Tourism Australia recently conducted a motivational training session for more than 60 Aussie Specialists from Peninsular Malaysia. This training boosted the agents’ selling skills through knowledge on how to promote and sell Australia more effectively to their customers. Tourism Australia also recently hosted a networking and recognition Christmas dinner for key distribution partners in Malaysia who are Premier Aussie Specialists. The dinner was held in appreciation of the efforts and support given by the partners who have contributed to the healthy growth from the market, up 16.3% year-on-year to October 2016.

Tourism Australia and OMD Malaysia won Gold at the recent Dragons of Malaysia 2016 Awards in the ‘Best Event or Experiential Marketing Campaign’ category for its ‘Savour Australia’ food and wine campaign. The campaign was a content partnership with regional lifestyle channel, Life Inspired, showcasing a seven-episode food travelogue series hosted by popular presenter Jason Godfrey. The series was shot in Western Australia, South Australia, Queensland, Northern Territory, Victoria, New South Wales, and Tasmania.

Five visiting journalists from the United States spent four days in the Northern Territory’s Top End earlier this month tracking ‘outback wrangler’ Matt Wright of Outback Floatplane Adventures. The journalists who write for Huffington Post, New York Daily News, Uproxx, Blastr and Outside Magazine among others, visited Darwin, Litchfield National Park and spent time at Wright’s property. Tourism Australia partnered with Wright and National Geographic Channels to support the press trip to promote the second season of Wright’s Nat Geo WILD television series Outback Wrangler, which premieres in the US in January.

Tourism Australia and Qantas have rolled out a new promotion offering flights from seven German airports to Melbourne or Sydney starting from 898 euro. The competitive fares are being promoted through banner ads and video on Qantas.com until 8 January 2017. The promotion comes at a time of record arrivals from Germany with more than 200,000 visitors for the year ending October 2016. Visitation in the month of October 2016 alone was up 14.4% with 22,300 Germans travelling to Australia. German leisure visitors are valuable travellers, spending 48% of their trip nights outside Australia’s main cities.

Australian tourism businesses are being encouraged to enter a new competition by Tourism Australia and Qantas to showcase the best social content shared by the industry in 2016. The competition will choose winners across three categories - best video, best photo, and most viral content – whose content will be shown at the LA Gala. The 2017 program for Australia’s premiere public, cultural and economic diplomacy initiative in the United States, G'Day USA, was launched earlier this month.

This is the final edition of Essentials for 2016 and the first edition in the New Year will be on Wednesday 18 January. When Essentials returns in 2017 it will have a new look and will be easier to read on mobile devices. The refreshed edition will also incorporate Australian Stories featuring the latest product and destination news from around the country. Thank you for subscribing, happy holidays and see you in 2017.

The tourism industry retains its super growth status with the sector growing more than three times as fast as the rest of the economy for the 2015-16 year, the Australian Bureau of Statistics’ (ABS) Tourism Satellite Account released today reveals. The Tourism Satellite Account is published annually by the ABS and estimates the economic contribution of the tourism industry to the Australian economy. Growing at 7.4 per cent over the 12 month period, the direct contribution of the tourism industry to Gross Domestic Product reached $52.9 billion. The industry continued to employ more Australians, with more than 580,000 jobs linked directly to the sector. One in 20 Australians now work directly in tourism-related jobs, including in accommodation, aviation and attractions. Find out more.

The number of domestic tourists visiting every state and territory in Australia is increasing according to the latest National Visitor Survey released today by Australia's Minister for Trade, Tourism and Investment, The Hon Steven Ciobo MP. Australians took a total of 89.4 million trips in the last year spending a record $59.8 billion. Minister Ciobo congratulated Australia’s state and territory tourism organisations on their success in the last 12 months. Find out more.

South Korean airline Jin Air commenced a direct seasonal service between Seoul and Cairns last week, operating two flights per week until February 2017. The service is delivered in a partnership between the Queensland Government, Tourism and Events Queensland, Tourism Australia, Cairns Airport Limited, Tourism Tropical North Queensland and Jin Air. “Future growth in this vital market is heavily dependent upon improving aviation access and securing additional capacity, which is why Jin Air's new services to Cairns are so important,” said Tourism Australia Managing Director John O’Sullivan. Find out more.

China Eastern Airlines began direct flights between Shanghai and Brisbane this week which are expected to bring some 18,000 additional Chinese visitors to Queensland each year. China Eastern is China’s second largest airline, Shanghai’s home carrier and one of the ‘Big 3’ national airlines of China. The new services will operate four times per week on Monday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday. “We know China Eastern has ambitions to operate the route as a daily service in the future and we look forward to working with them to make this a reality,” said Brisbane Airport Corporation CEO Julieanne Alroe. Find out more.

Registrations are now open for Indonesia Australia Business Week (IABW) 2017. The tourism stream in IABW 2017 includes two sub-sectors: tourism promotion and tourism destination development. The program will include opportunities to engage with Indonesian government officials, key industry players and customers through a range of seminars, roundtable discussions, networking events and site visits over four days in the week commencing 6 March. A detailed program with locations and exact dates will be available in mid-January.

Tourism Australia will host free-of-charge industry briefings in Darwin on Friday 24 February. The briefing will involve senior executives from Tourism Australia providing an update on current and future activity and sharing research and insights from key international markets. It will be held in the Hilton Darwin ahead of the national Qantas Australian Tourism Awards that evening. Register online.

Registration is open until Friday 3 February for exhibitors wishing to attend the official ATE17 Media Program in Sydney from 12-15 May next year. The event offers Australian tourism operators and organisations the opportunity to meet exclusively with international and domestic media for one-on-one appointments and attend valuable networking functions.

Registrations for the Business Events Australia Greater China Showcase are open until Tuesday 10 January. The Showcase will be held in Chengdu, China from 19 to 21 April 2017 and will provide Australian industry with the opportunity to meet and do business with incentive business events agents and corporate buyers, and to gain insights into the China business events market.

Early bird rates are open until 31 December for the Australia Tourism Summit 2017 in Los Angeles on 27-28 February. This year the Summit will focus on ‘The Future of Travel’ with a line-up of speakers including: Robert Thomson, CEO of News Corp; Chip Conley, Head of Global Hospitality & Strategy at Airbnb; Tyler Brûlé, Editor-in-Chief of Monocle; Wendy Sowers, Director of Product Forecasting for Boeing Commercial Airplanes; Brett Godfrey, Entrepreneur and Co-Founder of Virgin Australia Airlines; and more. The annual event brings together around 300 attendees including wholesalers, retailers, airlines and media.

Polling of 17,000 people from 17 countries found 70 per cent were happier travelling than obtaining material things and they experienced an emotional lift at each stage of the travel process from planning to being away. The global study commissioned by Booking.com found more people look to holidays when they're in need of a happiness boost than anything else. For more research and trends related to international and domestic tourism and travel, visit Tourism Australia’s Insight Files.