Nick Baker

The presentation covered the second phase of Tourism Australia’s ‘There’s nothing like Australia’ campaign, the role Social Media has played in the organisation’s marketing and gave insight into their current ‘Best Job in the World’ campaign.

Some quick stats: Tourism in Australia is now worth AU$74 billion. There are 22.9 million stakeholders in the business of tourism, 900,000 of which comprise direct and indirect employees. In 2010, Tourism Receipts (TR) amounted to AU$70 billion and the goal is to reach TR of AU$115-149 billion by 2020. On target, in 2012 TR amounted to AU$96bn.

Against 180 competitors, currently Australia ranks 42 in the world for Visitor Arrivals and 8th in the world for TR. They have the highest spend per visitor in the world.

There’s nothing like Australia

The “There’s nothing like Australia” marketing campaign was born of two insights.

1. The world travels to experience difference
2. The word “Adventure” is most associated with Australia

The campaign has 209 commercial partners, runs in 25 markets and is conducted in 17 languages.

Research determined that visitors as well as prospective visitors come to Australia because they associate Australia with world class nature. They believe Australia is safe, and therefore have the confidence to dare to be different.

Once they come to Australia, and they experience the food and wine, it becomes an important part of their Australian experience, but before they come, they don’t associate Australia with its food or wine. Watch out for those themes to become predominant in future marketing campaigns.

Leading with your best

Changes are underway in the tourism mix for Australia. In part, this is due to Australia’s soaring currency and the high cost of travel to and within Australia.

The advertising campaigns are therefore focused on obtaining the right mix, that is, to focus the marketing campaigns on the rational and emotional space associated with Australia. For example, Australia is now the number one destination for Chinese travelers, and they come for the adventure. Last year, 500,000 Chinese visitors arrived in Australia, surpassing the Japanese. The number of Chinese visitors has grown by 20% since 2010. Interestingly, they are travelling to Australia as Free, Independent Travellers (FIT travellers).

One of the reasons why this has occurred is that Tourism Australia has applied what they call “Socially Amplified Advocacy”. For example, Taiwanese superstars Rainie Yang and Show Luo featured in an online drama series called “Discover Australia”. The series featured five x 10 minute episodes, each shot in different locations and featuring different locations for people to visit. The two celebrities were given over $1 million to travel around Australia and share their experience through their social networks. The series attracted 100m online viewers in China.

In the Q&A session post the presentation, Baker said that Tourism Australia is now building a Chinese “.cn” website. Overcoming difficulties in granting visas easily to the Chinese was their biggest challenge in promoting tourism successfully in China. The reason why the Chinese want to visit Australia is universal. It’s the adventure. Beyond that, they realized that tonal consideration in their marketing campaigns is important. For example wide empty spaces are not featured in the Chinese campaigns as endless scenes of unoccupied space make Chinese people feel uncomfortable.

A reason to care and a reason to share

Baker told us that Tourism Australia has a philosophy of building platforms rather than social campaigns. The platforms generate user content, which they use to promote Australia. For example, Tourism Australia receives 1000 photos a day from fans. Many are compelling shots, and when they use them, they reach over 1 million people a day. Recently one fan’s photo of a koala relaxing in a treegenerated more than 70,000 likes and 20,000 shares.

Tourism Australia has the highest number of fans for a tourism page on Facebookat 4.1m, and 750,000 followers on Google+. They are the largest tourism user of Instagram (@seeaustralia) and Weibo in China. They also have YouTube, Pinterest and Twitter platforms.

Tourism Australia believes in making the fans the hero. For example, one highly unexpected fan, a retired Australian, Harry Wiley, posts up to 8 times a day on the Tourism Australia Facebook page and often answers fans questions.

News jacking

Tourism Australia believes that although technology will change, the need to tell compelling stories will not.

Having learned from Queensland Tourism’s “Best Job in the World” campaign, they recently closed a competition for the “6 Best Jobs in the World”, for which candidates win a job worth $100,000 for six months in 6 categories – Chief Funster in New South Wales, Outback Adventurer in the Northern Territories (both of which proved to be the most popular choices); Park Ranger in Queensland; Wildlife Caretaker in South Australia; Lifestyle Photographer in Melbourne; and a Taste Master in Western Australia.

A total of 622,000 applications were received from 196 countries, including one from North Korea! Tourism Australia management narrowed those applications down to 18 candidates for the 6 jobs, which will now be subject to votes by fans to determine the winner of each job.