Australia sets sights on China expansion

A tourist board and an airline have teamed up to target the Chinese business travel market. Under a three-year A$2.7 million (US$2m) marketing agreement Tourism Australia and Singapore Airlines will contribute A$1.35m each towards developing a range of campaigns, marketing and promotional activities within China promoting Australia as a destination for business events. Singapore Airlines will become Tourism Australia’s exclusive business events airline partner for marketing promotion activities within China, targeted at both agents and corporate buyers. China is Australia’s fourth biggest market for business events visitors, contributing A$238m  in the year ending September 2014. Australia has been selected to host some of the largest incentive events from China, including the NuSkin China Incentive 2016 and Amway China Incentive 2017. Tourism Australia’s goal is to increase global business events spending across the board to A$16bn by the end of the decade. Andrew Hogg, regional general manager for Greater China at Tourism Australia, said: “Singapore Airlines is one of our longest standing airline partners and has been helping to promote travel to Australia for years. The signing of this new MOU dedicated to Business Events is further evidence of our desire and ability to work effectively with key airline partners on commercially focused marketing activities. Tourism Australia is committed to working with Singapore Airlines to achieve strong business events visitor growth for Australia.” Mr W.K Lim, regional vice president North Asia for Singapore Airlines said: “We have been working closely with Tourism Australia for a number of years and the new MOU dedicated to business events will further drive and expand this market segment for mutually beneficial opportunities. While the world is competing hard to attract business events visitors from key growth markets, we are confident that with our long-standing presence and ongoing expansion across the country’s key gateways, we have a winning proposition to present to the key target markets to drive more business events visitors to Australia and cement Singapore as the optimal gateway hub to Australia.”