The influence of social media networks within Tourism Australia’s target segment of affluent, mid-life travellers is significant and they are exploring unique methods of actively engaging with potential travelers by way of this medium. Digital media has been an integral part of the ‘There’s Nothing like Australia’ campaign in India with an approach of delivering innovative, rich and appealing content to customers through new media and social media platforms.
Tourism Australia has a strong digital media strategy to inspire consumers to holiday in Australia. It manages the largest destination page in the world on Facebook – with more than 5.8 million fans globally, of which over 460,000 fans are from India. In sync with the digital media focus, Tourism Australia has partnered with leading online travel portal, MakeMyTrip.com, to launch an engaging, online contest ‘Who Deserves a Break in Oz’, involving two of the largest social media platforms in the world – LinkedIn and Facebook.
The contest provides an opportunity for users to reward members in their network by nominating them for a week-long holiday in Australia. Two participants who secure the maximum number of nominations stand a chance to win the grand prize. In addition, all participants who nominate a minimum of three mates, also win guaranteed discount voucher worth Rs 10,000 from MakeMyTrip.
Participants will be required to nominate contacts from their network and select a desired uniquely Aussie experience for each of them. The exclusive ‘Best of Australia’ experiences on offer for participants to choose for their nominees include enjoying a private island picnic at the Great Barrier Reef, cruising along the scenic Great Ocean Road on a self-drive journey, taking a climb of their life by participating in the Sydney BridgeClimb or treating their taste buds to a food and drink indulgence at Kangaroo Island.
Australia has been witnessing a consistent increase in visitor arrivals from India. There were 17,000 visitors from India during April 2014, bringing the total for the four months to April to 60,800, an increase of 13.6 per cent relative to the same period previous year. The Tourism Forecasting Committee (Forecast 2013 Issue 2), estimates arrivals from India to Australia to be 179,000 for the year 2013-14. Arrivals from India are expected to perform well, with an average annual financial year growth rate of 7.2 per cent through to the financial year 2020-21.
