Visit West’s Head of Marketing, Jon Chamberlain, reports back from the 2024 Visit Britain Australia Travel Trade Mission.
This was Visit Britain’s first travel trade mission to Australia since 2016 and was well attended by 36 suppliers from across Britain, including five Local Visitor Economy Partnerships, one of which was Visit West. Others included Visit Birmingham/West Midlands, Visit Liverpool, Cumbria Tourism and Experience Oxfordshire.
The Australia inbound market is forecast to be worth a record £1.7bn to the UK economy in 2024. In 2023 there were 1.2m visits (up 10% on 2019) with spend up 36% on 2019 and a whopping 43% up on 2022. Australia is the fourth most valuable market to the UK visitor economy.
The mission took place across the three cities of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane from 8-13 September 2024. In each location there were one-to-one meetings with product managers as well as structured meetings with travel advisors taking place in the evenings. This made for a highly productive, if somewhat demanding, schedule across the week.
Visit West were able to connect with top travel advisors from Australia’s retail sector during networking and dedicated agent training sessions, converting the demand into bookings.
In Sydney there was also a gala event for buyers and the UK suppliers at Sydney Opera House, including a special guest appearance from Paddington Bear! This fed in to Visit Britain’s preview of their upcoming campaign, “Starring GREAT Britain” which will focus on film and television tourism – now known as ‘set jetting’ – something which the West of England region excels at, of course.
Reporting back before flying home to the UK, Jon Chamberlain said: “This has been a packed week of highly effective meetings with engaged and excited product managers and agents. Australians are more likely to explore more of the country – and spend double the average international visitor while they are here – so it makes complete sense to maximise the knowledge of what’s on offer in our region and give reasons to plan those trips now.”
Themes discussed included heritage links with Australia, not least Brunel’s SS Great Britain, Austen250, Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 and the location of Bath and Bristol in the country, showcasing not just the cities themselves but everything else around. Combining a stay with a trip into the Cotswolds, for example, to encourage multiple-night stays in our region.
Jon added, “There’s plenty of follow-up to do now, but I have every confidence that we’ll see more visitors from Australia in the years ahead as a result of this travel trade mission.”
Read Visit Britain’s press release about the travel trade mission here:
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