Australian visitors being teased by touring ‘test’ team offering travel temptations to try Britain

AUSTRALIAN VISITORS are squarely in the sights of a VisitBritain travelling tourism ‘test’ team this week, visiting Australian cities to entice local travel companies to ‘do their customers a favour’ and ticket them to the UK.

Making the point are travel and tourism business leaders from across Britain, keen to let the Australian outbound tourism market know a lot more about the latest travel products and experiences on offer. And there is plenty in the kit bag to tempt the Australian outbound travel and tourism sector to tour ‘the home of cricket’ – and more.

This roaming caravan is timely, given the cost of air travel now normalising and the raft of new attractions and experiences designed to tempt returning UK visitors just as avidly as those embarking for the first time.

This is the first VisitBritain trade mission to tour Australia since 2016 and they have brought out the big hitters. The team is being led by VisitBritain chairman Nick de Bois CBE, who is joined by an accomplished team of UK-inbound travel and tourism professionals. 

The best of destination Britain is on show in Australia for VisitBritain’s five-day Australian trade mission, taking place from September 9-13. The travel trade mission team is visiting Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane to do business with leading ‘buyers’ from Australia.

“I am delighted to be leading VisitBritain’s first trade mission to Australia in nearly a decade, a timely and valuable opportunity to harness the strong growth we’re seeing from this incredibly important inbound visitor market, forecast to be worth a record £1.7 billion to our economy this year,” Mr de Bois said.

“This mission marks a major milestone for us to reconnect with the travel trade across Australia. Building product knowledge also broadens itineraries so visitors explore more of our nations and regions, with that spending going into local economies.

“The friendship and connections between our countries already run deep. The size of our delegation shows the enthusiasm from British tourism suppliers to do business with Australia and to hear first-hand from buyers on the motivations and trends driving outbound travel.” 

The British ‘tourism test team’ suppliers include hotels, visitor attractions, destination management companies, retailers, tour and sightseeing operators spanning the length-and-breadth of the nations and regions. 

During the VisitBritain trade mission, delegates will also have the chance to connect with top travel advisors from Australia’s retail sector during networking events and dedicated agent training sessions, converting the demand for Britain into bookings.

VisitBritain will also be updating delegates on its upcoming multi-million pound ‘Starring GREAT Britain’ campaign, rolling out across its major inbound markets from early 2025, including in Australia.

That campaign will be harnessing the powerful draw of screen tourism to inspire more visitors to choose Britain, discover more and stay longer, driving visitor spending into local destinations. 

Latest research by VisitBritain showed 86 percent of Australians who are keen to visit the UK are interested in visiting film and TV locations during their trip. 

VisitBritain’s latest estimates show Australians are forecast to spend a record £1.7 billion on their trips across the UK this year. The number of Australian visits to the UK has also been reaching historic highs.

There were a record 1.2 million visits from Australia to the UK in 2023, up 10 percent on 2019, according to International Passenger Survey data.

www.visitbriatain.com

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