Tourism Australia this month hosted Australia Marketplace, an event for the North American travel trade to meet with destinations and suppliers from Down Under. During the event, news editor Johanna Jainchill sat down with Chris Allison, vice president of Tourism Australia in the Americas, to discuss U.S. travel trends to Australia as well as the latest iteration of its "Come and Say G'Day" ad campaign, which stars Robert Irwin, conservationist and son of the late Steve Irwin.
Chris Allison
Q: U.S. visitation to Australia was flat most of the last year but spiked recently. Beyond a soft March, driven by economic uncertainty, what's behind the trend?
A: When booking windows are short, we will see that short-term impact even for a longer-haul destination like Australia. That has been a big contributing factor. Our aviation is not quite back to where it was, either. That really contributed to what we've seen in the April-to-June quarter. Despite that, we had a really strong peak season: Arrivals between November and March were really positive. And then July was up 19% compared to last year, which is excellent. Talking to everyone here, there's a very consistent view that any of that short-term suppression of demand has really bounced back. Everyone's talking about how busy they are, how good forward projections are for Australia. Our airline partners are all talking about how strong bookings look for the next seven months in particular. That's really positive for the destination.
Q: The U.S. has seen a huge drop-off of Canadian visitors. Is that something you're benefiting from?
A: It's hard to quantify in the data any numbers that we can directly tie to that, but anecdotally, yes, I think we are seeing that. I don't think that's unique to Australia. If we look at Canada, we know demand into the U.S. at the moment is very, very soft and likely will continue to be so for a period of time. But Canadians are still traveling: Outbound travel from Canada is not being impacted by that fairly significant decline in travel to the U.S. That tells us that Canadians are still traveling, and they're going somewhere else. I think Australia has some really unique propositions for some of the communities, like the snowbirds that would typically be going south to Florida or Arizona or Palm Springs or Hawaii.
Q: "Come and Say G'Day" has been very successful. What's different about this second chapter of the campaign?
A: What we've done this time is, rather than have one global campaign that fits all markets, we have a positioning that endures for all markets and have localized our advertising and the talent that we're working with. Robert Irwin is the talent we're using in the U.S. We have four other versions of the campaign for each of our core markets. Under that broader position, you have "Come and Say G'Day" to the holiday that lasts a lifetime, but using different talent and different experiences that resonate most within each core market.
Q: That's your consumer advertising. How do you work with the trade?
A: When we look at our core pillars around our food and drink, our Indigenous offerings, our wildlife, our world-class natural beauty, it's all under that broader umbrella of how we educate around the products and experiences we have in Australia and how they help deliver the experience that we're promising in the advertising. That's why events like this are so important -- it's our big opportunity to connect the dots for the trade in terms of what we're talking about. But they want to know, 'How do I build a trip for my customer that provides them the experience we're seeing in our advertising.' The key barriers for us are perceptions around time, distance and cost, just based on our geography. The travel advisor can help consumers navigate through that.