Destination Australia – key takeaways from Tourism Australia’s 2023 conference

The annual Destination Australia conference was jam-packed with meaningful, relevant sessions, forecasts, trends and strategies for us to use engage with in our tourism businesses… here’s the takeaways from the main sessions. It was set on a sunny Sydney day, Thursday 16th March at the International Convention Centre in Darling Harbour, and the event saw & heard over 1000 (800 in-person & over 200 online) tourism professionals ‘come & say G’day’ together.

Strategic Priorities

Pip Harrison, Managing Director of Tourism Australia, explained the seven strategic priorities, growing demand to enable a competitive and sustainable tourism industry:

1. Create demand with the international campaign “Come and Say G’day”
2. Convert demand with partners
3. Leverage the FIFA Women’s World Cup – this is the first leverage, heading towards a decade of promotion of sports events up to the 2032 Brisbane Olympics
4. Promote working holidays to address skills shortage
5. Support industry by recovery
6. Indigenous, Sustainable and Accessible – some of the main sessions at Destination Australia were around these important initiatives
7. Grow business events.

International Visitor Economy Snapshot & Forecast

• International travel is still slow which means regions are still suffering with lowered international numbers. Cost for tourists coming into Australia is still very high compared to other countries, due to flight costs. There is international demand from Europe, US etc though it’s too costly with current reduced flight capacity.
• India is the largest immigrant community coming in now, as well as a quickly expanding trade agreement- which means lots of opportunities for tourism. Indian market including students coming back quicker than any other. Economy growing much faster than any other Asian region. It’s stated that almost 50% population are about to be middle class demographic within a decade.
• My work in tourism, hospitality & events higher education also reflects this demographic, with international students arriving from the subcontinent of Asia who are hoping to remain in Australia and work in regional areas. We provide dedicated parhways in capacity-building towards graduate success and professional skills in these areas, to welcome fantastic new skilled workers into regional Australian tourism.
• As a lack of skilled workers is still what we’re facing in the next 6 months, even though there’s now a significantly reducing waiting time, even though an additional 73000 visas were approved late last year in the Australian tourism & hospitality sector. And the backpacker sector is almost back to where it is, though there is work to be done on promoting working holiday visas for a return to previous numbers of these workers.
• VFR sector is now falling, leisure travellers have overtaken VFR
• High yielding revellers are still willing to dip into their pockets even though there may be tough times ahead.

Chinese Inbound Visitors

• China trade meeting recently was positive, with talks returning. China leisure market still needs to gain confidence to come back, currently it’s mainly the visiting friends & relatives market (VFR)
• China market is just starting to open. 30% at present, hoping to be at 90% by end of 2023. eg. Tullamarine airport – 6 of 8 Chinese air carriers are coming back though not in the same volumes.
• Tourism Australia has Launched a Chinese version of ‘don’t go small – go Australia’, to attract VFR Chinese, then they will target the leisure sector later with the Ruby the kangaroo campaign a little further down the track.
• C-Trip (largest travel engine in China) has tanked Aust as one of the top searches in 2023, so the interest is there

Current Challenges of Tourism

Frictions we face: aviation capacity & normalising of flight pricing.

Flights, it’s not just the pricing for long haul that’s an issue: domestic connections, timings, are an issue as well as frequent flyer points

• competition of o/s destinations & the fact we are long haul.
  

• Attracting & retaining quality FOH staff. Who will then also bring friends & family.
• Rural sector & small business – rising interest rates & goods cost
• Globally there’s tightening of budgets for businesses and finding it a little tougher due to inflation / interest rate rises & cessation of support packages during covid.
• STO & RTO’s: this year compared to last year is much better. Though it’s a competitive environment now. The next 12 months is still going to be hard so government funding is essential.

More detail on the Strategic pillars

International Visitor Economy

• Aust inbound tourism (Intl) – returning back to normal by 2025 (slide)
• Shorter trips jumping back first. Hence Opportunity within APAC region
• Demand in strong for inbound Intl students & above predictions for 2023
• Chinese govt recommending students travel & study in source markets such as Australia.
• Luxury experiences & luxury accom on personalised tours – US is coming back fairly strong in this market.
• Good confidence for spring 2023 onwards & with a return to normal seasonality.

Promotion & Leverage of Events

• events in next decade starting with FIFA women’s World Cup – leveraging event moments by promoting Aust green & gold decade up to Olympics

• World pride in Sydney brought in $12 million

• consideration & Conversion of business events. Secure during pipeline of Intl events with a new campaign “there’s nothing like Aust for business events’. (There’s an excellent campaign video for this)
  
• Business Events
  ⁃ business events pre-covid brought in 15% of tourism market. And the fact the legacies that these events leave
  ⁃ 1in 13 jobs are in tourism in Aust
  ⁃ Desire is during to get back to F2F, virtual only less of a desire
  ⁃ Deadlines are so so much shorter at the moment with shorter lead times in trying to win events & less staff. RFP activity is quite high at the moment so potential business event wins hopefully will be put into the pipeline

Promote Working holidays

• these workers have been in decline over several years now as young people choose shorter trips and find money sourced elsewhere.
  

Agritourism
…is booming around the world. Kate shilling from Ultimate Winery Experiences shared the importance of collaboration with other businesses in your regions. Momentum with people getting together – “the world’s your oyster.

• cellar door experiences – US, UK, & now Singaporean’s are visiting (esp WA)
• cellar door experiences are the anchor attractions for tech region thoughs understand the importance of their halo effect where this visitation drives into the regions farms & agriculture as well.
• strong competition from Europe for incentives & destination events. As Aust is 6-8mths behind in regards to marketing due to borders closed with bids being 6-18 mths
• wine product sales to China – diversify. They are coming to us though as we offer an authentic experience alongside the bottle. Core authenticate experiences
• in Europe sustainability credentials is v important in new & emerging markets of wine.

