As part of a broader suite of business development plans, Brisbane Airport Corporation (BAC) has launched a comprehensive ‘China Strategy’ in a major push to increase air services into Asia. With a focus on strengthening existing relationships with airlines and building new relationships with the broader business market and consumers, BAC’s Asian push signals a new era in the development of the airport as one of the growth gateways into Australia.

BAC chief executive officer and managing director Julieanne Alroe said adopting the new China Strategy meant BAC would challenge the status quo in the aviation and tourism industry. “Our approach means letting go of preconceived ideas about where Brisbane should sit in the mindset of the Chinese market,” said Alroe. “We want to build a compelling case for Chinese business, leisure and education visitors to choose Brisbane as their first port-of-call in Australia.”

The development of this new strategy has been led by Andrew Brodie, general manager of airline and retail management at BAC and he will now take charge of its implementation with the initial focus of the strategy to increase Brisbane Airport’s profile in the market as a competitive gateway to Australia.

“Then, building on the great work already done by Tourism Australia, Tourism and Events Queensland and Brisbane Marketing, we’ll also be looking to help build Brisbane’s destination brand with consumers,” he said. “At the same time, we’re over-hauling our own facilities and services at the Airport, delivering a sophisticated, only-in-Brisbane redevelopment of core parts of the International Terminal and introducing special services for our Asian passengers.”

Actions from the strategy that have already been initiated include the appointment of a Chinese Liaison Officer and Chinese Cultural and Customer Service Training for staff at the International Terminal. A simplified Chinese version of the BNE App has also been launched, with final touches being made to a Chinese version of the Brisbane Airport website.

Other planned initiatives include bilingual signage and messaging with a focus on interactive digital assets and applications, along with culturally appropriate food and beverage choices and special retail and tailored merchandise offers and discounts.

The China Strategy will remain a key priority for BAC over the next five to 10 years and BAC senior executives will regularly visit mainland China to attend key industry events and conferences to network and strengthen current and build potential business relationships, as well as hosting Chinese delegations in Brisbane.

“We will also be a strong advocate for government policy changes to better facilitate air capacity and Chinese outbound tourism to Australia, their experiences within Australia and processes in airports,” added Brodie.

In its ‘Airline Industry Forecast 2013-2017’ released late last year, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said that airlines expect a 31 per cent increase in passenger numbers during the period with routes within or connected to China the single largest driver, accounting for 24 per cent of new passengers.

In our analysis, below, we look in greater detail at bi-directional O&D passenger demand between China and Australia over the past five years. During this period passenger numbers have increased 56.7 per cent from around 1.1 million in 2009 to an estimated 1.7 million in 2013 and average annual rise of 14.2 per cent across the five years. Brisbane was the second fastest growing of Australia's five largest airports in this market with demand increasing 70.5 per cent, slightly less than the 78.4 per cent growth recorded at Perth, although the latter has recorded traffic declines in each of the past three years.