Tourism Australia’s G’day Australia event – both a workshop and a famil program – sees 300 travel agents travel from around the world to experience Australia firsthand, with the event kicking off last night at a welcome event at Perth Zoo. Half of the group have never been to Australia before.
The agents attending from 21 visitor markets around the world have already completed an online Aussie Specialists education program and will meet with more than 130 Australian tourism operators while they’re in Australia.
“We know from when we have held this event in the past, that 100 per cent of the agents have walked away saying they intend to sell more of Australia as a result of attending and they also drive longer stays that disperse travellers around the country,” said Tourism Australia’s managing director, Phillipa Harrison.
“Importantly the agents who have been to G’day Australia are able to encourage customers planning to go to other destinations to choose Australia instead which is vital as we get our visitor economy back on a path of sustainable growth.”
Agents will also visit Broome and Margaret River in WA as well as travelling to other destinations around Australia while they are here. It’s estimated that the agents attending G’day Australia will sell an additional $30 million worth of holidays to Australia over the next year as a result of attending the event.
G’day Australia comes as the Australian Bureau of Statistics releases the latest international arrival and departure figures, which showed short term international arrivals for August 2024 were up 9.2 per cent on a year earlier.
New South Wales received the largest slice of the arrivals, with Queensland in second place.
However short term resident departures – that is Australians leaving to travel overseas – increased more than visitor arrivals, by 9.5 per cent on a year ago. Australian departures remain around 290,000 people more than those travelling to Australia from overseas, with the gap growing.