Travel Trends

• have accepted that the pandemic has left a lasting mark on how we work travel & live – what’s become obvious is that we’re reverting back to previous travel habits
• health concerns are shifting to focus on wealth concerns. Travel needs to have perceive value. Doesn’t means to drop your price – though to amplify value
• though a Renaissance of sorts is here in regards to indulgence – highyield travellers want to celebrate & treat themselves. “Living life to fullest”. Doesn’t mean an expensive holiday overall, though it’s more short bursts of extravagance within the holiday – moments of luxury or experience. Wanting information straight away though.

• Curated experiences though education up front on who the staff are and where have they come from – what this story is behind the experiences & the stories of people working behind them.
  ⁃ short lead time is a more longlasting trend.
  ⁃ wanting to connect with family & friends .. have now moved beyond that – it’s now meaningful travel for transformational experiences – culture, nature, sustainability, gastronomic. Consider communities, environment & culture of destination
  ⁃ Another major trend – A destination for ALL. Inclusivity & accessibility. Eg. Qld has stated that 2023 is the year for accessible travel.
  Content creation
• into short form video.
• main demographic of TikTok is now 35-45 yrs old.
• Insta reels is now going after this market as well. Planning has shifted beyond a particular destination through a brochure etc – its now continuous – we’re always discovering now, & being prompted to. This ‘dream content’ is to be short form video
• Every traveller that experiences your product is a potential ambassador as they will promote it via these channels.
• Virtual experiences: over 25% of people by 2026 will have discovered / bought via the metaverse.
• Digital nomads working whilst travelling – over 500,000 in the US alone. Airbnb state they are looking for stays 4 weeks or longer
• Using generative artificial intelligence such as Chat-GPT – there’s no denying that it will impact with daily work. eg. helps with complicated itineraries. Help with translation. Take away repetitive tasks.
  

Developing a tourism product accessible to all

The panel speakers had the following insights to share, for us all to learn from:
– there’s a thirst for change to accessibility though now is the time to act.
– There should be co-design with community accessibility members & travel operators as theres been a lot of hesitation and saying of ‘no’ straight out. Don’t be scared to appreciate & find out their extra needs. Ie the software, not just the hardware. The inclusion ‘software’ part needs to happen.
– 1 in 5 persons have a disability in Australia.
– If you’re a small business – the transition from cost to demand will happen, you just need need to make a start. It’s ok if you make a couple of mistakes, though as long as you keep asking questions of those customers with disability to get feedback & constantly improve, this is action in motion.
– Don’t let your unconscious bias think that it’s not going to happen – see what the potential customer is thinking & see how you can do it together, then that flow-on effect on family & friends coming as customers is an added bonus.

– Your business may have quite a few elements of accessibility already – show these eg. Wide corridors, no steps, level grounds etc.
– Have a look at the checklists online from QLD / NSW govt sites.

I personally found these insights very useful:

— You can have all the disability ramps & toilets you want – but to be socially inclusive & understand your visitor & their social approach, it will set you ahead of the rest.

– future visitors with visual impairment: how can your marketing & promotion material be more auditory & kinesthetic as well as the ‘visual’. A simple example of this is when developing promotional material – instead of writing ‘come and see’ … it could written as ‘come and feel’

Suggested three steps to make a disabled customer more comfortable in your product, let them know that you run your products in this order:

1. safety

2. fun, & also

3. learning

Indigenous tourism

-Think about your product & research it further to highlight the connection to country, nature, heritage & indigenous culture. This will bring a new demographic of visitor over on top of your regular visitor demographic.
-Partnership philosophy – achieving goals – mindful of challenges around climate change & traditional enhanced practice. Indigenous philosophy & community have very real advanced knowledge systems to be able to educate other systems in the world through spreading the word via tourism.
-Tourism has a responsibility to answer for the promotion of indigenous experiences, to help these communities stay on country for future generations.
⁃ the indigenous panel exported their desire for tourism & media to talk about indigenous experiences from a strength based voice, not from a minority or challenges view.
⁃ There’s an issue sometimes with small husband & wife doing bookings, admin & tours just the two of them – no time. Though important to have a plan B ie. someone to step in to help out so the experience can still go ahead.
⁃ Sustainable build for inclusivity where a non-indigenous tourism operator wants to respect & promote this – to approach an indigenous, hopefully will be a symbiotic relationship.

A Final Thanks from the Destination Australia event

Throughout the whole of the Destination Australia event, there was the sentiment of thanks to us in this wonderful industry for our resilience, & the motivation of more tourism offerings to continue to offer the best of experiences, to help get business back to this country as much as possible. We are memory makers, which our future visitors will appreciate so much as they experience our offerings.

Author of Article

Katrina Denoux (M.Sc) feels lucky to be able to combine her two loves, travel & education as an Ambassador for Regional Tourism Australia, and her role as Learning Teaching & Innovation Manager at the International College of Management Sydney, furthering the international & domestic student experience in tourism, hospitality & event degrees & employability in Australia. She specialises in the experience economy, wellness tourism, & sustainability; as an academic professor & speaker on the international insights circuit.

Katrina is also a tourism practitioner & registered health provider with an experiential accommodation business, Villa Tropez, with award-wining heritage, nature-led venues in Europe and Australia, & has been in the wellbeing & sustainability tourism space as a leader for 20 years.