There's Nothing Like Australia When it Comes to Aviation Tourism Development

As the country’s National Tourism Organisation (NTO), Tourism Australia is responsible for promoting Australia internationally as a destination for business and leisure as well as encouraging Australians to travel in their own country. Tourism Australia works with industry and all levels of government to maximise the important economic contribution of tourism to Australia’s economy and, as an island nation, air access is critical to achieving future tourism growth.

In fact, tourism and aviation specialists agree that the model Tourism Australia has developed is leading the way in terms of NTO engagement in the route development process.

To understand firsthand how Australia aligns their tourism and aviation strategies and specifically Tourism Australia’s involvement with the route development aviation community, The HUB recently caught up with Tourism Australia’s Managing Director, Andrew McEvoy and Aviation Development Executive, Leah Fletcher

Air access is one of the critical elements to achieving the Australian tourism industry’s long term goal to grow overnight tourism expenditure to between $115 and A$140 billion annually by the end of the decade as part of the Tourism 2020 strategy. To achieve this goal, Tourism Australia is focused on improving Australia’s global competitiveness by­ growing the number of visitors; improving the value generated by Australia’s visitor economy (both spend per trip and spend per night); gaining market share; and supporting supply issues (investment in tourism infrastructure and aviation access).

Tourism Australia works closely and collaboratively with airlines, airports, and State and Tourism Organisations (STOs) to market existing and new routes, helping to build demand and grow sustainable aviation capacity to Australia.

“Through partnering with STOs and airports we strengthen our relationships with global carriers, and back these with marketing and distribution support, to ensure we have the right capacity for the right markets on key strategic routes,” explained McEvoy. There are three key areas to Tourism Australia’s strategy for working with airlines; the formation of long-term strategic partnerships with air carriers, formal collaborative arrangements with air carriers and a marketing support package to support network development.

Tourism Australia currently has strategic global Memoranda of Understanding (MoU) in place, with a number of airlines including: Singapore, Emirates, China Southern, China Eastern, Virgin Australia, Etihad Airways, Air New Zealand and Air China. The MoUs outline a long-term spirit of cooperation and matched investment in multiple international markets.

Commenting on the agreements McEvoy said, “They allow Tourism Australia to work effectively with key airline partners on commercially focused marketing activities that encourage travel to Australia from our most important inbound tourism markets”.

In the past 12 months alone seven new agreements have been reached with airline partners, including with Air China (A$6 million over three years), Air New Zealand (A$6 million over three years), Etihad Airways (A$6 million over 3 years), Virgin Australia (doubling existing A$6 million to A$12 million over three years), China Eastern (A$8.6 million), Emirates Airline (A$14.3 million for three years), China Southern in August (A$9 million).

Tourism Australia enjoys cooperative marketing relationships with most of the largest international carriers currently serving Australia from its key tourism source markets including: Singapore Airlines, Emirates, Virgin Australia, Singapore Airlines, China Southern, Air Canada, Cathay Pacific, Air New Zealand, Silk Air, Malaysia Airlines, Etihad Airways, China Eastern, Air Asia X, Delta, Sichuan Airlines, Scoot, Korean Air, United and Garuda Indonesia.

During the coming year, Tourism Australia plans to work with 24 airline partners, investing A$17 million in cooperative marketing campaigns. With the airlines’ contributions, total marketing spend is expected to reach A$34 million. Markets covered by these agreements align strongly with the organization’s balanced portfolio approach.

Where Tourism Australia undertakes joint aviation marketing activity, it is a true partnership so airlines match Tourism Australia’s investment, with activity built around its global There’s nothing like Australia campaign. Examples of new airline routes supported in this way have included Air Asia’s Kuala Lumpur to Sydney route, Scoot’s Singapore to Sydney and Singapore to the Gold Coast routes, SilkAir’s Singapore to Darwin route, Qatar Airways’ Doha to Perth route, Emirates' Dubai to Adelaide route, China Eastern Airlines’ Shanghai to Cairns route and Sichuan Airlines’ Chengdu- Melbourne route.

To achieve the 2020 targets for growth, Australia’s international aviation capacity will need to grow by 40 to 50 per cent and domestic aviation capacity by 25 to 30 per cent. Last year Tourism Australia played a targeted and strategic role in the aviation arena, using partnerships to help grow sustainable and competitive aviation capacity to Australia.

“Tourism Australia recognises that other government agencies will lead aviation access, immigration and investment policy such as Air Service Agreement negotiations, but we now work collaboratively with all of these agencies to ensure we reach our aviation targets,” said Mr McEvoy.

“Air service development is a highly competitive environment and by adopting a partnership approach that provides a clear picture of what Australian destinations have to offer international airlines, we are able to leverage the wider appeal of Australia as a destination.”

In the past 12 months, Tourism Australia has taken a lead role to promote Australia internationally to the aviation audience with a united ‘Team Australia’ approach. Routes Asia 2012 was a prime example of this.

In an effort to attract new international aviation­ capacity, Tourism Australia led a high-level delegation of Australia’s major airports to the event in Chengdu, China. Eight Australian international airports - Adelaide, Brisbane, Cairns, Darwin, Gold Coast, Melbourne, Sydney and Perth – were represented on the ‘Australia stand’.

This partnership approach led to the signing of a sister airport agreement between Chengdu and Melbourne airports, and the subsequent decision by Sichuan Airlines to initiate new flights between the two cities.

The experiences of the last 12 months - with the decisions from Scoot and Sichuan Airlines to launch inaugural international services into Australia, and ongoing expansion by many major carriers now directly serving Australia from Asia (e.g. Sichuan Airlines on Chengdu-Melbourne) and the Middle East (e.g. Emirates Airline on Dubai - Adelaide) – suggest that this partnership approach is being well received by airlines.

“Attendance at key aviation events such as World Routes, and the Routes regional forums, raise Australia’s profile amongst senior route development executives and enable us to gain insight into aviation developments that we can feed back to Australia’s tourism industry.We support government and industry on Air Services Agreement bilateral negotiations and other access issues related to our key tourism source markets,” said McEvoy. “Routes events allow us to effectively engage airlines under one brand and promote Australia internationally with a united voice.”

“They enable Tourism Australia to meet with numerous airline partners in one location, providing opportunities to develop new airline contacts as well as maintain existing relationships,” added Ms Fletcher.

At Routes Asia 2012, Tourism Australia coordinated Australia’s first ever airline event in conjunction with its STOs and airport partners, to further develop relationships and discuss new route opportunities. “Forums like Routes Asia enable us to engage with our airport and STO partners to discuss a range of topics including joint aviation priorities, strategies and marketing support, while attending and participating in the Tourism and Aviation Summits means we learn about the latest developments in the industry,” said Ms Fletcher.

This approach appears to be working as Tourism Australia was awarded the Routes Destination Marketing Award at Routes Asia in Mumbai earlier this year which further increased Australia’s profile among airline network planners and increased engagement.

“Tourism Australia is proud to have picked up this award as recognition for our work, but we couldn’t have done it without support from our airline, airport and STO partners,” said McEvoy. “Working together we can collectively market Australia on a larger scale, sharing market intelligence and making more strategic decisions, helping to build a better, more sustainable aviation future for all."