Question Time: ABiC 2011
It was a colourful question time session for the 200+ delegates at the 2011 Adventure and Backpacker Industry Conference in Sydney this afternoon.
A panel of industry experts, including ATEC managing director Felicia Mariani, Tourism Australia’s Nick Baker, Traveltrends’ founder Martin Kelly and Greg Zammit from Adventure Tours Australia, gave their insight in response to a wide range of questions from the floor.
One operator questioned whether the current Tourism Australia marketing campaign ‘There’s nothing like Australia’ had the legs to make it as successful in the long term as New Zealand’s ’100% Pure’ campaign.
Nick Baker, marketing director at Tourism Australia said he had confidence in the longevity of the ‘nothing like’ campaign:
“Australia remains an extraordinarily aspirational destination”, said Baker.
“People know Australia, and so they see it as familiar, we need to be better at communicating new product and new experiences and that’s at the heart of the ‘Nothing Like Australia’ campaign.
“By matching ‘Country’ with ‘People’ we have an opportunity to sell Australia’s unique experiences.”
Felicia Mariani from ATEC leapt to the defence of the “Nothing Like” campaign and also pointed to the Tourism Victoria ‘jigsaw’ campaign as another strong example of Australian destination marketing.
“Australians have an enormous propensity to want to tear everything down; let’s start to appreciate what’s good about Australia, let’s stop tearing it down.
“There are still tremendous experiences you can only do here in Australia.” Ms Mariani said.
Ms Mariani also said operators need to focus even more on providing the customer experience for which Australia is famous.
“In the magic of the online world we have lost the connection with what customers are actually looking for,” Ms Mariani said.
Conference delegates still have a full afternoon of workshops to look forward to, covering a wide range of topics from “Preparing for the Chinese Backpacker” to “The Great Debate: Vanpackers are an opportunity not a threat.”
For live updates from the Adventure and Backpacker Industry Conference, tune in to Twitter #ABIC11
Follow Andrew Parkinson’s live Twitter coverage of ABiC – @thetravelmav
By Andrew Parkinson · October 27th, 2011 at 3:36 pm
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Comments
31 Oct 11
2:55 pm
I enjoyed all of the ABiC conference events, but I was surprised to see very little focus on the working side of the Working Holiday experience. How are we going to attract more 18-30 year old backpackers here instead of SE Asia? JOBS!!
I agree that the “Nothing Like Australia” slogan is a good one, but I’d love to see more effort put in to showing that there is nothing like WORKING in Australia. Great money, new experiences, lifelong friends… these are things that young travellers are looking for that they cannot get anywhere else in the world. Australia hooked me and many other international travellers with the great work/life balance here… why can’t we promote that more in tourism marketing campaigns?
1 Nov 11
9:15 am
I had actually been saying this to my colleagues throughout the day – Australia hasn’t got anything other countries can’t offer! Half the reason myself and the majority of my friends are here is due to the wage and lifestyle aussie can offer – i probably go on at least a trip or tour every month and pump quite a bit of money into tourism from my new found higher wages.
2 Nov 11
12:58 pm
Ms Chipchase calls us “negative”, Ms Mariani tells us we’re “tearing things down.”
Name 5-things people can only do in Australia, Ms Mariani.
One less common thing is Work and Travel. And as Skylar said, this seems to have been overlooked.
2 Nov 11
1:25 pm
When I think of Aussie and what it has to offer I still get drawn back to those old so called “cliches”, kangaroos, red dirt, that big rock and the Sydney harbor. Why do I associate these with Australia, because that’s what people who don’t live there do, that is the vision of Australia like it or not. Ask an active considerer what they think is in NZ and they will no doubt say it is beautiful and has sheep, yip thats about right, ask about Australia and they will mention what I have above and that too is correct. I wonder if we spend too much time over thinking these things and we could maybe stick to the basics, keep it simple stupid.
The beauty of our two countries is no matter how expensive things are getting there is always one truth, beaches, beautiful walks and scenery are usually free and the most important parts of our countries. If you need help on how to promote our countries, look out your window, beautiful isn’t it.
3 Nov 11
9:19 am
All l will say is space we have it, most countries dont, thats what they all want
4 Nov 11
9:56 am
I agree that the Working Holiday is under estimated. I cannot see why the WHM is not marketed on what our work and seasons bring. At the moment we have a huge demand for labour with our grain harvest in every state. This could have been marketed in the US grain growing regions. Their young, experienced harvest workers and agriculture mechanics could have filled the labour shortfall and stayed on to travel.
The difference with the WHM visa and other visas is that a backpacker worker can be working in Darwin or Queensland and on call can be working in NSW down to Victoria across to Sth Australia, the West or Tassie.
There are some business in rural and regional Australia closing their doors as their workers leave to work in the mines. Many of these businesses only need workers for a few weeks a year and in many cases backpackers are only willing to travel to.
This Sunday’s ABC’s Landline highlights the important roll the Working Holiday plays in migration into the outback where no one would have thought of going
It is time the industry needs a task force on the working backpacker issues?
7 Nov 11
1:59 pm
Those that missed Sundays ABC’s Landline showing the important roll that the Working Holiday plays in the outback and how it can lead to migration can see it on http://www.abc.net.au/landline and click on the right to ‘Luck of the Irish’.
As it has been said many times on this site, backpackers only have spend some time working in these much needed places and can be cashed up to continue their travels.
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