Which is why it was rather ironic that there was no wireless access in the venue where the press conference was held to enable the international media gathered to tweet and be social advocates about the event.

Other than that, it was good to see Tourism Australia determined to get the industry back to form and excited about its social advocacy strategy. 

Managing director Andrew McEvoy (right) said a year on, “There’s Nothing Like Australia” brand campaign launched at last year’s ATE was showing good results.

Its Facebook page was growing at 5,000 new fans a day, with a total of 1.35 million fans. Over half of the fans are from within Australia.

More than 50 international partners are working with the tourism board and 140 organisations are using its widget to drive content. The website, Australia.com and related site, nothinglikeaustralia.com, has recorded 16 million unique users.

The most high-profile social advocate was obviously Oprah Winfrey, whose live appearance in Australia has generated $200 million worth of publicity for the country, according to Tourism Australia which invested A$1.5 million into the initiative.

Citing Repucom data, McEvoy said 74% of people aware of the shows agreed that Australia was worth travelling to while 61% has explored Australian travel options in some ways. OTAs like Orbitz also reported a 10% increase in bookings from the USA, right after the show, said McEvoy.

In India, it enlisted a celebrity chef and a media celebrity couple to share their stories of Australia. And its “Making Tracks” campaign in which it invited four members of the 2011 YouTube Symphony Orchestra to travel to Australia and collaborate with four local musicians has generated two million views.

“It is in our DNA to get people to tell their stories about us,” said McEvoy.

The challenge is, of course, to convert stories into actual visitors and McEvoy also unveiled new 2020 Tourism Industry Potential targets – double visitor expenditure from current A$70 billion to $115-$140 billion and increase visitor arrivals from 6 million to 10 million.

Geoff Dixon, chairman of Tourism Australia (left), said these targets were not impossible – all Australia needs to do is achieve half of the growth rates it did year on year in the 80s and 90s but somehow lost steam in the 2000s.

“It means getting back to the performance of the 1980s where we saw average annual growth of 9.8%,” added McEvoy, contrasting that with the 1.4% growth recorded in the 2000s.

To achieve those targets, Australia is setting its sights on a 40-50% growth in international air seats and 25% growth in domestic; adding 50,000 new rooms; and increasing the tourism workforce from 500,000 to 600,000. 

Getting the air seats should be the least of the problems, according to Dixon, former CEO of Qantas, looking at forward aircraft orders and the interest in airlines wanting to fly to Australia. 

Indicative of the interest from China was the fact that the president and CEO of China Southern Airlines, Tan Weng Eng, was present at ATE and the airline was a first-time exhibitor at the event. 

McEvoy said low cost would drive the bulk of those additional seats, pointing to airlines like AirAsia X and Jetstar which were helping drive strong growth from South-east Asian markets.

Tourism Australia is having its mandate broadened to focus on bringing in investments into the country to build more hotel rooms. McEvoy said a range of three- and five-star hotels was needed across capital cities while out in the regions, signature developments were needed that would make Australia stand apart from the competition.

Attracting foreign investments in hotels has been a challenge due to high land and labour costs with owners citing low ROI. “We are working with government to make it easier and more attractive for investors,” said Dixon.

The biggest challenge is labour. At almost zero unemployment, it’s been hard for tourism enterprises to find the right labour but McEvoy said government was determined to address this issue. “We have a disaparate industry and we need to galvanise behind a common ambition. Competition has never been greater and we have to gain our unfair share of the market, aggressively and competitively.”

The target is also to increase the international market share. Currently, domestic is 62% of spending and this will go down to 55%. International tourism will go from 38% to 45%. 

And the top 10 markets to drive growth in order of expenditure – China, USA, UK, South Korea, New Zealand, Japan, Singapore, India, Malaysia, Germany and France.

Now go tweet that.