This week marks one year since we started rolling out our global Come and Say G’day campaign around the world, welcoming international travelers to Australia, and supporting the recovery of our visitor economy by driving demand back down under. Whilst the heavy lifting of the campaign is far from done, we are already seeing that it has had a positive impact in our key markets around the world. When our campaign launched in October 2022 visitation to Australia was at about 50 per cent of monthly pre-pandemic levels, and the latest arrivals numbers for July show we have steadily climbed back to about 80 per cent. To celebrate, Ruby the Kangaroo has been hopping onto billboards in Beijing, Chengdu, London, Singapore and New York.

This week kicked off with around 300 Aussie Specialist Program travel agents from around the world attending G’day Australia in Cairns/Gimuy, Queensland. Whilst they are here, the agents, who are the frontline sellers of Australian holidays in our key international markets, will participate in an intensive training and familiarisation program, which in turn supports them to sell Australia with greater confidence. Whilst in Cairns, the agents will meet with around 130 Australian tourism operators during the workshop and networking event portion of the program. The event is delivered by Tourism Australia in partnership with Tourism and Events Queensland, and supported by Tourism Tropical North Queensland, and this is the first time the international mega familiarisation and workshop event has been held since 2019.

Phillipa Harrison