Northstar

Interview Australia continues to be top of mind for business events overseas Maggie White Business Events (BE) Australia's plans for South/Southeast Asia. BE Australia's key focus is to leverage the business events sector's capacity to deliver high yielding visitors who also may return later as repeat leisure visitors. A key emphasis of all business events trade marketing initiatives is to position Australia as a competitive, environmentally and socially responsible destination and to leverage Australia's competitive strength in this area. We plan to continue to work closely with our Convention Bureaus, Convention Centres and attractions to ensure that Australia continues to be top of mind for all corporate travel agents and organisations seeking to hold business events overseas. Working with visitor and convention bureaus around Australia, BE Australia will deliver co- operative marketing programmes and support business-to-business trade marketing programmes for Australia. Asia is a key strategic growth area for the Australian 2020 Tourism Industry Potential. The industry aims to double overnight visitor expenditure to $140 billion by 2020. Business events visitors to Australia make an important contribution to this objective, as the Australian business events sector is already worth nearly $8.0 billion in overnight visitor expenditure. In the year ending December 2010, Australia witnessed an increase of 56% of business event arrivals from India, 45% from Singapore and 26% from China. Indonesia now attracts around 3,600 business event visitors and Malaysia 3,300 and both markets represent potential for further growth in 2011 and 2012. Personality Maggie White, Regional General Manager, S/SE Asia & Gulf, Tourism Australia, shares her thoughts about the MICE industry Down Under. Are you attracting more MICE tourists to Australia now and why? Which are the top Asian MICE markets for Australia? According to feedback from our partners, there defi nitely is an increase in Business Event visitors to Australia from Southeast Asia. The top Convention Business Markets for Australia are India, Singapore, China, Korea and Japan. Whilst we do not Asia is a key strategic growth area for the Australian 2020 Tourism Industry Potential. The industry aims to double overnight visitor expenditure to $140 billion by 2020. Business events visitors to Australia make an important contribution to this objective, as the Australian business events sector is already worth nearly $8.0 billion in overnight visitor expenditure. have actual fi gures for BE arrivals, in particular incentive groups, however for year ending December 2010, Australia witnessed an increase of 56% for convention arrivals from India, 45% from Singapore and Indonesia now attracts around 3,600 convention visitors and Malaysia 3,300 and both markets represent potential for further growth in 2011 and 2012. Asia is a key strategic growth area for the Australian 2002 Tourism Industry Potential. The industry aims to double overnight visitor expenditure to $140 billion by 2020. Business events visitors to Australia will make an important contribution to this objective, as the Australian business events sector is already worth nearly $8.0 billion in overnight visitor expenditure. Can you give some examples on which organisations from Asia recently head to Australia for their business events? Some groups we recently hosted and will be hosting in Australia include: 8,038 delegates from Amway China visited Australia in early 2011. We are looking forward to hosting another 4,400 delegates from Amway India in Melbourne in 2012. Melbourne also recently played host to 500 delegates from Asia-Pacifi c who attended the Intel Solutions Summit 2011. 300 delegates from Indonesia Stock Exchange. 500 delegates from Prudential Malaysia. Gold Coast was also host to 60 delegates from Canon. Perth was the destination choice for 65 delegates from United Engineers from Singapore last year. Are there any challenges in catering to the broad Asian market that the Australian meetings and events sector is active tackling? Asia is culturally diverse so we need to tailor what we offer to individual market needs. China is obviously very different from India in terms of what each market expects and want for their business event. The Australian Business events industry obviously needs to be more involved in the individual markets and learn about the different culture and needs of the very diverse countries in Asia so they can better cater to their needs. Events 5 August 2011

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