,” O’Sullivan told Travel Today.

Along with partnering with non-travel sectors to drive growth, O’Sullivan said the agency will strive to identify areas where Australia is losing out to competitor destinations.

The so-called “gap analysis” will form part of Tourism Australia’s annual consumer demand research in key source markets.

O’Sullivan identified financial institutions as possible partners and said talks have already begun with China Union Pay over the promotion of tourism businesses which offer the payment system to Chinese visitors.

Aligning with brands such as Red Bull could also help promote the youth and adventure market, while in-store promotions at branches of Coles and Woolworths in tourism centres could also form part of the thinking, he suggested.

“We haven’t really explored partnering with other industries before but I believe there are opportunities,” O’Sullivan said.

It will help accelerate growth and give tourism a new avenue to promote its products, he said.

“I want us to punch through the $115b lower end target and make it an aspiration to hit $140b, and possibly go through it,” O’Sullivan said.

“The targets are steep but you’ve always got to have ambitious targets and the industry is up for it. The 2020 vision has quantified the value of tourism and the industry is not backing away.

“In the current phase we are setting the scene. From 2016 onwards is when we really want to see results. Let’s hunker down and accelerate the growth.”

O’Sullivan said research will also be carried out in key markets to identity areas where Australia could improve.

“What are destinations, that are competitors to us, doing better that makes them more appealing than Australia?” he said. “It’s important we not only understand what people rate about our country but what the things are that we are not doing."

“Take Hawaii as an example. Every second family at my daughter’s school seems to be going to Hawaii. Why? Why is Hawaii so appealing when we’ve got places like Broome, the Whitsundays and Tropical North Queensland?

“There might be things that come out of the research that we can’t change, like proximity. But there may be areas we can improve.”

Tourism Australia’s recent focus on food and wine through the launch of Restaurant Australia was born from similar research, O’Sullivan said.

“Food and wine was coming up as a key driver for travel and there was a perception gap for Australia that we have addressed,” he said.

Meanwhile, O’Sullivan said he would continue to take a “balanced portfolio approach” to its western and Asian markets.

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