on international travel ❖
randy mink
What’s Up Down Under? Australia has ambitious plans to ramp up its marketing efforts The Sydney Opera House, its roof evocative of a ship at full sail, is one of the world’s most recognizable buildings.
©Tourism Australia/Robert Wallace
K
angaroos and koalas…Aboriginal art…Sydney harbor...the Great Barrier Reef…rugged Outback landscapes bathed in fiery red hues. These are the iconic images we associate with the Land Down Under. Most Americans venturing to this distant continent at the far reaches of the Pacific consider it a once-in-a-lifetime trip. And quite a distance it is—figure on a 15-hour flight for the 7,487-mile trip from Los Angeles to Sydney. Most tour packages are two or three weeks long and often include New Zealand. 14 June 2011
With lofty designs on garnering a larger piece of the international tourism pie, the Australian government has plans to increase foreign visitation to its shores in the next decade. “The focus is ambitious—to double overnight visitor expenditure from today’s $70 billion to between $115 billion and $140 billion by 2020,” said Andrew McEvoy, managing director of Tourism Australia. “The key markets where this growth will come from have been identified and this is where Tourism Australia will focus its marketing efforts going forward.
“While Australia did have a record year last year in terms of numbers, with 5.9 million visitors, we have seen our share of the global travel market decline over the past decade,” McEvoy said. Indeed, keeping Australia on travelers’ radar is a challenge when so many destinations are competing for a slice of the pie. Prime markets for Australia include the United States, which ranked fourth in tourism revenues generated last year (after China, the United Kingdom and New Zealand). A total of 472,126 Americans visited Australia during 2010, spending a total of $2.1 billion. LeisureGroupTravel.com
Some of those American travelers were fans of The Oprah Winfrey Show, which invited 302 viewers to accompany the queen of daytime talk on “Oprah’s Ultimate Australian Adventure,” a four-part series filmed all over the continent late last year. The tourism industry is still weighing the “Oprah effect.” While it might be a little early to start popping the champagne, McEvoy said early indicators are that the series and campaigning around it are starting to pay off. Visits to Tourism Australia’s website (australia.com) during January and February, for example, were nearly double the monthly average prior to this period. Since its announcement in September 2010, Oprah’s visit has generated some 86,000 media articles across the world, with an estimated equivalent advertising value of $368 million. Online travel agency Orbitz, a key partner in Tourism Australia’s “Great Aussie Sale” promotion that ran in the U.S. alongside the Oprah shows’ airing, has reported an increase in flight and hotel bookings (9.65 and 13.6 percent) in January and February over the same period last year. In a survey of Tourism Australia’s premier Australian travel agency specialists in North America, 74 percent said they have seen an increase in Australian enquiries. The recent introduction of Qantas’ non-stop flights from Dallas-Fort Worth to Brisbane (and on to Sydney)—four times weekly—also is expected to boost tourism from the U.S. The Texas gateway, a major hub for American Airlines, will bring Australia closer to the eastern half of the country and take advantage of codeshare services between the two airlines.
lives on its eastern shores. Sydney, where most travelers begin and/or end their trip, is the country’s biggest and most cosmopolitan urban center. Blessed with a sunny climate, Sydney is built around a glorious harbor indented with bays and studded with world-class beaches.
Located in the state of New South Wales, Sydney also serves as a base for side trips to the interior. Blue Mountains National Park, 90 minutes west of the city, is a World Heritage area with forests, waterfalls, canyons and wild kangaroos. (The blue haze is caused by the fragrant eucalyptus oil emitted
WHERE TO GO…WHAT TO DO Most of Australia’s cities are on the coast, and 80 percent of the population LeisureGroupTravel.com
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on international travel ❖
©Tourism Australia/Camille Nuttal
Only-in-Australia experiences: Making friends with a kangaroo in a wildlife park and exploring the Great Barrier Reef.
from the leaves of the eucalypt trees.) Koalas, kangaroos and other animals unique to Australia also can be found in Sydney itself—at Taronga Zoo and Koala Park Sanctuary. Melbourne, in the state of Victoria, is Australia’s most European city, a shopper’s paradise and a lively arts center. Side trips include Yarra Valley wine country and the Penguin Parade on Phillip Island, 90 minutes from Melbourne. Hundreds of the miniature fairy penguins waddle every evening to the safety of their homes in the sand dunes. Queensland offers its own coastal draws, from the Gold Coast’s theme attractions, casinos and nightclubs to the Great Barrier Reef, its crown jewel. An aquatic wonderland encompassing more than 3,000 individual reefs and 900 islands, the Reef spellbinds divers and snorkelers with exotic fish and coral formations. Cairns and Port Arthur are jumping-off points for the Great Barrier Reef, the largest living feature on earth and the only one visible from space. A tour of Australia is not complete without a foray into the Outback, the vast central desert region comprising the states of Western Australia and the Northern Territory. This untouched wilderness, home to the ancient Aboriginal culture, ranges from the tropics of coastal Darwin and the far western 16 June 2011
city of Perth to the Red Centre around the oasis town of Alice Springs. Remote and mostly uninhabited, this is the “real Australia” as outsiders imagine it. Iconic natural landmarks include the monoliths Uluru (Ayers Rock) and Kata Tjuta (the Olgas). TOURS DOWN UNDER The following is a sampling of Australia-New Zealand tours offered by major operators: COLLETTE VACATIONS “From the Outback to the Glaciers,” a 20-day trip from Melbourne to New Zealand and Fiji, includes a three-day Outback adventure highlighted by a bush walk, a meeting with Aboriginal people at their camp and a champagne toast as Ayers Rock magically changes color at sunset. Also featured are Sydney, Cairns and a glass-bottom boat ride along the Great Barrier Reef. (collettevacations.com) GLOBUS “Down Under Discovery,” a 19-day trip from Auckland to Sydney, focuses on Australia’s and New Zealand’s most scenic areas and popular cities. Australia highlights include a tour of the Opera House in Sydney, Cairns and the Great Barrier Reef, an Outback
Photo Credit: Globus
barbecue in Alice Springs, a walking tour around Uluru and dining onboard a historic tramcar restaurant as it winds its way through Melbourne. (globusjourneys.com) GO AHEAD TOURS The 22-day “Australia and New Zealand Tour” begins with a threenight stay in Cairns (highlighted by catamaran sail to the Great Barrier Reef ) and three days in Alice Springs (with desert trek to Ayers Rock and optional sunrise balloon ride). The trip continues to Melbourne and Sydney before the flight to New Zealand. Tour members get free time to explore in each city. (goaheadtours.com/aun) GOWAY The 15-day “Best of Oz” tour presents the best of Australia, starting in Cairns with a ride into the rainforest on the Kuranda Scenic Railway. After a day on the Great Barrier Reef, it’s on to the Outback for the Olgas, Ayers Rock, a camel ride and tour of Alice Springs. A free day in Adelaide, two nights in Melbourne and three nights in Sydney round out the trip. (goway.com) Appealing to our sense of wanderlust, the Land Down Under is perhaps the ultimate travel adventure. It is indeed the trip of a lifetime. LGT LeisureGroupTravel.com
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