China focus of tourism push

Clare Kermond February 17, 2012

TOURISM Australia will be lifting its marketing spending on China, as well as fighting off efforts by the United States to take a slice of this lucrative and fast-growing sector.

About 30 per cent of Tourism Australia's offshore marketing spending goes on efforts to attract Chinese tourists, with this figure set to increase over the next 12 months.

Tourism Australia's executive general manager of marketing, Nick Baker, said China was a massive growth market, with an increase of about 23 per cent expected in Chinese tourism over the next year.

He said the aim was for Chinese to see Australia as ''their holiday resort''. But he warned that Australia could face tough competition from the US. US President Barack Obama recently spoke about the importance of tourism and incentives to encourage tourists from China.

''That's a massive threat to us if America gets their act together on this,'' Mr Baker said. ''Look at places like California, they're a massive competitor for us.''

According to new figures, close to half a million Chinese tourists visited Australia last year.

China is Australia's most valuable international travel market, worth $3.3 billion in 2010.

Last year, Tourism Australia released its China 2020 Strategic Plan, which aims to lift outbound trips from China to 860,000 visitors annually by 2020, worth around $9.5 billion.

It says the key opportunities from China include a growing upper and middle class, growth in demand for business events, a strong digital and social media environment and the expansion of aviation capacity.

Speaking about the future of tourism marketing, Mr Baker said while social media and digital marketing would continue to grow in importance, many agencies were not interested enough in training people in these areas.